DELAYED REACTION 59 



than Hd and did not remark so often during the delays that 

 he still knew the proper button. Like Hd, he was impatient 

 during the short delays at the first and the long delays at the 

 last of the experiments. At times he wavered and hesitated in 

 his reactions, saying that he had forgotten or that he wasn't 

 sure. (In such cases, of course, the experimenter gave no cue 

 to the solution.) 



Each of the three subjects whose records have been discussed 

 formulated his own "purpose to remember." H was given trials 

 under the same conditions as the others, save that she was 

 told the purpose of the experiment. She was told that the 

 light would be over the noisy button. When delays were begun, 

 she was told to be sure and remember where the light had been. 



H, age 6 years, received 15 trials on delays. Only the first 

 two involved intervals less than i sec. in length. The others 

 varied from 10 sees, to 35 mins. One error was made at 21 

 mins. At this trial, H walked half way to b, paused for 5 sees., 

 wavered as though to go to c, but finally pushed b. She then 

 returned to the release and was told to try again. Again she 

 wavered at a point half way to b, but this time she went to 

 c. The light had only been turned on the one time. I did not 

 talk to H during the first 12 delays. She was always told before 

 the light went out to be sure and remember, but this was all. 

 In the subsequent trials, every effort was made to distract her 

 during the periods of delay. The results obtained with H, when 

 compared with those for Hd and L, indicate that it is an aid 

 to the subject to have the "purpose to remember" expressly 

 formulated for him. 



F, age 2^ years, was given 507 trials on delay. Of these, 30 

 delays were less than i sec. long. The other 477 trials ranged 

 from I sec. to i min. Of the 477, 143 were wrong. The follow- 

 ing table (XV), gives the relative distribution of these errors. 

 It does not give the delays in the order in which they were 

 given to F. The table simply summarizes the number of trials 

 and errors at each stage. An advance was never made from 

 one stage to another until at least 80% correct reactions were 

 made for at least 5 successive trials. The only interval that 

 F did not finally master was i min. This is surprising when 

 such a high percentage of correct reactions occurred at 50 sees. 

 On each of the two days when F was tested for the i min. delays. 



