Experimental Study of Associative Processes 147 
It is never ‘a bit of direct experience,’ but an abstraction 
from our own life referred to that of another. 
‘T fancy that these feelings of others’ feelings may be con- | 
nected pretty closely with imitation, and for that reason 
may begin to appear in the monkeys. | | There we have some 
fair evidence for their presence in the tricks which monkeys 
play on each other, | Such feelings seem the natural explana- 
tion of the apparently useless tail-pullings and such like 
which make up the attractions of the monkey cage. These 
may, however, be instinctive forms of play-activity or 
merely examples of the general tendency of the monkeys 
to fool with everything. 
INTERACTION 
T hope it will not be thought impertinent if from the stand- 
point of this research I add a word about a general psycho- 
logical problem, the problem of interaction. I have spoken 
all along of the connection between the situation and a cer- 
tain impulse and act being stamped in when pleasure results 
from the act and stamped out when it doesn’t. In this fact, 
which is undeniable, lies a problem which Lloyd Morgan 
has frequently emphasized.! How are pleasurable results able — 
to burn in and render predominant the association which led to 
them?, This is perhaps the greatest problem of both human 
and animal psychology. Unfortunately in human psy- 
chology it has been all tangled up with the problems of free 
will, mental activity, voluntary attention, the creation of 
novel acts, and almost everything else. In our experiments 
we get the data which give rise to the problem, in a very 
elementary form. 
It should first be noted about the fact that the pleasure 
does not burn in an impulse and act themselves, but an im- , 
