VII. RELEARNING A MAZE AFTER HAVING LEARNED FOUR 

 INTERVENING MAZES 



It was possible, by carrying the groups of rats which 

 had learned a series of mazes back to the first maze learned, 

 to ascertain whether any beneficial effect of the first maze- 

 learning appeared in the relearning of that maze after 

 four intervening maze-learnings. Thus group 1, which 

 learned the series from A to E, was brought back and 

 retaught A; and group 2, which learned the series from 

 B to A, was brought back and retaught B. It was con- 

 sidered that, if any beneficial effect of the original learning 

 remained, the maze relearned would be mastered with 

 less effort than any maze of equal or greater difficulty 

 among the intervening four. If, conversely, one or more 

 mazes of at least equal difficulty were learned more readily 

 than the first maze was relearned, this would be accepted 

 as evidence that the first maze, now being relearned, was 

 practically speaking a new maze to the rats. The records 

 of the relearnings may be found in tables 7, 9, 11, pp. 14 ff. 



Looking at the relearnings from the trial point of view, 

 we see that the A maze was relearned by its group more 

 easily than any one of the intervening mazes was learned, 

 except the E maze. This E maze, however, was an easier 

 maze, according to the records of the control-group; al- 

 though the ease of its mastery by group 1, as compared 

 with the relearning of A was proportionately much greater 

 than the difference in the difficulty attending the original 

 mastery of the two mazes by the control-groups. The 

 E maze was but 13 per cent easier as judged by the trial- 

 criterion of the groups last named, but in the series of 

 learnings which we are now considering the E maze was 

 learned with 40 per cent less effort, by the same criterion. 

 The group relearning the A maze saved 75 per cent as 

 compared with the record of original mastery, but this 

 same group learned E with a saving of 83 per cent as com- 



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