DELAYED REACTION 19 



first trial. What influence his starting point in approaching the 

 box had upon his success, we are not told. 



Logically, the position taken by Cole in his illustrations 

 would require him to argue that ideas are present wherever 

 " motor excess " in learning occurs. There a sensorially reported 

 situation calls out in succession the animal's repertoire of in- 

 stinctive and habitual acts. This is a variation of means toward 

 the attainment of an end, and is on a par with the "variability 

 of response" argument discussed above. 



13. Reactions to a Temporal Series of Colors 



It is only fair to Cole to note that his main emphasis does 

 not rest upon the above data, but upon a series of tests that 

 he made with colors presented in a temporal series. Three 

 colors, white, blue and red, were placed upon three levers which 

 in turn were secured by a single pivot on the back side of a 

 board one foot high. When the colors were presented in the 

 order W, B, R, the animal was to secure food by climbing upon 

 a box. When R, R, R was given, no reaction should be made. 

 Now since the terminal stimulus was identical in each case. 

 Cole argues, the only means by which the animals could react 

 discriminatingly is by remembering what colors of the series 

 had preceded. The fact that the raccoons clawed up the cards 

 from behind the screen, reacting only when the proper one 

 appeared, was also used as evidence of images. Believing that 

 these tests were almost absolutely uncontrolled and that the 

 interpretations were invalid as far as the data presented were 

 concerned, I set two graduate students, F. M. Gregg and C. A. 

 McPheeters at work upon this problem. Their purpose w^as: 

 (i) to duplicate as nearly as possible Cole's results under ade- 

 quately controlled conditions, and (2) having set up the dis- 

 crimination, to determine and not to assume its basis. Their 

 results will soon appear in the Journal of Animal Behavior under 

 the title Some Reactions of Raccoons to a Temporal Series of 

 Stimuli. I shall only note here that they found: (i) that dis- 

 crimination was not based upon the cards— in fact the discrim- 

 ination was not even visual, and (2) that practically the entire 

 discrimination was made on the basis of the first lever and not 

 on the basis of all levers as Cole assumed. (Since all levers 

 were influential, in Cole's opinion, it had been necessary to 



