Each animal in a group should be given an identifying mark or number. A number scheme is necessary for rats because they are not as different as a typical mother cat's kittens. The observations made during the study would fill 17 such tables, for a total of 5,712 records. Now we have the problem of processing these records into meaningful evidence. In Figure 4, the latency data from Figure 3 has been transformed to speed data by taking the reciprocal of each latency.
Experimenters sometimes carry out transformations on their data to normalize the scale.
Summarizing data as it is collected allows us to carry out statistical calculations with less effort at the completion of the research. A graph can provide a visual image of a pattern or trend Finally, after a study is completed, we can graph the data to get an overall view of the results. A typical line graph of the acquisition results from the animal study might appear as in Figure 5. Notice that for all groups the response becomes faster over days of acquisition training. These are learning curves.