HABIT FORMATION AND FEELING QUALITIES 299 



the odor remained for several hours. The combined odors were 

 obnoxious. G says, "At first I thought the odors would not 

 disturb me, but during each distribution and while looking at 

 the homely pictures a wave of disgust for the odors came over 

 me." While such a stimulus undoubtedly accentuated the 

 shock, it would be misleading to consider it the chief cause. The 

 kinaesthetic habits at this stage were too weak to correct or even 

 withstand the movements initiated by the false discriminations 

 of box-labels. This false discrimination was characterized by 

 sudden lunges toward a box only to discover a mistake. In the 

 second place the conditions, so far as they relate to the move- 

 ments, highly favored the action of retroactive inhibition. Time 

 had been denied the associative tendencies to establish them- 

 selves and as Titchener observes (40): " Stimulus treads on 

 the heel of stimulus. There is no impression of a pattern and 

 no associations are formed." The kinaestheses of the 52 move- 

 ments, to say nothing of the false ones destroy each other. The 

 subject at such times may stand motionless or move the hand 

 holding the card in a circle. This early experience appears 

 common to all subjects regardless of conditions. The middle 

 section of E's curve is embraced within four instead of five 

 periods, 8P to IIP inclusive. This appears to be due to the 

 rapidity with which he formed stable habits and thereby pre- 

 vented the disturbing effect of consciousness on habit. E's M. 

 V. was 2.31. 



G excels E from 2 to 8P inclusive, but drops below at 9P and 

 continues thus to the end. The former relation of the curves 

 is explained on the ground that G completed place-memory of 

 boxes and learned the order of the cards before E and the latter 

 relation is due, perhaps, to E's superior control of attention, and 

 to his capacity for readily forming stable habits. G's M. V, 

 was 2.17. 



B (P) claimed that the stimulus was slightly distracting at 

 times. His initial record is the same as E's and excels those of 

 the other subjects receiving a stimulus. But he drops behind at 

 2P and remains there throughout the practice. He did not 

 reach the middle section until 12P and remained in it until 17 



