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CHAPTER I The Study of Consciousness and the Study of Behavior
CHAPTER I The Study of Consciousness and the Study of Behavior
The statements about human nature made by psychologists are of two sorts,—statements about consciousness , about the inner life of thought and feeling, the ‘self as conscious,’ the ‘stream of thought’; and statements about behavior , about the life of man that is left unexplained by physics, chemistry, anatomy and physiology, and is roughly compassed for common sense by the terms ‘intellect’ and ‘character.’ Animal psychology shows the same double content. Some statements concern the conscious s
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Description of Apparatus
Description of Apparatus
Fig. 1. The shape and general apparatus of the boxes which were used for the cats is shown by the accompanying drawing of box K. Unless special figures are given, it should be understood that each box is approximately 20 inches long, by 15 broad, by 12 high. Except where mention is made to the contrary, the door was pulled open by a weight attached to a string which ran over a pulley and was fastened to the door, just as soon as the animal loosened the bolt or bar which held it. Especial care wa
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Experiments with Cats
Experiments with Cats
In these various boxes were put cats from among the following. I give approximately their ages while under experiment. The behavior of all but 11 and 13 was practically the same. When put into the box the cat would show evident signs of discomfort and of an impulse to escape from confinement. It tries to squeeze through any opening; it claws and bites at the bars or wire; it thrusts its paws out through any opening and claws at everything it reaches; it continues its efforts when it strikes anyt
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Experiments with Dogs
Experiments with Dogs
The boxes used were as follows: AA was similar to A (O at front), except that the loop was of stiff cord ⅜ inch in diameter and was larger (3½ inches diameter); also it was hung a foot from the floor and 8 inches to the right of the door. The box itself was 41 × 20 × 23. BB was similar to B, the loop being the same as in AA, and being hung a foot from the floor. The box was of the same size and shape as AA. BB1 was like BB, but the loop was hung 18 inches from the floor. CC was similar to C (but
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Experiments with Chicks
Experiments with Chicks
The apparatus was as follows: Fig. 15. Fig. 16. Fig. 17. P was simply a small pen arranged with two exits, one leading to the inclosure where were the other chicks and food, one leading to another pen with no exit. The drawing ( Fig. 15 on this page) explains itself. A chick was placed at A and left to find its way out. The walls were made of books stuck up on end. Q was a similar pen arranged so that the real exit was harder to find. (See Fig. 16 .) R was still another pen similarly constructed
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Reasoning or Inference
Reasoning or Inference
The first great question is whether or not animals are ever led to do any of their acts by reasoning. Do they ever conclude from inference that a certain act will produce a certain desired result, and so do it? The best opinion has been that they do not. The best interpretation of even the most extraordinary performances of animals has been that they were the result of accident and association or imitation. But it has after all been only opinion and interpretation, and the opposite theory persis
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Imitation
Imitation
To the question, ‘Do animals imitate?’ science has uniformly answered, ‘Yes.’ But so long as the question is left in this general form, no correct answer to it is possible. It will be seen, from the results of numerous experiments soon to be described, that imitation of a certain sort is not possible for animals, and before entering upon that description it will be helpful to differentiate this matter of imitation into several varieties or aspects. The presence of some sorts of imitation does no
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Imitation in Dogs
Imitation in Dogs
Here the method was not to see if imitation could arouse more quickly an act which accident was fairly likely to bring forth sooner or later, but to see if, where accident failed, imitation would succeed. 3 was found to be unable of himself to escape from box BB1, and was then given a chance to learn from watching 1. The back of box BB1 was torn off and wire netting substituted for it. Another box with open front was placed directly behind and against box BB1. No. 3, who was put in this second b
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The Mental Fact in Association
The Mental Fact in Association
It is now time to put the question as to just what is in an animal’s mind when, having profited by numerous experiences, he has formed the association and does the proper act when put in a certain box. The commonly accepted view of the mental fact then present is that the sight of the inside of the box reminds the animal of his previous pleasant experience after escape and of the movements which he made which were immediately followed by and so associated with that escape. It has been taken for
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Association by Similarity and the Formation of Concepts
Association by Similarity and the Formation of Concepts
What there is to say on this subject from the standpoint of my experiments will be best introduced by an account of the experiments themselves. Dog 1 had escaped from AA (O at front) 26 times. He was then put in BB (O at back). Now, whereas 2 and 3, who were put in without previous experience with AA, failed to paw the loop in BB, No. 1 succeeded. His times were 7.00, .35, 2.05, .40, .32, .10, 1.10, .38, .10, .05, and from then on he pawed the loop as soon as put in the box. After a day or so he
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Criticism of Previous Theories
Criticism of Previous Theories
We may now look for a moment at what previous writers have said about the nature of association in animals. The complaint was made early in this book that all the statements had been exceedingly vague and of no value, except as retorts to the ‘reason’ school. In the course of the discussion I have tried to extricate from this vagueness definite statements about imitation, association of ideas, association by ideas. There is one more theory, more or less hidden in the vagueness,—the theory that a
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Delicacy of Associations
Delicacy of Associations
It goes without saying that the possible delicacy of associations is conditioned by the delicacy of sense-powers. If an animal doesn’t feel differently at seeing two objects, it cannot associate one with one reaction, the other with another. An equally obvious factor is attention; what is not attended to will not be associated. Beyond this there is no a priori reason why an animal should not react differently to things varying only by the most delicate difference, and I am inclined to think an a
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Complexity of Associations
Complexity of Associations
An important question, especially if one wishes to rate an animal on a scale of intelligence, is the question of how complex an association it can form. A man can learn that to open a door he has to put the key in its hole, turn it, turn the knob, and pull the door. Here, then, is a complex act connected with the simple sense-impression. Or, conversely, a man knows that when the ringing of a bell is followed by a whistle and that by a red light he is to do a certain thing, while if any of the th
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Number of Associations
Number of Associations
The patent and important fact is that there are so few in animals compared to the human stock. Even after taking into account the various acts associated with various smells, and exaggerating the possibility of getting an equipment of associations in this field which man lacks, one must recognize how far below man any animal is in respect to mere quantity of associations. The associations with words alone of an average American child of ten years far outnumber those of any dog. A good billiard p
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Permanence of Associations
Permanence of Associations
Once formed, the connections by which, when an animal feels a certain sense-impression, he does a certain thing, persist over considerable intervals of time. With the curves on pages 39 to 58 and 60 to 65 are given in many instances [17] additional curves showing the animal’s proficiency after an interval without experience. To these data may be added the following:— The three chicks that had learned to escape through the long labyrinth (involving twenty-three associations) succeeded in repeatin
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Inhibition of Instincts by Habit
Inhibition of Instincts by Habit
One very important result of association remains to be considered, its inhibition of instincts and previous associations. An animal who has become habituated to getting out of a box by pulling a loop and opening the door will do so even though the hole in the top of the box be uncovered, whereas, if, in early trials, you had left any such hole, he would have taken the instinctive way and crawled through it. Instances of this sort of thing are well-nigh ubiquitous. It is a tremendous factor in an
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Attention
Attention
I have presupposed throughout one function which it will be well to now recognize explicitly, attention. As usual, attention emphasizes and facilitates the process which it accompanies. Unless the sense-impression is focussed by attention, it will not be associated with the act which comes later. Unless two differing boxes are attended to, there will be no difference in the reactions to them. The really effective part of animal consciousness, then, as of human, is the part which is attended to;
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Social Consciousness
Social Consciousness
Besides attention there is another topic somewhat apart from our general one, which yet deserves a few words. It concerns animals’ social consciousness, their consciousness of the feelings of their fellows. Do animals, for example, when they see others feeding, feel that the others are feeling pleasure? Do they, when they fight, feel that the other feels pain? So level-headed a thinker as Lloyd Morgan has said that they do, but the conduct of my animals would seem to show that they did not. For
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Interaction
Interaction
I hope it will not be thought impertinent if from the standpoint of this research I add a word about a general psychological problem, the problem of interaction. I have spoken all along of the connection between the situation and a certain impulse and act being stamped in when pleasure results from the act and stamped out when it doesn’t. In this fact, which is undeniable, lies a problem which Lloyd Morgan has frequently emphasized. How are pleasurable results able to burn in and render predomin
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Conclusion
Conclusion
I do not think it is advisable here, at the close of this paper, to give a summary of its results. The paper itself is really only such a summary with the most important evidence, for the extent of territory covered and the need of brevity have prevented completeness in explanation or illustration. If the reader cares here, at the end, to have the broadest possible statement of our conclusions and will take the pains to supply the right meaning, we might say that our work has described a method,
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I
I
I should attach no importance whatever to the quantitative estimate given in the table. The only fact of value so far is the evidence that from the first the chick reacts to all colors. In no case was there any random pecking at the white surface of the cardboard. On a black background the same chicks reacted to all the colors. II is a table of the results....
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II
II
In other experiments chicks were tried with green spots on a red ground, red spots on a green ground, yellow spots on an orange ground, green spots on a blue ground, and black spots on a white ground. All were reacted to. Thus, what is apparently a long and arduous task to the child is heredity’s gift to the chick. It is conceivable, though to me incredible, that what the chick reacts to is not the color, but the very minute elevation of the spot. My spots were made so that they were only the th
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Instinctive Reactions to Distance, Direction, Size, etc.
Instinctive Reactions to Distance, Direction, Size, etc.
I have purposely chosen this awkward heading rather than the simple one, Space-Perception, because I do not wish to imply that there is in the young chick such consciousness of space-facts as there is in human beings. All that will be shown here is that he reacts appropriately in the presence of space-facts, reacts in a fashion which would in the case of a man go with genuine perception of space. If one puts a chick on top of a box in sight of his fellows below, the chick will regulate his condu
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Instinctive Muscular Coördinations
Instinctive Muscular Coördinations
In the acts already described we see fitting coördinations at work in the chick’s reactions to space-facts. A few more samples may be given. In jumping down from heights the chick does not walk off or fall off (save rarely), but jumps off. He meets the situation “loneliness on a small eminence” by walking around the edge and peering down; he meets the situation “sight of fellow chicks below” by (after an amount of hesitation varying roughly with the height) jumping off, holding his stubby wings
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Instinctive Emotional Reactions
Instinctive Emotional Reactions
The only experiments to which I wish to refer at length under this heading are some concerning the chick’s instinctive fears. Before describing them, it may be well to mention their general bearing on the results obtained by Spalding and Morgan. They corroborate Morgan’s decision that no well-defined specific fears are present; that the fears of young chicks are of strange moving objects in general, shock in general, strange sounds in general. On the other hand, no such general disturbances of t
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CHAPTER IV A Note on the Psychology of Fishes[21]
CHAPTER IV A Note on the Psychology of Fishes[21]
Numerous facts witness in a vague way to the ability of fishes to profit by experience and fit their behavior to situations unprovided for by their innate nervous equipment. All the phenomena shown by fishes as a result of taming are, of course, of this sort. But such facts have not been exact enough to make clear the mental or nervous processes involved in such behavior, or simple enough to be available as demonstrations of such processes. It seemed desirable to obtain evidence which should dem
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Introduction
Introduction
The work to be described in this paper is a direct continuation of the work done by the author in 1897-1898 and described in Monograph Supplement No. 8 of the Psychological Review under the heading, ‘Animal Intelligence; an Experimental Study of the Associative Processes in Animals.’ [23] This monograph affords by far the best introduction to the present discussion, and I shall therefore assume an acquaintance with it on the part of my readers. It will be remembered that evidence was there given
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Apparatus
Apparatus
The different mechanisms which I used were the following:— Box BB (O at back) was about 20 by 14 by 12 inches with a door in the front which was held by a bolt to which was tied a string. This string ran up the front of the box outside, over a pulley, across the top, and over another pulley down into the box, where it ended in a loop of wire. Box MM (bolt) was the same as BB but with no string and loop attachment to the bolt. Box CC (single bar) was a box of the same size as BB. The door was hel
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Experiments on the Abilities of the Monkeys to Learn Without Tuition
Experiments on the Abilities of the Monkeys to Learn Without Tuition
I will describe a few of the experiments with No. 1 as samples and then present the rest in the form of a table. No. 1 was tried first in BB (O at back) on January 17, 1900, being put inside . He opened the box by pulling up the string just above the bolt. His times were .05, 1.38, 6.00, 1.00, .10, .05, .05. He was not easily handled at this time, so I changed the experiment to the form adopted in future experiments. I put the food inside and left the animal to open the door from the outside. He
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Experiments on the Influence of Tuition
Experiments on the Influence of Tuition
The general aim of these experiments was to ascertain whether the monkeys’ actions were at all determined by the presence of free ideas and if so, to what extent. The question is, “Are the associations which experience leads them to form, associations between (1) the idea of an object and (2) the idea of an act or result and (3) the impulses and act itself, or are they merely associations between the sense-impression of the object and the impulse and act?” Can a monkey learn and does he commonly
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General Mental Development of the Monkeys
General Mental Development of the Monkeys
It is to be hoped that the growing recognition of the worth of comparative and genetic studies will lead to investigations of the mental make-up of other species of monkeys, and to the careful overhauling of the work done so far, including these rather fragmentary studies of mine. Work with three monkeys of one species, especially when no general body of phenomena, such as one has at hand in the case of domestic animals, can be used as a means of comparison, must necessarily be of limited applic
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Laws of Behavior in General
Laws of Behavior in General
Behavior is predictable. The first law of behavior, one fraction of the general law of the uniformity of nature, is that with life and mind, as with mass and motion, the same cause will produce the same effect,—that the same situation will, in the same animal, produce the same response ,—and that if the same situation produces on two occasions two different responses, the animal must have changed . Scientific students of behavior will, with few exceptions, accept this law in theory, but in pract
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Provisional Laws of Acquired Behavior or Learning
Provisional Laws of Acquired Behavior or Learning
The Law of Effect is that: Of several responses made to the same situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more firmly connected with the situation, so that, when it recurs, they will be more likely to recur; those which are accompanied or closely followed by discomfort to the animal will, other things being equal, have their connections with that situation weakened, so that, when it recurs, they will be less likel
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The Adequacy of the Laws of Exercise and Effect
The Adequacy of the Laws of Exercise and Effect
Behavior has been supposed to be modified in accordance with three other principles or laws besides the law of exercise and the law of effect. Imitation is often used as a name for the supposed law that the perception of a certain response to a situation by another animal tends in and of itself to connect that response to that situation. Common acceptance has been given to more or less of the law that the idea of an act, or of the result of an act, or of the immediate or remote sensations produc
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Simplifications of the Laws of Exercise and Effect
Simplifications of the Laws of Exercise and Effect
There has been one notable attempt to explain the facts of learning by an even simpler theory than that represented in the laws of exercise and effect. Jennings has formulated as an adequate account of learning the law that: “When a certain physiological state has been resolved, through the continued action of an external agent, or otherwise, into a second physiological state, this resolution becomes easier, so that in course of time it takes place quickly and spontaneously” (‘Behavior of the Lo
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The Evolution of Behavior
The Evolution of Behavior
The acceptance of the laws of exercise and effect as adequate accounts of learning would make notable differences in the treatment of all problems that concern learning. I shall take, to illustrate this, the problem of the development of intellect and character in the animal series, the phylogenesis of intellectual and moral behavior. The difficulties in the way of understanding the evolution of intellectual and moral behavior have been that neither what had been evolved nor that from which it h
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CHAPTER VII The Evolution of the Human Intellect[46]
CHAPTER VII The Evolution of the Human Intellect[46]
To the intelligent man with an interest in human nature it must often appear strange that so much of the energy of the scientific world has been spent on the study of the body and so little on the study of the mind. ‘The greatest thing in man is mind,’ he might say, ‘yet the least studied.’ Especially remarkable seems the rarity of efforts to trace the evolution of the human intellect from that of the lower animals. Since Darwin’s discovery, the beasts of the field, the fowl of the air and the f
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