330 J- F - DASHIELL 



less delicate innate capacities and by less intricately involved 

 effects of experience than is that of the genus Homo, the simpler 

 forms which problems in animal psychology assume may often 

 lead to results more unequivocal and more illuminating in spe- 

 cific ways. Unhappily the study of the effect of the formation 

 of one habit upon the acquisition of a new habit with animal 

 subjects has not been far pressed. Only a few reports have been 

 made along this line. 



R. M. Yerkes 2 and W. S. Hunter 3 have obtained opposite re- 

 sults as to the value of previous maze practice for the learning 

 of a new maze by the dancing mouse and by the pigeon, re- 

 spectively. H. H. Wylie 4 has reported the degree of transfer 

 effect between an earlier learning of a reaction to a given type of 

 stimulus and the later learning of a reaction to a different type of 

 stimulus in the same general situation. W. S. Hunter and J. U. 

 Yarbrough 5 found for the white rat a forward-acting interference 

 between a first auditory-motor habit in a discrimination box and 

 a second auditory-motor habit in the same box; and B. D. 

 Pearce 6 got similar results with visual-motor habits. L. W. 

 Webb 7 with the white rat found positive transfer between an origi- 

 nal maze habit and each of five other maze habits. H. A. Ruger 8 

 found no transfer of " semicircular canal practice" in the maze 

 by rats. R. T. Wiltbank 9 has made a study of the learning of 

 rats in pairs and in series of mazes, especially as to quantitative 

 relations. In his theoretical analysis of transfer from maze to 



1 The Dancing Mouse, New York, 1907, pp. 261 ff. 



3 Some labyrinth habits of the domestic pigeon, Journal of Animal Behavior, 

 i, 1911, 278-304. 



4 An experimental study of transfer of response in the white rat, Behavior 

 Monographs, iii, 1919, no. 16. 



6 Interference of auditory habits in the white rat, Journal of Animal Behavior, 

 vii, 1917, 49-65. 



Note on interference of visual habits in the white rat, Journal of Animal 

 Behavior, vii, 169-177. 



7 Transfer of training and retroaction, Psychological Monographs, xxiv, 1917, 

 no. 104. 



Some experiments in the transfer of habits in the white rat (abstract), 

 Psychological Bulletin, xv, 1918, 42. 



9 Transfer of training in white rats upon various series of mazes, Behavior 

 Monographs, iv, 1919, no. 17. 



