10 WALTER S. HUNTER 



tion after each successful discovery of a free passage gives a 

 record of this type, selected from the data for rat 106, rwrwrwrwrw. 

 Simple alternation is illustrated by this sample behavior from 

 rat 102, rwwrrwwrrw. Here the animal ran first to the left and 

 alternated regularly thereafter, giving the record just quoted. 



In case an animal fell into an automatism which repeated 

 itself from day to day without essential variation, one would 

 have a temporal maze habit, although not the particular one 

 which was sought. Rat 105, e.g., was the one rat who acquired 

 such an invariable form of response. This rat always alternated 

 after each success for the first four choices and then ran a position 

 habit to the left for the last six choices. His record therefore 

 day after day was rwrwrrwwrr. Here was an automatic chain 

 of unit responses which involved running through the same space 

 in succeeding intervals of time. What were the cues involved? 

 Was the cue a kinaesthetic one derived from turning to the left 

 or right, or was it a combination cue involving a contact-kinaes- 

 thetic experience with the end-stop? Was the behavior con- 

 trolled essentially by cues from within the organism or from cues 

 that depended upon specific phases of the external environment? 

 Controls were now introduced with several of the animals that 

 approximated this automatic behavior in an effort to answer the 

 question. It will be possible to follow through the records for 

 three of the animals, and then to state in general what the result 

 has been. 



Rat 105, as stated, had an invariable form of response in the 

 order Irrlrlllll. A control was now introduced with this rat where 

 all the choices were to the left. The entrance-stop was shifted 

 after the first trial but not thereafter. The end-stop remained 

 on the right side continually. The rat ran Irrlrrrlrr. The ten- 

 dency to run to the right to secure food, being checked by the end- 

 stop, overcame the normal tendency to run all of the last trials 

 to the left, so that the left position habit appears only in choices 

 4 and 8. The second control used required the rat to run a 

 series of choices five of which were to the left and five to the 

 right, lllllrrrrr. Entrance- and end-stops were shifted in the 

 middle of the series. The rat chose in the order Irrrllllll. In 



