A STUDY OF THE BEHAVIOR OF THE PIG SUS 

 SCROFA BY THE MULTIPLE CHOICE 



METHOD 



ROBERT M. YERKES AND CHARLES A. COBURN 



The Harvard Psychological Laboratory and the Franklin Field-Station 



INTRODUCTION 



The multiple choice method of studying ideational and allied 

 forms of behavior was first briefly described in a lecture on the 

 study of human behavior delivered at Cold Spring Harbor in 

 1913. x It has recently been more fully described in a paper 

 which presents the results of its application in the study of the 

 crow. 2 We shall, in the present report, assume knowledge of 

 the previous descriptions and state only the essential features of 

 the method and its adaptation to the organism observed. 



It was devised in the Psychopathic Hospital, Boston, as a 

 means of obtaining comparable records of the ideational behavior 

 of mentally deficient and deranged individuals. But it was also 

 hoped that it might prove widely serviceable as a comparative 

 method for the study of various types of organism. 



In many of its essential features, the Yerkes multiple choice 

 method is similar to the Hamilton quadruple choice method, 3 

 but whereas in the latter four reaction-mechanisms are employed 

 and only problems which, strictly speaking, are insoluble are 

 presented to the subject, the present method involves the use 

 of a variable number of reaction-mechanisms and the presenta- 

 tion of soluble problems of a wide range of dimcultness. 



The experimenter seeks, in using the multiple choice method, 

 to present to his subject, no matter what its type, age, or condi- 

 tion, a problem which may be solved by the perception of a 



Yerkes, Robert M. The study of human behavior. Science, 1914, 39, pp. 

 625-633. 



2 Coburn, Charles A. and Yerkes, Robert M. A study of the behavior of the 

 crow Corvus Americanus Aud. by the multiple choice method. Journal of Animal 

 Behavior, 1915, 5, pp. 75-114. 



3 Hamilton, G. V. A study of trial and error reactions in mammals. Journal 

 of Animal Behavior, 1911, 1, pp. 33-66. 



185 



