Experimental Study of Associative Processes 129 



Dodger !' and then, " Bring it." This the dog does and so 

 on through the list. Mr. Davis makes no signals which any- 

 one sitting even right beside or in front of him can detect. 

 Thus the dog exceeds the human observers in delicacy and 

 associates each with a separate act four attitudes of his mas- 

 ter, which to human observers seem all alike. Mr. Davis 

 says he thinks the dog is a mind reader. I think it quite 

 possible that whatever signs the dog goes by are given un- 

 consciously and consist only of some very delicate general 

 differences in facial expression or the manner of saying the 

 words, " Bring it," or slight sounds made by Mr. Davis in 

 thinking to himself the words one or two or three or four. 

 Mr. Davis keeps his eyes shut and his hands behind a news- 

 paper. The dog looks directly at his face. 



To such a height possible delicacy may attain, but possible 

 delicacy is quite another thing from actual untrained and 

 unstimulated delicacy. The difference in reaction has to be 

 brought about by associating with pleasure the reaction 

 to the different sense-impression when it itself differs and 

 associating with pain tendencies to confuse the reactions. 

 The animal does not naturally as a function of sense-powers 

 discriminate at all delicately. Thus the cat who climbed 

 up the wire netting when I said, "I must feed those cats !' : 

 did not have a delicate association of just that act with just 

 those words. For after I had dropped the clapping part 

 of the signal and simply used those words, it would react just 

 as vigorously to the words, "To-morrow is Tuesday' or 

 "My name is Thorndike." The reaction naturally was to 

 a very vague stimulus. Taking cat 10 when just beginning 

 to learn to climb up at the signal, "I must feed those cats !' 

 I started in to improve the delicacy, by opposing to this 

 formula the formula, "I will not feed them," after saying 

 which, I kept my word. That is, I gave sometimes the 



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