HUMAN REACTIONS IN A MAZE 101 



of procedure eliminated the possibility of obtaining some very 

 interesting and important knowledge of the learning process, 

 but our interest was centered, however, upon the objective 

 records obtained under comparable conditions. 



We secured records from five children with ages ranging 

 from 8 to 13 years. One of these was very familiar with the 

 Hampton maze and with the rat experiments. The remaining 

 ones were entirely ignorant of the experiment. Four adult 

 males were used. . These were all graduate students. Two of 

 these had a practical knowledge of animal experimentation, 

 while the knowledge of the other two was general in character. 

 Records were taken for time, error, and the total distance 

 traversed. A runway w r as regarded as the unit of error and 

 returns over the true path as well as entrances into cul de sacs 

 were regarded as errors. 



Comparisons will be instituted between the records of the 

 human subjects and the data derived from two sets of rats 

 run on different mazes and by different experimenters: (1) A 

 group of seventeen animals tested by Mrs. Hicks on the Hampton 

 Court maze and (2) a group of six rats tested by Prof. Carr on 

 a maze with a true path of 30 feet complicated by nine cul de 

 sacs whose combined length is 14 feet. The second maze is 

 hardly as complex as the Hampton, and it appears more com- 

 parable in complexity to that used by the human subjects. 

 The groups of animals will be termed R I and R II. 



I. THE NUMBER OF TRIALS NECESSARY TO LEARN THE MAZE 



No correlation can be made between degrees of intelligence 

 and the number of trials. The average and average variation 

 for the adults and children are 11.25 ±3.9 an( l n±2 respec- 

 tively. The same values for R II are 12 ±3.6. The individual 

 records for the group R I on the Hampton maze were not pre- 

 served by Mrs. Hicks, so that comparisons in this respect are 

 impossible. Miss Vincent, however, has kindly furnished the 

 individual records of 10 animals on the Hampton maze which 

 gave an average learning time of 11. 4 ±4.1 trials. 



Mrs. Hicks's criterion of mastery for the human subjects was 

 the ability to traverse the maze once without error, which is 

 undoubtedly too low. The tests should have been carried 

 further. Two successive trials without error were demanded 



