Experimental Study of Associative Processes 103 
that door to get fish, not what it remembered, had a repre- 
sentation of. , 
Still more noteworthy evidence is found in the behavior of 
cats and dogs who were put in these boxes, left one or two 
minutes, and then put through the proper movement. 
For example, a cat would be put in B (O at back) and left 
two minutes. I would then put my hand in through the 
top of the box, take the cat’s paw and with it pull down the 
loop. The cat would then go out and eat the fish. This 
would be done over and over again, and after every ten 
or fifteen such trials the cat would be left in alone. If in 
ten or twenty minutes he did not escape, he would be taken 
out through the top and not fed. In one series of experi- 
ments animals were taken and thus treated in boxes from 
which their own impulsive activity had failed to liberate 
them. [The results, given in the table below, show that no 
animal who fails to perform an act in the course of his own, 
impulsive activity will learn it by being put through it.! 
In these experiments some of the cats and all of the dogs 
but No. 1 showed no agitation or displeasure at my handling 
from the very start. Nor was there any in Dog 1 or the other 
cats after a few trials. It may also be remarked that in 
the trials alone which took place during and at the end of 
the experiment the animals without exception showed that 
they did not fail to perform the act from lack of a desire to 
get out. They all tried hard enough to get out and would 
surely have used the association if they had formed it. 
Now, the only difference between the experiences of the- 
animals in these experiments and their experiences in those 
~ nere they let themselves out, is that here they only saw 
and felt themselves making the movement, whereas in the 
other case they also felt the impulse, gave the innervation-- 
That, then, is the essential. It may be objected that the 
