Experimental Study of Associative Processes 63 



The scale is the same as that in the curves of the cats and 

 dogs. Besides these simple acts, which any average chick 

 will accidentally hit upon and associate, there are, in the 

 records of my preliminary study of animal intelligence, 

 a multitude of all sorts of associations which some chicks 

 have happened to form. Chicks have escaped from confine- 

 ment by stepping on a little platform in the back of the box, 

 by jumping up and pulling a string like that in D, by peck- 

 ing at a door, by climbing up a spiral staircase and out 

 through a hole in the wall, by doing this and then in ad- 

 dition walking across a ladder for a foot to another wall 

 from which they jump down, etc. Not every chick will 

 happen upon the right way in these cases, but the chicks 

 who did happen upon it all formed the associations perfectly 

 after enough trials. 



The behavior of the chicks shows the same general charac- 

 ter as that of the cats, conditioned, of course, by the different 

 nature of the instinctive impulses. Take a chick put in T 

 (inclined plane) for an example. When taken from the food 

 and other chicks and dropped into the pen he shows evident 

 signs of discomfort ; he runs back and forth, peeping loudly, 

 trying to squeeze through any openings there may be, 

 jumping up to get over the wall, and pecking at the bars 

 or screen, if such separate him from the other chicks. 

 Finally, in his general running around he goes up the inclined 

 plane a way. He may come down again, or he may go on 

 up far enough to see over the top of the wall. If he does, 

 he will probably go running up the rest of the way and jump 

 down. With further trials he gains more and more of an 

 impulse to walk up an inclined plane when he sees it, while 

 the vain running and pecking, etc., are stamped out by the 

 absence of any sequent pleasure. Finally, the chick goes 

 up the plane as soon as put in. In scientific terms this 



