Is it true that if a man is place into a maze and a rat in a scaled version of the maze; and both the human and the rat have gone round the maze only once before; that the rat with complete the maze first as they have a better mapping memory?

 

How can this be? Does it mean that the rat has a larger mapping part of the brain then a human?

Yes. The rat has a further advantage of being closer to the ground and having a very sensitive sense of smell. As the rat runs the maze, it makes errors. However it has the advantage of being able to smell where it has been before, so never makes the same mistake twice on the first run of a maze. Threfore, rats are faster than people on solving mazes on the first run, and better at 'mapping' the maze than people so it takes fewer attempts to achieve flawless runs.