Prior to conducting this experiment we hypothesized that the black tape group of planarians would be less likely than the white tape group of planarians to go towards arm three. The data found in our experiment proves our hypothesis correct. Black planarians were less likely to go to arm three most likely because they could associate the black color with a shock. We know that the black tape did not affect their decision directly because they were equally likely to go towards arm three in the first four runs of the experiment as the white planarians. The black planarians were less likely to go to arm three than the white planarians during runs five through twenty because it is believed that they learned that if the went towards the black tape they would receive a shock. We concluded that the planarians are able to associate the black tape with an electrical shock. The black planarians learned that if they went towards the black tape they would receive a shock. The white planarians could not see the white tape against the white Train-A-Tray and therefore, it is assumed they could not associate the tape with the shock.

    Some of the problems we encountered during this experiment included unexpected death of planarians, unexpected results that screwed up the averages, lack of a voltmeter (used for calculating voltage), and the inconsistent precision of our breadboard. We learned well into in our experiment that planarians only live for three weeks and then start to disintegrate and disappear. We had not finished gathering all of our data before the planarians began disintegrating, therefore we had to find more planarian on which to continue gathering data. One of the planarians kept going back to arm three after we shocked it repeatedly. We were unsure why it kept going back to arm three, yet we concluded that there may not have been a complete circuit between the Train-A-Tray and the breadboard. We initially tried using fifteen volts of electricity on an extra planarian, but the high voltage disabled it, so we decided to lower the voltage to nine volts. Our last problem was the precision of our electronic breadboard (voltage regulator).

    If we had to repeat the experiment, we would have made some changes to make our project run more smoothly. The first change we would make would be to extend the length of the project and record more data. The time that we were given was not enough to thoroughly compile a large amount of data, although we did have enough data upon which to draw and backup our conclusion. Another change we would make is to test a larger number of planarians and allow each planarian to take more runs in the T-maze. The third change we would recommend is to test the planarians in a more concentrated time period so we could get accurate results before the planarians began to disintegrate.

    Further studies that we suggest include other additional laboratories performing the same experiment with a larger volume of planarians. They could also attempt to determine how planarians make decisions. Even repeating our experiment with these recommendation and changes taken into account would be a good study because it would provide further evidence to be considered and compared to our conclusions and results.