"Catch that Rabbit" is a science fiction

Science fiction

Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...

 short story

Short story

A short story is a work of fiction that is usually written in prose, often in narrative format. This format tends to be more pointed than longer works of fiction, such as novellas and novels. Short story definitions based on length differ somewhat, even among professional writers, in part because...

 by Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov

Isaac Asimov was an American author and professor of biochemistry at Boston University, best known for his works of science fiction and for his popular science books. Asimov was one of the most prolific writers of all time, having written or edited more than 500 books and an estimated 90,000...

 that was first published in the February 1944 issue of Astounding Science Fiction and reprinted in the collections I, Robot

I, Robot

I, Robot is a collection of nine science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov, first published by Gnome Press in 1950 in an edition of 5,000 copies. The stories originally appeared in the American magazines Super Science Stories and Astounding Science Fiction between 1940 and 1950. The stories are...

(1950) and The Complete Robot

The Complete Robot

The Complete Robot is a collection of 31 science fiction short stories by Isaac Asimov written between 1939 and 1977. Most of the stories had been previously collected in the books I, Robot and The Rest of the Robots, while four stories had previously been uncollected and the rest had been...

(1982).

Plot summary

The recurring team of Powell and Donovan are in charge of field tests on an asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

 mining station with a robot, DV-5 (Dave). But the robot stops producing ore, and cannot explain why. The robot is a new model with six subsidiary robots under its control (they are described as fingers) via positronic fields, a means of transmission not yet fully understood by roboticists. When they secretly observe the robot, it starts performing strange marches and dances with its subsidiaries whenever something unexpected happens. It is up to the two field testers to figure out why Dave is acting the way he is. This observation-dependent behavior alteration, hindering the resolution of the robots' behavioral bug, makes it an early example of a Heisenbug (software problem). The reason is that the main robot had too many subsidiary robots under his control, and whenever there is a serious need of decisiveness, his brain overloads, so whenever there is a dangerous decision to be made, the pressure increases, and he breaks down. The other robots do not know why they are dancing and when interrogated one mentioned that they received an order but before they could get it the order was replaced by an order to dance. Powell and Donovan spend days watching them on the telescreen, then follow them to find out what the original order was till they realize it doesn't matter when they are trapped in a cave-in when trying to stimulate the dancing from the robots. Why did the robots stop dancing when the humans were watching them? Because when the humans were around, the pressure is lifted somewhat, because the human's presence helps the robot's mind make decisions.
They then destroy one of the subsidiary robots, allowing Dave to no longer be confused, and as he can now hear them, the First Law of Robotics

Three Laws of Robotics

The Three Laws of Robotics are a set of rules devised by the science fiction author Isaac Asimov and later added to. The rules are introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although they were foreshadowed in a few earlier stories...

 takes over ("Through action or inaction, a robot cannot allow a human to come to harm") and he rescues them.

Here, Asimov anthropomorphises

Anthropomorphism

Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...

 by having a robot twiddle its thumbs

Thumb twiddling

Thumb twiddling is an activity that is done with the hands of an individual whereby the fingers are interlocked and the thumbs circle around a common focal point, usually in the middle of the distance between the two thumbs....

 when it finds itself overwhelmed by its job. (Which is to say that one of the characters draws that analogy; how seriously Asimov meant it is unclear.) In many cases, robopsychology

Robopsychology

Robopsychology is the study of the personalities of intelligent machines. The term and the concept were popularised by Isaac Asimov in the short stories collected in I, Robot, which featured robopsychologist Dr...

 - personified by Susan Calvin

Susan Calvin

Dr. Susan Calvin is a fictional character from Isaac Asimov's Robot Series. She was the chief robopsychologist at US Robots and Mechanical Men, Inc., the major manufacturer of robots in the 21st century...

 - runs parallel to human psychology. For instance, at this point in I, Robot, the reader has already seen hysteria

Hysteria

Hysteria, in its colloquial use, describes unmanageable emotional excesses. People who are "hysterical" often lose self-control due to an overwhelming fear that may be caused by multiple events in one's past that involved some sort of severe conflict; the fear can be centered on a body part, or,...

 and religious mania

Mania

Mania, the presence of which is a criterion for certain psychiatric diagnoses, is a state of abnormally elevated or irritable mood, arousal, and/ or energy levels. In a sense, it is the opposite of depression...

.