IMITATION IN MONKEYS 



551 



NO. 6 GETTINO FOOD IN ROPE EXPERIMENT 

 He has just pushed open the door in the new cage. 



the other had been removed. In case the 

 monkey still failed to get food, this imita- 

 tion test was repeated. No monkey was 

 counted to have failed until it had seen an 

 act performed a hundred times and was 

 still unable to do it alone. During all this 

 procedure, both in the preliminary trials 

 and in the imitation tests, a careful record 

 of the monkey's behavior w^as made. 



In this manner experiments were con- 

 tinued for ten weeks. The monkeys were 

 given hundreds of tests, and the records 

 of their behavior amounted to thousands 

 of words. 



At the beginning of the experiments I 

 tried to keep an open mind ; but in spite of 

 my efforts, I found myself anticipating 

 negative results. Professor Thorndike's 

 monkeys had failed to learn by imitation, 

 Jill's behavior had confirmed his reports, 

 and soon after I reached New York, there 

 came to my hand the report of Professor 

 Watson's work at the University of Chi- 

 cago, in which he declared "without the 

 slightest hesitation" that in his experiment 

 on monkeys there was "never the slightest 

 evidence of inferential imitation." How- 

 ever, I was determined to try the case out, 

 to give the monkeys another chance to ex- 



hibit their intclh'gencc, and, if they failed, 

 to pile up }'et more evidence on the nega- 

 tive side. 



It came as a surprise, therefore, when, 

 within a week. No. 3 learned to get food 

 in the paper experiment by watching Jack. 

 The first-named monkey had liad his five 

 preliminary trials, and the paper had re- 

 mained untouched. Then Jack was put 

 into the cage. When Jack tore the paper 

 and got food. No. 3 saw him. The paper 

 was replaced, and Jack tore it again; 

 No. 3 became more attentive. The 

 next time Jack tore it, No. 3 went to the 

 paper. In the eleventh performance No. 

 3 helped tear the paper, and after the 

 thirteenth he bit a hole in the paper and 

 got food. 



A few dajs later Jack learned to get 

 food in the rope experiment by watching 

 No. 3. Then followed two cases of imi- 

 tation in the plug experiment, and two 

 more in the rope experiment. But I was 

 still skeptical, A few isolated cases might 

 be merely accidental, and might not de- 

 note any general imitative ability on the 

 part of the monkeys. All of the cases so 

 far had been delayed imitation ; it had re- 

 quired successive performances of one mon- 

 key before the imitator finally succeeded. 



NO. 6 TEARING PAPER IN ORDER 

 TO GET FOOD 



