FUNCTION OF VIBRISSAE IN BEHAVIOR OF WHITE RAT 77 



activity in their perfected associated forms just as the sensory 

 factors are elements which are spUt off, discriminated from the 

 general sensory situation. The following description then holds 

 with the understanding that all these connections were origin- 

 ally inherent in the situation as a whole. 



The associations which were formed in the learning of this 

 coordination were various, if we may tiTist our observations, 

 and inessential as well as essential in character. First, cer- 

 tainly, the animals learned to associate the whole situation 

 with food and the obtaining of food with the preceding activi- 

 ties. Second, this activity was associated with definite parts 

 of the box. Third, the successful activity was associated with 

 an open door and the unsuccessful with a closed door. Fourth, 

 the plate was associated wdth pain. These early associations 

 were made quickly and generally but from here on there were 

 marked individual differences. The open door should have 

 been associated with a safe plate and the closed door with a 

 shock. It took the animals a long time to make this associa- 

 tion. Some rats would go over a live plate time and again to 

 try a closed door and even return upon the plate after a length- 

 ened attempt would appear to have niled it out. 



The problem was to make the association of the corrugations 

 with the open door but as will be readily seen this association 

 might be made with the open door and not with the safe plate. 

 Many rats really failed in this respect. They never, judging by 

 their actions, reacted to a safe plate, and although the associa- 

 tion between the cormgations and the open door or food was 

 strong enough to lead them over it, they went on one foot, or 

 jumped, or shrank, or showed signs of fear in some way. Some 

 animals never learned to eliminate the plate from the coordina- 

 tion even when the whole process had become more or less 

 automatic. It was always from this point on, roughness, plate, 

 open door, the plate being safe or not as the case might be; 

 while others later learned to go from surface contact on over 

 the plate with no evidence of any sensory or affective reaction 

 to it. Before the learning was said to be complete they had 

 to make the rough surface association at the very entrance to 

 the runways. 



There were a few animals as we have said that always had to 

 interpolate in their series, in whatever order made, experiences 



