TRAINING IN WHITE RATS UPON VARIOUS SERIES OF MAZES 35 



which has acquired some tendencies making for positive 

 transfer and some making for negative. The kind and 

 the degree of transfer may be viewed as the result of the 

 interaction of these tendencies with the new situation. 



When the hungry animal is introduced into the maze, 

 its behavior indicates that it is controlled by the instincts 

 of curiosity and timidity, the former being undoubtedly 

 quickened by hunger. The instinct of curiosity accounts 

 for the explorations of the animal, in the course of which 

 it sooner or later reaches the food-box; and the instinct 

 of timidity accounts in the main for the retreating move- 

 ments, which are so frequent in the early stages of the 

 learning. It would be baseless to say that there is never 

 a retreating movement due to curiosity, or that curiosity 

 never enters as a factor into the induction of such move- 

 ments; nevertheless, the behavior of the animal when 

 advancing through the maze in the earlier stages of the 

 learning would seem explicable only on the ground that 

 it is under the control of a combination of curosity and 

 timidity, with curiosity in the ascendency. Its change 

 of behavior into that of retreating is so precipitate and 

 its movements back toward the food-box are so direct 

 and rapid that it would seem due to timidity's gaining 

 the upper hand over curiosity and coming to dominate 

 the animal. The early cessation of these retreating move- 

 ments in the course of the maze-learning would seem 

 to indicate that the instinct of timidity soon recedes far 

 into the background and becomes almost if not quite 

 inactive. That this recession of the instinct of timidity 

 carries over from one maze to another is apparent from 

 the fewer retreating movements and their prompter ces- 

 sation in a second maze than in the first. This recession 

 of the instinct of timidity is a factor making for positive 

 transfer. 



Included among the kinaesthetic habits which the animal 

 brings to the new maze, there are some tending to lead 

 it into the true pathway and some tending to lead it into 

 blind alleys. Since it is generally the errors made during 

 the first few trials which become fixed and constitute 

 the hindrance to be overcome in order to learn the maze, 



