Experimental Study of Associative Processes 143 



do so even though the hole in the top of the box be uncov- 

 ered, 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 animal life, 

 and the strongest instincts may thus be annulled. The 

 phenomenon has been already recognized in the literature 

 of the subject, a convenient account being found in James 7 

 1 Psychology/ Vol. II, pages 394-397. In addition to such 

 accounts, one may note that the influence of association is 

 exerted in two ways. The instinct may wane by not being 

 used, because the animal forms the habit of meeting the 

 situation in a different way, or it may be actually inhibited. 

 An instance of the former sort is found in the history of 

 a cat which learns to pull a loop and so escape from a box 

 whose top is covered by a board nailed over it. If, after 

 enough trials, you remove a piece of the board covering 

 the box, the cat, when put in, will still pull the loop instead 

 of crawling out through the opening thus made. But, at 

 any time, if she happens to notice the hole, she may make 

 use of it. An instance of the second sort is that of a chick 

 which has been put on a box with a wire screen at its edge, 

 preventing her from jumping directly down, as she would 

 instinctively do, and forcing her to jump to another box on 

 one side of it and thence down. In the experiments which 

 I made, the chick was prevented by a second screen from 

 jumping directly from the second box also. That is, if in 

 the accompanying figure, A is a box 34 inches high, B a box 

 25 inches high, C a box 16 inches high, and D the pen with 

 the food and other chicks, the subject had to go A-B-C- 

 D. The chick tried at first to get through the screen, 

 pecked at it and ran up and down along it, looking at the 

 chicks below and seeking for a hole to get through. Finally 



