THE ASSOCIATIVE PROCESSES IN ANIMALS. 87 



This the dog does, and so on through the list. Mr. Davis 

 makes no signals which any one sitting even right beside or in 

 front of him can detect. Thus the dog exceeds the human 

 observers in delicacy, and associates, each with a separate act, 

 four attitudes of his master which to human observers seem all 

 alike. Mr. Davis says he thinks the dog is a mind-reader. I 

 think it quite possible that whatever signs the dog goes by are 

 given unconsciously, and consist only of some very delicate 

 general differences in facial expression or the manner of saying 

 the words 'Bring it,' or slight sounds made by Mr. Davis in 

 thinking to himself the words one or two or three or four, Mr. 

 Davis keeps his eyes shut and his hands behind a newspaper. 

 The dog looks directly at his face. 



" To such a height possible delicacy may attain, but possible 

 delicacy is quite another thing from actual untrained and un- 

 stimulated delicacy. The difference in reaction has to be 

 brought about by associating with pleasure the reaction to the 

 different sense-impression when it itself differs, and associating 

 with pain tendencies to confuse the reactions.^ The animal 

 does not naturally, as a function of sense powers, discrimi- 

 nate at all delicately. Thus the cat that climbed up the wire 

 netting: when I said, ' I must feed those cats ! ' did not have a 

 delicate association of just that act with just those words. For 

 it would react just as vigorously to the words, 'To-morrow 

 is Tuesday,' or, 'My name is Thorndike.' The reaction 

 naturally was to a very vague stimulus. Taking a cat just 

 beginning to learn to climb up at the signal, ' I must feed 

 those cats ! ' I started in to improve the delicacy by oppos- 

 ins: to this formula the formula, ' I will not feed them,' after 

 saying which, I kept my word. That is, I gave sometimes the 

 former signal and fed the cat, sometimes the latter, and did not. 

 The object was to see how long the cat would be in learning 

 always to go up when I gave the first, never to do so when I 

 gave the second signal. I said the words in both cases as I 

 naturally would do, so that there was a difference in emphasis 

 and tone as well as in the mere nature of the syllables. The 



1 It is interesting to know that Mr. Davis says that fourteen months' time, four 

 hours a day, was expended on Dodgerfield's training. 



