Some guys actually trained rats to play VR Doom, for science

It seems that the doom fans have enough of the gag playing doom on unusual devices. Now it's time to bring the doom experience to all the wonderful creatures of the earth, starting with the adorable rat.

Here's how it worked: the rat is placed in a harness, suspended at the top of a polystyrene ball. This bullet is followed by motion sensors, that the computer displays as movement in the game. And when the rat succeeded in finishing the desired exercise, he received a sweet treat. All automatically, of course — we do not want to interfere with the rat workout.

Initially, the test required the rat to walk to the end of a corridor. Simple enough to solve, the power mechanism was in any case in front of the rat. The real problem came to teach them to pull on demons. A cabling movement was the trigger of this, detected through the harness — although for the first meetings, the harness automatically lifted the back of the rat just so that they learn the movements.

Much of this process has been recorded for your pleasure. It is rudimentary so far, but the rats show real progress. Although this raises an important issue: do not the rats do make the movement or are they really playing Doom? An article written by the officials explains their reflections, and according to them, they have rather successful. Although the results have been promising, the rats have not learned enough of Doom before a personal deadline is fixed.

With hindsight, The article reads, I would prefer by far implement a response method already tested to train shooting, like a nose sting system, rather than the gear that grows buttons. Although the mechanisms to train the left-right turns were present, I did not have time to drive the movements with turns included.