I am testing novelty preference in mice and most of the protocols analyse a test-phase for 5 entire minutes. Why earlier time points are not analysed like 1 minute or 30 seconds? 5 minutes is a long time to maintain a preference and increases the likelihood of diluting it down with the other arms. Are there publications where they analyse earlier time points?
You can look at our linear Maze with 11 possibilities for errors. The mice could run it in 12 SEC on the fifth day. Max 2 min I suggest for the first trial.
I think you need a long time like 5 minute to really assess preference as the animal is likely to move back and forth between locations, ending up spending less or more time in the novel arm over 5 min. Shorter times say like 30 sec may not provide enough time to determine preference.
Thank you Stephane A Beaudin. What I want to challenge is the "assumption" of the 5 minutes and that time is just a construct for us. What is 5 minutes for us humans can be perceived differently in other animals and behaviours like novelty preference can be affected by it. My real question here is if 5 minutes is just a convention used by humans to measure something not human
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