PROBLEM 3. Behavior in Cojuplex Anijimls 



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Fig. 269 Is driving a tractor 

 a reflex act? What are some 

 of the reflexes that are going 

 on in this hoy? Wl?at stimidi 

 is he receiving that call forth 

 other responses? 



Each act, too, is generally not clean 

 cut like a reflex act, in which receptor, 

 transmitter, and effector can be located 

 and named. In a reflex one can trace 

 stimulus to response. In acts which are 

 not inborn a stimulus may cause one re- 

 sponse in you now, a different one ten 

 minutes later. Hearing your neighbor's 

 radio may serve as a stimulus to turn on 

 your radio. At some other time it may 

 serve as a stimulus to get up and close 

 the window. The response cannot be 

 surely predicted. A response to a stimu- 

 lus may be so long delayed that it is diffi- 

 cult to describe just what the stimulus 

 really was. When you closed your book 

 and picked up a tennis racket, the stimu- 

 lus may have been received hours earlier 

 when you heard the words, "Meet me at 

 four o'clock!" On the other hand, the 

 stimulus may have been recent. Perhaps 

 you read the word "court" in your book, 

 or your eye happened to fall on the 



racket in the corner, or you heard the 

 bounce of a ball or smelled honeysuckle 

 which covers the stopnets on the court. 

 Any one of these stimuli may have 

 changed your behavior, making you close 

 your book and pick up your racket. 

 You may not even have been conscious 

 of the stimulus. 



Learning, The word "learning" may 

 suggest memorizing a lesson. It includes 

 also learning of many facts without for- 

 mal study. You learn the names of your 

 classmates, you learn that a knife cuts, 

 that woolen clothes are warm, how one 

 make of car differs from another, and 

 countless other things of which you are 

 not even aware. This is one kind of 

 learning. 



We shall use the word learning in a 

 much broader sense. In learning we not 

 only store up facts, but we learn to re- 

 spond to new stimuli, we learn to make 

 new responses. All of the large number of 



