TRAINING IN WHITE RATS UPON VARIOUS SERIES OF MAZES 23 



TABLE 20— (Continued) 



Blind Alleys 1234 56789 10 11 



Trial 54 



55 1 



56 1 



57 1 



58 



59 1 



^345 6789/0// 



\ The Percentages of fj-ror^ M<a<^e /r? the 



7D,^ B/Ind A//ey3 of the D M<^ze p^ 



f^v Groi^ 4 (Control) 



' 1 Group Z ■■ 



50-li Or^up I —- — - — . 



30 \\ 



k % 



It is apparent that these instances of negative transfer 

 cannot be treated as if the transfer in question were simply 

 that between the C maze and the D maze. The groups 

 exhibiting this negative transfer had learned — one the A 

 and B mazes before the C, and the other the B maze before 

 the C. The fact that, as between the C and the D mazes 

 when no other maze had been learned before C, there was 

 27 per cent of positive transfer, while the transfer was 

 negative when maze B or mazes A and B were learned 

 before C, would suggest that the final element of the ex- 

 planation is to be sought in the learning prior to that of 

 the C maze. 



The increase of more than 100 per cent in the errors 

 made by group 3 in blind alley 1 of the D maze, as com- 

 pared with the errors made by the control-group, would 

 seem to have been due to the facts that group 3 came to 

 the maze with the habit already formed of traversing a 

 runway of similar construction to those confronting it on 



