INTEGRATION OF MOVEMENTS IN LEARNING IN THE RAT 393 



result, all the movements that do not lead to the solution of the 

 problem can not be regarded as " unsuccessful/' for the adjust- 

 ment to, or the learning of, the environment outside of the prob- 

 lem box is as necessary as the adjustment to, or the solving of the 

 problem. Again, the ineffective movements performed can not 

 be regarded as belongng to an exclusive class, the " unsuccessful." 

 for often no arbitrary distinction can be made between move- 

 ments that are effectively and those that are ineffectively 

 performed. 



When all movements are closely examined, they show that the 

 rat is already provided with a neuro-muscular mechanism for 

 their production. The same thing seems to be true for the pro- 

 duction of reflex excitability, and this is the reason why the term 

 reflex is applied to the term excitability and not this last term 

 alone used. All these manifestations are not to be regarded as 

 instinctive or habitual in that they show a partial or a complete 

 setting for a teleological end. No component of a movement is 

 a definite integrated movement, disconnected or " random." If 

 integrated movements are in any way disconnected, then the 

 mechanism which produces them, one after the other, is dishar- 

 moniously connected together, but no evidence of this is ob- 

 served in the structural relation of parts which produce these 

 movements, and much less is this observed in the relation of one 

 movement to the other. They are integrated reflex movements, 

 conjoined, and similar to those evoked in a decerebrate or in a 

 spinal animal, where one movement is recognized as an inherent 

 part of the animal's organized mechanism. In such a mechan- 

 ism, where one integrated reflex movement is inherently coor- 

 dinated with another, there exists an interaction of these reflex 

 parts with other organs and parts of the animal. In the behavior 

 of the rat, this neural coordination of reflex movements, and this 

 interaction of them with internal organs, is revealed in that con- 

 nection of events of one response following the other, and not in 

 a performance of separate integrated movements incoordi- 

 nated, requiring sensory excitations to conjoin them. In the 

 rat all movements performed are essentially coordinated with 

 progression. 



PSYCHOBIOLOGY, VOL. II, NO 5 



