DISTANCE IN THE SELECTION OF A PATH 



253 



Experiment 8. Maze B; rat 2. 



TABLE 8 



Adjustment to 19/100 in one direction is shown. 2 



It is clearly shown that the length of path is a factor that may 

 influence the rat's course. Other things equal, the shorter of 

 two paths will be traversed more and more until it becomes the 

 usual one, provided a certain fractional difference in length 

 exists between short and long paths. Our results indicate that 

 this fractional difference is as low as 1/10, and in some cases 

 lower. This means that of two paths leading to the same goal 

 one of which is n feet long and the other l.ln feet, after repeated 

 trials, the former will be generally traveled, and it will be thus 

 favored because it is shorter than the other. It may be con- 

 jectured that this adjustment is to be explained in motor terms. 

 A number of cases appeared throughout the experiments of the 

 rat's making a start in the wrong direction and suddenly chang- 

 ing about and taking the right direction, resembling, in outward 

 appearances at least, a kind of behavior occasionally seen in 

 human beings. 



2 In this case as well as in one or two others the writer's statement may not 

 appear justified by the figures given under S and L, however it is based upon an 

 examination of the detailed results. For example, the results of the nine experi- 

 mental days given in table 8 were distributed thus, 



The shift from long to short path is obvious. 



