440 STELLA B. VINCENT 



initial errors; (4) the dissociation of the act of turning in a circle 

 from that of standing in front of a particular box." 



A briefer description of this work is found in another article 

 by the same author (31) and he gives a fuller account of the 

 multiple choice method in the paper following (32). In Science 

 (33) he presses a point which others have also advocated, that 

 provision be made for a permanent field laboratory for the 

 study of monkeys and apes. 



Hamilton (11) this year continues his work on the persever- 

 ance (trial and error) reactions in primates and rodents. The 

 apparatus had four doors of exit, only one of which in any trial 

 permitted escape. This open door varied with every trial, but 

 in a regular order. There could be no fixed reaction, no definite 

 path to learn, in such a situation and Hamilton's interest lay 

 in an attempt to analyze the varying responses. He found six 

 general types of reactions which we have not space to enumerate, 

 but he says that the different responses were less a species than 

 an individual characteristic. The chief directive agencies are 

 thought to be the spatial relations together with the pull which 

 the recency and frequency of the activities in certain avenues 

 exerted. In regard to recency and frequency the author main- 

 tains that, ' ' These studies suggest a possibilit}* which they by 

 no means prove, that with descent of the phyletic scale the 

 factor of recency increases in importance as a determinant of 

 habit formation, whilst that of frequency relatively decreases." 



The behavior of a group of monkeys involving the acquisi- 

 tion and control of some very awkward movements and unusual 

 positions in getting food are described by Kempf (14). Another 

 paper by the same author may be mentioned by title (15). 

 And lastly among the many monkey studies appearing during 

 the year is one by Furness (9) who reports upon his efforts to 

 teach monkeys and apes to speak. Two other mammalian 

 studies have been published: one by Meyers (17) on the impor- 

 tance of primacy in the learning of a pig, the other by Burtt 

 (3) giving the results of his use of the multiple choice method 

 with four rats. 



Fish. — Maze problems have been used with fish before, but 

 Churchill (4) contributes an account of his work with gold 

 fish in a learning problem with a very simple maze. 



