TWO METHODS OF SUBJECTIVE LEARNING IN 

 THE MONKEY MACACUS RHESUS 



EDWARD J. KEMPF, M. D. 



Clinical Psychiatrist to the Government Hospital for the Insane, 

 Washington, D. C. 



The studies of the learning processes of monkeys have led 

 to some disagreement as to whether or not monkeys learn by 

 the imitation method or through perseverance of trial and error 

 or by both methods. The researches of Kinnaman, Shepard, 

 Watson, Thorndike, and Haggerty show that the monkey learns 

 principally by the perseverance method, but also, if the prob- 

 lem with which he is confronted is not too complex and con- 

 tains only such elements or steps to be associated together for 

 success as he has already mastered, by imitation. 



A review of the researches of tjhe above observers shows that 

 practically all the studies of the monkey's learning processes 

 have been through the problem method, requiring the monkey 

 to manipulate in a certain manner or sequence objects of a general 

 type for which all monkeys have a great natural fondness and 

 interest. 



One factor that has made some of the studies of learning not 

 altogether convincing has been the unnaturalness of some of the 

 movements required of the ape and other animals to solve the 

 problem or to imitate another animal's movements. The animal 

 often simply does not have the reactions or reflex systems in 

 its repertory and lacks neurologically the capacity to acquire 

 the necessary movements or associations of movements, or asso- 

 ciations of sensations and sensory images, to solve the problem. 

 Also the factor of internal, emotional distractibility has been 

 underestimated. The uneasiness of the subject caused by the 

 nearness of the human is so persistent and reflex in type that 

 it always causes more or less distractibility, presenting a pro- 

 portionate degree of incoordination, like the pupil who fears his 

 teacher and cannot learn from him, or the uneasiness produced 

 in a speaker by the mere presence of a crowd. For example: 



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