French photographer Augustin Lignier toed the line between behavioral science and metaphorical artistry for his 2021 graduate studies project as a student in ECAL, a university in Switzerland, by "hooking up" two rats to the dopaminergic traps of the modern "selfie," CNN reports.
A Modern Iteration to the Famed BF Skinner Experiment
During Lignier's time in ECAL, he started to contemplate the relationship that people have with the urge to document and publicize every waking moment of the human experience. He pondered why many of us feel a deep pull when it comes to sharing images online.
It may not have been an original thought, but the ideas brought him to a peculiar situation: building, what is essentially, a photo booth for rodents.
The inspiration was undoubtedly BF Skinner, an American behaviorist famous for his experiments on rats surrounding the phenomena of positive reinforcement, and particularly his device called "The Skinner Box."
This box was designed to dispense food after the test subjects pulled a lever and is Skinner's straightforward way to prove positive reinforcement, becoming one of the most popular psychological experiments of all time.
Through this, scientists have discovered that rats learn better with rewards as an incentive, as opposed to punishment. Thus, running with this idea, Lignier himself iterated on his version of a "Skinner Box."
Lignier's contraption comprised a high-standing transparent tower that housed the two store-bought rats inside, alongside a camera and "Skinner-inspired" setup that exchanged the lever with a button that acted as the shutter.
Every time one of the rats presses the button, a small pinch of sugar gets dispensed and the camera takes a photo, which is then displayed on a monitor for the rats to gaze at. Admittedly, Lignier told the New York Times that he doubts the rats understood the pictures.
'Rat Selfies,' An Allegory for Social Media
After learning how the mechanism worked, as well as a rat could anyway, the rodents quickly became accustomed to the "influencer" lifestyle and hurriedly pushed the button as much as they could.
The two rats, whom Lignier named Augustin and Arthur after himself and his brother, continued exhibiting expected behaviors within the experiment even after the rewards got more unpredictable for the rats after the initial phase.
This kind of intermittent reward system, where the sugar is dispensed unreliably, has been believed to be a powerful design in terms of reinforcement, as previous scientists have found.
In Lignier's experiment, this is especially true as well, with both Augustin and Arthur pressing restlessly even after the sugar was distributed.
For the Paris-based photographer, the parallels are apparent. He said that many "digital and social media companies" employ the same strategy when it comes to their platforms, which explains why it is as addicting to us as Lignier's setup was to the rats.
A recent 2021 study has even explicitly described social media as "a 'Skinner Box' for the modern human," dishing out that sweet, sweet dopamine as we "doom scroll" endlessly.
In the end, it's too grim of a concept to deeply mull over but at least we got some cute "Rat Selfies" to admire out of it.
