THE EFFECT OF LENGTH OF BLIND ALLEYS ON 



MAZE LEARNING: AN EXPERIMENT ON 



TWENTY-FOUR WHITE RATS 



THE GENERAL PROBLEM 



How jar are pleasurable results able to burn in and render 

 predominant the association which led to themf This is perhaps 

 the greatest problem of both human and animal psycholog}^" 

 vSo wrote Thorndike in 1898. The problem is not yet solved. 

 The problem arises from the fact, clearly pointed out by Thorn- 

 dike, that " the connection thus stamped in is not contemporaneous 

 [with]., but prior to the pleasure. "' " There is no pleasure along 

 with the association. The pleasure does not come until after the 

 association is done and gone.''- This problem, though raised 

 by Lloyd Morgan' in connection with experiments on learning 

 by the " trial and error " method, has received very little but 

 theoretical attention from psychologists to the present time.* 

 Its importance for the education process, including the informal 

 moral development by general social conditions, is certainly 

 such as not to be overlooked. The dearth of experimentation 



1 Thorndike, E. L. Psychol. Mon., Ser. No. 8, p. 103. After nineteen years 

 of extensive work on certain phases of learning Professor J. B. Watson, who has 

 himself taken a considerable part in this experimental work, says practically the 

 same thing. In a review of Holt's The Freudian Wish and Its Place in Ethics, in 

 which he considers a few artificial and inadequate illustrations of learning with 

 but slight attention by the author to the neural processes involved, Watson says: 

 " In these few experiences a genuine learning process is involved and the explana- 

 tion of this learning process — regardless of whether the act is acquired in few or 

 manv trials — is what I consider one of the chief problems in psychology." Jour 

 of Phil. Psvchnl., etc., 1917, 16„ p. 89. 



"-Ibid., p. 104. 



' Introduction to Comparative Psychology, 1894, Ch. 12. E.g., on page 213 Morgan 

 says: " The successful response is repeated because of the satisfaction it gives; 

 the unsuccessful response fails to give satisfaction, and is not repeated." 



^ See, e.g.. Smith, S. Limits of Educability in Para necium. Jour. Comp. Neurol. 

 and Psychol., 1908, 18, 499-.510. Meyer, Max, The Fundamental Laws of Human 

 Behavior, 1911. Thorndike, E. L. Animal Intelligence, 1911, Ch. 4. Haggerty 

 M. E. The Laws of Learning. Psychol. Rev., 1913, 20, 411-422. Carr, Harvey A. 

 Principles of Selection in Animal Learning. Ibid., 1914. 21, 157-163. Watson, 

 J. B. Behavior, 1914, Ch. 7. Peterson, Jos. Completeness of Response as an 

 E.xplanation Principle in Learning. Psychol. Rev., 1916, 23, 153-162. 



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