Considerations on the Problem of Learning 151 



different interpretation. When the cat advances 

 into alley A, gets a blow from behind and gives the 

 avoiding reaction, she naturally comes to associate 

 this avoiding reaction with the sight of that particu- 

 lar alley. This on a subsequent occasion would 

 cause the cat to give the avoiding reaction upon the 

 sight of A, and consequently prevent her from en- 

 tering the scene of her former mishap. When the 

 cat enters alley B, is given a piece of meat, and hit 

 gently from in front and driven back, she is forced, 

 it is true, to make, in one sense, an incongruous re- 

 sponse, although she is not prevented thereby from 

 entering B a second time. Thorndike does not con- 

 sider the essential element of the situation accord- 

 ing to the theory criticized as well as according to 

 his own view, — namely, the reaction to the meat. 

 Without this, the act of driving the cat out of the 

 alley would probably have inhibited her further en- 

 trance. The association formed between entering 

 the alley and eating the meat makes the entrance 

 to the alley, as it were, a part of the meat-eating 

 reaction, and the first response is repeated through 

 having been coupled with the discharge of this 

 strong instinctive propensity. 



Those acts which elicit an animal's natural in- / 

 stinctive reactions are particularly prone to become J 

 associated with the latter, owing to the greater dis- 

 charge of nervous energy which these instinctive re- 

 actions involve. The acts which are stamped in are 

 those which are consistent with the performance of 



