EFFECTS OF STRYCHNINE UPON RATE OF LEARNING 



161 



and the differences apparent in the table are, perhaps, not 

 great enough to be significant. Seemingly, the rats which 

 learned most quickly and consequently received the smallest 

 amount of practice, required the most practice for re-acquire- 

 ment of the habit, but the great variability within the groups 

 makes such a conclusion doubtful. 



EFFECTS OF THE DRUGS UPON THE RATE OF MOVEMENT IN THE 



MAZE 



While the results seem precise enough to demonstrate an 

 accelerating effect for strychnine and a retarding effect for 

 caffeine upon the rate of learning it is by no means clear how 

 these effects are brought about or whether they actually bear 



TABLE 9 



The average number of trials required for relearning by the rats in experiment 1 



upon the theories previously outlined. The maze habit is so 

 complex and demands the formation of so many new functional 

 conduction paths that failure or success in learning may be 

 only indirectly or not at all the result of changes in the rate of 

 formation of such pathways. Some indication of the mode of 

 action of the drugs is given by the behavior of the animals in 

 approaching the turns of the maze and by the data obtained 

 upon the relative time required by the different groups and the 

 rate of running at different stages of the learning process. 

 The tracings of the paths followed by the animals in learning 

 the maze have been measured and the average time, distance, 

 and rate of running of the different groups have been computed. 

 The results are summarized in table 10. The rate, determined 

 by dividing the distance by the time, is subject to error from 



