THE DELAYED REACTION IN CATS 91 



shown in Fig. 1. Now, suppose, for example, that the 

 lighted box were the one on the left, c; its exit door would be 

 opened and its light turned on. When the experimenter was 

 sure that the cat had seen the light or heard the sound, the 

 animal was released. A careful, detailed record was kept of 

 the direction in which the animal was oriented at the moment 

 of release and its path to the exit. Any unusually wide turn 

 in the path was always recorded. Hesitation and zig-zag move- 

 ments were especially noted whenever and wherever they ap- 

 peared in the cat's response. In these experiments the cats 

 should go straight to the lighted box, and through its exit door 

 and back to the entrance of the release box where they got food. 

 With the cats on the sound problem, the reactions were the same. 

 With them, however, the " lighted " box was a " sound ' box. 



When the cats were sufficiently trained to choose the stimulus 

 box (lighted or sounded, as the case may be) almost perfectly, 

 delays were begun. The periods of delay were much the same 

 as those used by Hunter. 1 The first delay was to turn the 

 stimulus off just as the animal reached the box. In the second 

 delay, the stimulus was cut off when the animal was half way 

 to the box. In the third delay, the stimulus was stopped just 

 as the animal made its first move in response after the door of 

 the release box was raised. And, in the fourth delay, the stim- 

 ulus was cut off just before the door of the release box was 

 raised. In this fourth stage a genuine delay first enters in. The 

 first three stages of delay were of little or no value as delays. 

 Their primary purpose w r as to bridge over the period of stim- 

 ulus to non-stimulus, to bridge that period between acting in 

 the presence of a stimulus and acting in the absence of a stimu- 

 lus. All that was necessary to make a correct response was, in 

 each case, for the cat to continue in the direction he was going. 

 There was no further choice to be made. The fourth delay, 

 however, was genuine, although of small duration. The stimulus, 

 was cut off before the cats were released. Throughout the re- 

 mainder of the experiments the cats were compelled to react in 

 the absence of the stimulus that until now had been present at 

 the moment of response. 



There was no definite standard adopted by which to promote 



1 Hunter, Walter S. The delayed reaction in animals and children. Behav. 

 Mon., vol. 2, no. 1, 1913. 



