A STUDY OF THE BEHAVIOR OF THE PIG 223 



mechanisms used in the settings. Settings 1, 4, 7 and 10 involve 

 three members, setting 2, 5 and 8, five members; settings 3 

 and 9, seven members; and setting 6, nine members. Below 

 are presented the number of correct first choices made by each 

 individual in connection with each setting, the total number of 

 choices being sixty. 



Correct First Choices in Sixty for Each Setting in Problem 4 



These figures prove that to select the middle member of a 

 group of three is fairly easy for the pig. This, to be sure, might 

 be gathered from the fact that the animal can solve the problem 

 of the second from the left. It further appears that attempts 

 to locate the proper box when it was the middle of a series of 

 five resulted in a gradual reduction in the number of incorrect 

 choices, but never yielded success. The selection of the middle 

 member of a group of seven or of nine is clearly still more diffi- 

 cult, and there is no reason to suppose that with less than thou- 

 sands of trials the subjects in question would have learned to 

 enter it directly. 



It is practically certain that the series of settings rather than 

 the number of members in a group is responsible for the animal's 

 confusion. Doubtless by training a pig to react correctly to 

 each setting and by then presenting the several settings in a 

 certain definite order, a habit could be built up which would 

 apparently yield a perfect solution of problem 4. It is, however, 

 needless to point out that this would not be the kind of solution 

 that has been obtained for problems 1, 2 and 3, or in other words, 

 would not be dependent upon response to the general relation 

 middleness. 



Analysis of the records for the sixty trials under setting 6 are 

 of special interest, since this setting proved the most baffling 

 of all to the subjects. 



To begin with, they naturally tried the end members of the 

 series. This proving unsatisfactory, they next tended to choose 

 rather at random, and then there gradually appeared a tendency 

 to enter, first, box 2 and to proceed thence either directly or 



