The rat, rabbit and cat in the hebb-williams closed field test of animal intelligence

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Abstract
Eight rats, ten rabbits and eight cats were tested in a form of the Hebb‐Williams Closed Field Test. Two scoring methods, “error score” and “excess square entry score,” were employed. Results were considered in terms of overall performance, difficulty order of test problems, and problems open to direct visual solution compared with those that were not. Results were compared with those of other workers. Cats performed significantly more efficiently than rats or rabbits, their level of performance differing substantially from that found by other workers. Differences in the order of difficulty of problems between species showed substantial agreement with that found by Pollard for rats and cats. The test does not provide the homogeneous set of problems envisaged by Hebb & Williams and caution should be exercised in using it as a measure of animal intelligence, especially for cross‐species comparisons.

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