PERSEVERANCE REACTIONS IN PRIMATES AND RODENTS 33 



Girl 19, 50 trials, and Gopher 6, 80 trials. All other subjects 

 had 100 trials each, and only the first 100 trials of subjects who 

 had more than a single series are given in table 8. 



2. The heading, First Choice, is the one under which is given 



1234 

 the number of times that each subject entered first each of the 

 four alleys at the beginnings of trials. E.g., the first horizontal 

 group of figures under this heading is meant to show that Girl 1 

 initiated reaction in 17 of her 100 trials by entering alley No. 1; 

 that in 28 of her trials she made first choice of alley No. 2, etc. 



3. Under the heading. Alley Entrances, is shown the number 



I 2 J 4 Total 

 of times that each of the various subjects entered each of the 

 four alleys during his 100 trials. It also shows under the sub- 

 heading, Total, the total number of separate alley-entrances 

 that were made by each of the subjects. E.g., Girl 1, in the 

 course of her 100 trials, entered alley No. 1 49 times, alley No. 2 

 83 times, etc. In her efforts to escape from the apparatus 100 

 times she entered the various alleys a total number of 272 times. 



Possible Determinants 



4. Under the heading, of First Choice is shown the 



R. F. R.-F. 

 number of times that the individual subject's first choices sus- 

 tained the relations of (a) recency, (b) frequency and (c) both 

 recency and frequency to previous trials. If a subject began a 

 trial by first entering the alley that was last entered during the 

 immediately preceding trial one recency reaction was counted for 

 that trial. If the alley first chosen was the one that had been 

 most frequently entered during all of that subject's preceding 

 trials one frequency reaction was recorded. If the alley first 

 chosen sustained both the relation of recency and that of fre- 

 quency to preceding trials one recency-frequency reaction was 

 recorded, and neither a recency nor a frequency reaction was 

 recorded in a case of this kind. 



The records showed that there were a few cases where two or 

 even three of. the four alleys had been entered an equal number 

 of times at the end of a given number of trials, and that each of 

 these two or three alleys might be said to sustain the relation of 

 frequency to previous trials. In such cases first choice of any 

 of these two or three alleys was recorded as a frequency reac- 

 tion for that trial. 



