Considerations on the Problem of Learning 151 



different interpretation. When the cat advances 

 into alley A, gets a blow from behind and gives the 

 avoiding reaction, she naturally comes to associate 

 this avoiding reaction with the sight of that particu- 

 lar alley. This on a subsequent occasion would 

 cause the cat to give the avoiding reaction upon the 

 sight of A, and consequently prevent her from en- 

 tering the scene of her former mishap. When the 

 cat enters alley B, is given a piece of meat, and hit 

 gently from in front and driven back, she is forced, 

 it is true, to make, in one sense, an incongruous re- 

 sponse, although she is not prevented thereby from 

 entering B a second time. Thorndike does not con- 

 sider the essential element of the situation accord- 

 ing to the theory criticized as well as according to 

 his own view, namely, the reaction to the meat. 

 Without this, the act of driving the cat out of the 

 alley would probably have inhibited her further en- 

 trance. The association formed between entering 

 the alley and eating the meat makes the entrance 

 to the alley, as it were, a part of the meat-eating 

 reaction, and the first response is repeated through 

 having been coupled with the discharge of this 

 strong instinctive propensity. 



Those acts which elicit an animal's natural in- 

 stinctive reactions are particularly prone to become 

 associated with the latter, owing to the greater dis- 

 charge of nervous energy which these instinctive re- 

 actions involve. The acts which are stamped in are 

 those which are consistent with the performance of 



