What concept is demonstrated by the rat successfully navigating a maze?

The concept demonstrated by a rat successfully navigating a maze is cognitive mapping. Cognitive mapping refers to the mental representation that an organism forms of its environment, allowing it to understand and navigate its surroundings. When a rat explores a maze, it learns the layout and develops a mental map of the pathways, obstacles, and exits. This ability to visualize the space enables the rat to retrieve information about the maze later and make strategic decisions on how to reach the goal efficiently.

Cognitive mapping goes beyond direct stimulus-response associations and instead involves higher-order processing, where the rat mentally organizes information about the environment. This ability is crucial for organisms in complex environments, where they need to plan routes and remember spatial relationships between different features in their surroundings.