ヒトを対象にした迷路課題の難易度を定量的に決定するパラメータの検討

抄録

Several studies have reported on maze tasks for humans. From the results of these maze tasks, human brain function has been elucidated. However, few studies have verified the level of difficulty of maze tasks. Therefore, the validity of these studies is questionable. The purpose of this study was to investigate factors influencing the level of difficulty of maze task for humans. We conducted an experiment in which subjects search for a goal in mazes generated on a computer. Subjects explore the mazes on two different days. In making the mazes, we set the number of steps required to reach the goal position and the number of T-junctions from the start position to the goal position. We called such mazes “continuous-T mazes.” When a subject reached the goal position three consecutive times without extra steps, the subject moved on to the next maze. The number of trials before moving on to the next maze was recorded as the score. We established new parameters;“maze cost” and “weighted maze cost,” to estimate the level of difficulty of mazes, and compared the score with these parameters. The score correlated with both the “maze cost” and the “number of T-junctions from the start position to the goal position.” These results suggest that both parameters indicate factors influencing the difficulty of mazes.