318 The Animal Mind 



than to that of objects offering equally strong stimulation 

 to the optic nerve ; the cat sits at the mouse hole, the parent 

 animal responds to the faintest cry of the offspring, because 

 these stimuli have the right of way by virtue of inherited 

 nervous connections. 



Finally, a weak stimulus may determine reaction and be 

 victorious over a stronger one because of nervous pathways 

 formed through the individual's own experience. The conse- 

 quences of reaction to it in the individual's past may operate 

 to secure reaction to it in the future. To the cat in a puzzle 

 box, the string that must be pulled to let it out offered 

 originally no stronger stimulus to action than any other ob- 

 ject in sight ; but after sufficient experience the string comes 

 to dominate the situation and determine the cat's behavior. 

 If the experience of consequences is slowly acquired, by 

 many repetitions, the process of reacting to an object 

 originally indifferent may be unaccompanied by any ideas 

 of the consequences of such reaction. If it is rapidly 

 acquired, we know that we human beings at least accom- 

 pany our reactions by calling up the results of our past 

 reactions in the form of memory ideas. 



83. The Peculiar Characteristics of Attention as a Device 

 to Secure Prepotency 



We have suggested that attention is a means of securing 

 reaction to the vitally important stimuli acting upon an 

 organism. Does reaction to a stimulus always mean atten- 

 tion to the sensation accompanying that stimulus ? 



This question may best be answered by examining the 

 characteristics of the attention process as we know it. In 

 attention, the details of the object attended to become clear 

 and distinct. That is, attention is a state where discrimina- 



