Modification by Experience 239 



description of the subjective side of this process in a human 

 being would be to say that the sight of the other individual's 

 behavior "suggests the idea" of similar behavior on one's 

 own part. Inferential imitation would then not differ 

 fundamentally from any other case of learning by ideas. 

 Now Thorndike, in his experiments on cats and dogs, found, 

 as we have said, no evidence of this type of imitation. A 

 cat put in a puzzle box did not learn the way out any sooner 

 for watching, even repeatedly, the performances of a cat 

 that knew how to get out. With monkeys, Thorndike's 

 most extensive tests were made to find whether the animal 

 would learn to open a box from seeing the experimenter 

 himself do it, and his results were again, on the whole, 

 negative (393). Small's white rats also showed no ability 

 to profit by each other's experience in this way. One of 

 each of the pairs first experimented on solved the problems 

 presented; the other, instead of either attacking them for 

 itself or learning by watching the successful one, contented 

 itself with stealing the food secured by the latter (386). 

 Imitation, according to Yerkes, plays no considerable role 

 in the learning processes of the dancing mouse (469). 



On the other hand, Kinnaman's monkeys did give some 

 indications of learning by inferential imitation. In one 

 case, the box had to be opened by pulling out a plug. One 

 monkey failed to work the mechanism, and gave up in despair. 

 Another one then came out of the cage, the first one follow- 

 ing. Number two went to the box, seized the end of the plug 

 with its teeth and pulled it out. The box was set again, 

 and monkey number one rushed to it, seized the plug as 

 number two had done, and got the food. She immediately 

 repeated the act eight times. A second and similar observa- 

 tion was made where the mechanism was a lever (221). 

 Hobhouse found that cats, dogs, elephants, and monkeys 



