TRAINING IN WHITE RATS UPON VARIOUS SERIES OF MAZES 9 



ing to the view adopted here as a result of the observations 

 made in the course of these experiments, a practise in error- 

 elimination which is useful and which an animal passing 

 from one maze-learning to another enjoys, so that this 

 animal may be expected to display a greater facility in the 

 the dropping of errors in the second maze than an animal 

 learning this maze as its first. But among the specific 

 habits, including entrance into some runways and the 

 avoidance of others, there will be some that aid the learning 

 and some that deter it; and an instance of the latter may 

 be found in the transfer now under consideration. The 

 group trained in the first maze had learned to pass a blind 

 alley on its left upon entering the fourth section and then 

 to turn into the next runway, which formed a part of the 

 true pathway. When transferred to the second maze, there 

 was no blind alley at the left immediately on entering this 

 section, so that no difficulty was experienced here; but 

 instead of the adjoining runway being a part of the true 

 pathway it was a blind alley, and as a consequence the 

 trial-group made 53 per cent of the total number of errors 

 in this section, where the control-group made but 14 per cent. 



It is impossible to predict, with regard to the factors 

 making for positive and for negative transfer, how they 

 will interact in a given situation. It would seem that, 

 in the second of the two- mazes involved in the present 

 comparison, the tendency to turn into the blind alley in 

 the fourth section is so deeply implanted, as a result of 

 the learning of the former maze, that any general habit 

 of error-elimination is nearly if not completely suppressed; 

 while on the contrary there are no specific habits in the 

 second and third sections so strongly formed as to counter- 

 act the working of the general elimination activity, and 

 the results of this activity were so great that it effected 

 in these sections savings larger than in the identical part. 



Turning to the other mazes which contained identical 

 parts, these mazes being the D and E and the parts the 

 third section, we find that positive transfer was evident 

 in the learning of the E maze by the group which had 

 first learned the D maze, and that the greatest saving 

 was effected in the identical part, although the saving in 



