Experimental Study of Associative Processes 71 
struggles in pressing down the thumb piece, so that if the 
door had been free to swing open, they could have escaped. 
Six succeeded in pushing both thumb-piece down and door 
out, so that the bar did not fall back into its place. Of 
these five succeeded in also later pushing the door open, 
so that they escaped and got the fish 
outside. Of these, |three, after re- TABLE 3 
peated trials, associated the com- No. 1. No. 6. 
plicated movements required with | | eo ee 
the sight of the interior of the box so 9.30 3.30 
firmly that they attacked the thumb 1.40 9.00 
latch the moment they were put in, ae ee 
The history of the formation of the | 600 F | 15s 
association in the case of 3 and of 4 is 
14.00 13.00 
shown in the curves in Figs. 6 and 7. 
In the case of 13 the exact times were | 20.00 F | 5.00 
not taken. The combination of ac- 4.30 2.30 
K 5 20.00 F 15.00 
cidents required was enough to make | 4,45 Fr ine F 
No. 1 and No. 6 take a long time 
15.00 F 5-00 
to get out. Consequently, weariness 
and failure inhibited their impulses | 60.00 F | 15.00 F 
to claw, climb, etc., more than the Paes 
rare pleasure from getting out ——— 
strengthened them, and they failed 10.00 F 
to form the association. Like the 
cats who utterly failed to get out, they finally ceased 
to try when put in. The history of their efforts is as in 
Table 3: the figures in the columns represent the time (in 
minutes and seconds) the animal was in the box before 
escaping or before being taken out if he failed to es- 
cape. Cases of failure are designated by an F after the 
figures. Double lines represent an interval of twenty-four 
hours. 
10.00 F 
