56 STELLA BURNHAM VINCENT 



indeed most of the animals, had to be thus held up at the plate 

 before they learned to seek the stimulus associated with the 

 safe way or perchance negatively with the punishment. In one 

 group where records of punishment were carefully kept a rat 

 which took 195 trials to learn the problern in the way indicated, 

 was only punished 10 times in the last 100 trials. In other 

 words, if the problem had been considered learned when he 

 made the discrimination at the plate this rat would have ac- 

 complished the task by the 95th trial. The insistence upon the 

 carrying back of the discriminating act to the entrance of the 

 runway, however, m.ade it far more definite and easy to observe 

 and freed it from many of the emotional elements which obscured 

 it when it was made at the plate. Often incipient fear or excite- 

 ment was aroused at the plate in such a way as to block an 

 association which was really formed and deter an animal from 

 crossing a perfectly safe plate, or else the nearness to the door 

 and the smell of food stirred impulses too strong to be inhibited 

 and led an animal over a live plate to try a closed door. In 

 any case movements were increased at the plate and difficult 

 of interpretation. 



C. General Behavior of Animals in the First Series 



These animals at first wandered about "nosing" everything 

 and blundered finally down the right alley and into the food 

 box. It took but a trial or two to show that they were really 

 seeking food: they had made that association. In the activity 

 preceding success they "nosed" the entrances, the sides of the 

 wall as they ran down the alleys, the floor and sometimes the 

 glass cover; but for awhile there was no evidence of the seeking 

 of any particular Sense stimulus. Rat "A," group (a) was the 

 first to show such signs and from that time on, he time and 

 again turned from the wrong pathway to seek the right. He 

 usually "nosed" the entrances, while most of the other rats 

 got their contact experiences with the sides of the path after 

 they had entered. 



There was much individuality in the reactions of the different 

 rats. If a rat happened to take one of the side paths first, when 

 it came out of this it followed the sides of the entrance box and 

 took the path on the opposite side. This was rather character- 

 istic of all the rats and might be repeated many times if the 



