FUNCTION OF VIBRISSAE IN BEHAVIOR OF WHITE RAT 59 



was significant that they almost never turned away from or 

 back in the right pathway. 



We noticed before that, previous to the introduction of pun- 

 ishment, many animals that still showed few outward signs of 

 discrimination, were making what seemed an undue proportion 

 of right trials. There was an air of increased confidence in their 

 reactions in the right pathway, they more often and more un- 

 hesitatingly went to the end of it. There was nothing which 

 would make one think of choice or prevision, but if chance or 

 habit led them to this right path they took it and while some- 

 times they hesitated or wandered away from other paths, there 

 was nothing which looked like conscious avoidance. 



This sense of familiarity, if we may call it such, due to assim- 

 ilation, facilitation, call it what you will, had in it probably no 

 discriminated sense elements; yet it was powerful enough, in 

 my judgment, to account for 60% of the right choices, as large 

 a per cent as some experimentation, shows where the results 

 are attributed to some definite sense-discrimination. The be- 

 havior differed essentially from that which supervened later in 

 the learning process when the animal after seeking a stimulus 

 reacted to it in an immediate, definite, clear-cut way. 



After these rats had really learned the path they scarcely 

 noticed the plate. Some learned to jump it. They always 

 received a shock at the end if it proved the wrong one, but 

 still they jumped. Others learned to get two feet between the 

 partition and get over by means of one foot on the plate. They 

 had to let themselves down in order to open the door and thus 

 could be punished, but a few animals continued this to the 

 end even in the tnie path where it was unnecessary. 



» 



D. General Behavior of Animals in Second Series 



These animals were put in the box and allowed to run through 

 freely at first with all doors into the food box open, then with 

 two of them closed and after five days the regular experimenta- 

 tion was begun with the use of punishment; hence this set had 

 no break in the course of the experimentation as did the others. 

 Although the behavior was very similar it may be well, in view 

 of the discussion which follows, to emphasize some phases of it. 



First, there was the usual lessening of errors and increasingly 



