===========+===============================+==============+============+ Individual | Apparatus |Time in which |Number of | | |impulsive |times the | | |activity |animal was | | |failed to lead|put through | | |to the act |the movement| -----------+-------------------------------+--------------+------------+ Cat 1 | F (String outside unfastened) | 55.00 | 77 | Cat 5 | G (Thumb latch) | 57.00 | 59 | Cat 7 | G (Thumb latch) | 50.00 | 30 | Cat 2 | G (Thumb latch) | 54.00 | 141 | Dog 2 | BB1 (O at back, high) | 48.00 | 30 | Dog 3 | BB1 (O at back, high) | 20.00 | 85 | Dog 2 | M (Lever outside) | 15.00 | 95 | Dog 1 | FF[12] | 30.00 | 110 | Chick 89 | X (see page 53) | 20.00 | 30 | Cat 13 | KKK,[13][14] | 40.00 | 65 | ===========+===============================+==============+============+
===========+===============================+===============+======== Individual | Apparatus |Time in which |Time of | |this experience|final | |failed to lead |trial | |to the act | -----------+-------------------------------+---------------+-------- Cat 1 | F (String outside unfastened) | 120.00 | 20.00 Cat 5 | G (Thumb latch) | 55.00 | 10.00 Cat 7 | G (Thumb latch) | 35.00 | 10.00 Cat 2 | G (Thumb latch) | 110.00 | 20.00 Dog 2 | BB1 (O at back, high) | 80.00 | 60.00 Dog 3 | BB1 (O at back, high) | 55.00 | 10.00 Dog 2 | M (Lever outside) | 140.00 | 30.00 Dog 1 | FF[12] | 135.00 | 60.00 Chick 89 | X (see page 53) | 60.00 | 30.00 Cat 13 | KKK,[13][14] | 60.00 | 10.00 ============+===============================+===============+========
Now, the only difference between the experiences of the animals in these experiments and their experiences in those where 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 animals failed because they did not _attend_ to the process of being put through the movement, that, had they attended to it, they would later themselves have made the movement. It is, however, improbable that out of fifty times an animal should not have attended to what was going on at least two or three times. But if seeing himself do it was on a par with feeling an impulse to and so doing it, even two or three times would suffice to start the habit. And it is even more improbable that an experience should be followed by keen pleasure fifty times and not be attended to with might and main, unless animals attend _only_ to their own impulses and the excitements thereof. But if the latter be true, it simply affirms our view from a more fundamental standpoint.
In another set of experiments animals were put in boxes with whose mechanisms they had had no experience, and from which they might or might not be able to escape by their own impulsive acts. The object was to see whether the time taken to form the association could be altered by my instruction. The results turned out to give a better proof of the inability to form an association by being put through the act than any failure to change the time-curve. For it happened in all but one of the cases that the movement which the animal made to open the door was different from the movement which I had put him through. Thus, several cats were put through (in Box C [button]) the following movement: I took the right paw and, putting it against the lower right-hand side of the button, pushed it round to a horizontal position. The cats’ ways were as follows: No. 1 turned it by clawing vigorously at its top; No. 6, by pushing it round with his nose; No. 7, in the course of an indiscriminate scramble at first, in later trials either by pushing with his nose or clawing at the top, settling down finally to the last method. Nos. 2 and 5 did it as No. 1 did. Cat 2 was tried in B (O at back). I took his paw and pressed the loop with it, but he formed the habit of clawing and biting the string at the top of the box near the front. No. 1 was tried in A. I pressed the loop with his paw, but he formed the habit of biting at it.
In every case I kept on putting the animal through the act every time, if at the end of two minutes (one in several cases) it had not done it, even after it had shown, by using a different way, that my instruction had no influence. I never succeeded in getting the animal to change its way for mine. Moreover, if any one should fancy that the animal really profited by my instruction so as to learn what result to attain, namely, the turning of a certain button, but chose a way of his own to turn it, he would be deluding himself. The time taken to learn the act with instruction was no shorter than without.
If, then, an animal happens to learn an act by being put through it, it is just happening, nothing more. Of course, you may _direct_ the animal’s efforts so that he will perform the act himself the sooner. For instance, you may hold him so that his accidental pawing will be sure to hit the vital point of the contrivance. But the animal cannot form an association leading to an act unless the particular impulse to that act is present as an element of the association; he cannot supply it from a general stock. The groundwork of animal associations is not the association of _ideas_, but the association of idea or sense-impression with _impulse_.
In the questionnaire mentioned elsewhere, some questions were asked with a view to obtaining corroboration or refutation of this theory that an impulse or innervation is a necessary element in every association formed if that association leads to an act. The questions and answers were:—
_Question 1_: “If you wanted to teach a horse to tap seven times with his hoof when you asked him, ‘How many days are there in a week?,’ would you teach him by taking his leg and making him go through the motions?”
_A_ answered, “Yes! at first.”
_B_ answered, “No! I would not.”
_C_ answered, “At first, yes!”
_D_ answered, “No!”
_Question 2_: “Do you think you _could_ teach him that way, even if naturally you would take some other way?”
_A_ answered, “In time, yes!”
_B_ answered, “I think it would be a very hard way.”
_C_ answered, “Certainly I do.”
_D_ answered, “I do not think I could.”
_E_ answered, “Yes.”
_Question 3_: “How would you teach him?”
_A_ answered, “I should tap his foot with a whip, so that he would raise it, and reward him each time.”
_B_ answered, “I should teach him by the motion of the whip.”
_C_ answered, “First teach him by pricking his leg the number of times you wanted his foot lifted.”
_D_ answered, “You put figure 2 on blackboard and touch him on leg twice with cane, and so on.”
_E_ answered ambiguously.
It is noteworthy that even those who think they _could_ teach an animal by putting him through the trick do not use that method, except at first. And what they really do then is probably to stimulate the animal to the reflex act of raising his hoof. The hand simply replaces the cane or whip as the means of stimulus. The answers are especially instructive, because the numerous counting tricks done by trained horses seem, at first, to be incomprehensible, unless the trainer can teach the horse by putting it through the movement the proper number of times. The counting tricks performed by Mascot, Professor Maguire’s horse, were quoted to me by a friend as incomprehensible on my theory. The answers given above show how simple the thing really is. All the counting-tricks of all the intelligent horses depend on the fact that a horse raises his hoof when a certain stimulus is given. One simple reaction gives the basis for a multitude of tricks. In the same way other tricks, which at first sight seem to require that the animal should learn by being put through the movement, may depend on some simple reflex or natural impulse.
Another question was, “How would you teach a cat to get out of a box, the door of which was closed with a thumb latch?”
_A_ answered, “I should use a puffball as a plaything for the cat to claw at.” This means, I suppose, that he would get the cat to claw at the puffball and thus direct its clawings to the vicinity of the thumb piece.
_B_ answered, “I would put the cat in and get it good and hungry and then open the door by lifting the latch with my finger. Then put some food that the cat likes outside, and she will soon try to imitate you and so learn the trick.”
_C_ answered, “I would first adjust all things in connection with the surroundings of the cat so they would be applicable to the laws of its nature, and then proceed to teach the trick.”
I suppose this last means that he would fix the box so that some of the cat’s instinctive acts would lead it to perform the trick. The answer given by _B_ means apparently that he would simply leave the thing to accident, for any such imitation as he supposes is out of the question. At all events, none of these would naturally start to teach the trick by putting the animal through the motions, which, were it a possible way, would probably be a traditional one among trainers. On the whole, I see in these data no reason for modifying our dogma that animals cannot learn acts without the impulse.
Presumably the reader has already seen budding out of this dogma a new possibility, a further simplification of our theories about animal consciousness. The possibility is that animals may have _no images or memories at all, no ideas to associate_. Perhaps the entire fact of association in animals is the presence of sense-impressions with which are associated, by resultant pleasure, certain impulses, and that, therefore, and therefore only, a certain situation brings forth a certain act. Returning to our analysis of the association, this theory would say that there was no (9) or (10) or (3) or (4), that the sense-impression gave rise, when accompanied by the feeling of discomfort, to the impulse (5) directly, without the intervention of any representations of the taste of the food, or the experience of being outside, or the sight of oneself doing the act. This theory might be modified so as to allow that the representations could be there, but to deny that they were necessary, were inevitably present, that the impulse was connected to the sense-impression through them. It would then claim that the effective part of the association was a direct bond between the situation and the impulse, but would not cut off the possibility of there being an aura of memories along with the process. It then becomes a minor question of interpretation which will doubtless sooner or later demand an answer. I shall not try to answer it now. The more radical question, the question of the utter exclusion of representative trains of thought, of any genuine association of _ideas_ from the mental life of animals, is worth serious consideration. I confess that, although certain authentic anecdotes and certain experiments, to be described soon, lead me to reject this exclusion, there are many qualities in animals’ behavior which seem to back it up. If one takes his stand by a rigid application of the law of parsimony, he will find justification for this view which no experiments of mine can overthrow.
Of one thing I am sure, and that is that it is worth while to state the question and how to solve it, for although the point of view involved is far removed from that of our leading psychologists to-day, it cannot long remain so. I am sorry that I cannot pretend to give a final decision.
The view seems preposterous because, if an animal has sense-impressions when his brain is excited by currents starting in the end-organs, it seems incredible that he should not be conscious in imagination and memory by having similar excitations caused from within. We are accustomed to think of memory as the companion of sensation. But, after all, it is a question of fact whether the connections in the cat brain include connections between present sensation-neuroses and past sensation-neuroses. The only connections may be those between the former and impulse-neuroses, and there is no authoritative reason why we should suppose any others unless they are demonstrated by the cat’s behavior. This is just the point at issue. Such evidence as the phenomena of animals’ dreams does not at all prove the presence of memory or imagination. A dog may very well growl in his sleep without any idea of a hostile dog. The impulse to growl _may_ be caused by chance excitement of its own neurosis without any sensation-neurosis being concerned. _Acts_ of recognition may have no _feelings_ of recognition going with or causing them. A sense-impression of me gets associated in my dog’s mind with the impulses to jump on me, lick my hand, wag his tail, etc. If, after a year, the connection between the two has lasted, he will surely jump on me, lick my hand and wag his tail, though he has not and never had any representation of me.
The only logical way to go at this question and settle it is, I think, to find some associations the formation of which requires the presence of images, of ideas. You have to give an animal a chance to associate sense-impression A with sense-impression B and then to associate B with some act C so that the presence of B in the mind will lead to the performance of C. Presumably the representation of B, if present, will lead to C just as the sense-impression B did. Now, if the chance to associate B with A has been improved, you ought, when the animal is confronted with the sense-impression A, to get a revival of B and so the act C. Such a result would, if all chance to associate C with A had been eliminated, demonstrate the presence of representations and their associations. I performed such an experiment in a form modified so as to make it practicable with my animals and resources. Unfortunately, this modification spoils the crucial nature of the experiment and robs it of much of its authority. The experiment was as follows:—
A cat was in the big box where they were kept (see p. 90) very hungry. As I had been for a long time the source of all food, the cats had grown to watch me very carefully. I sat, during the experiment, about eight feet from the box, and would at intervals of two minutes clap my hands four times and say, “I must feed those cats.” Of course the cat would at first feel no impulse except perhaps to watch me more closely when this signal was given. After ten seconds had elapsed I would take a piece of fish, go up to the cage and hold it through the wire netting, three feet from the floor. The cat would then, of course, feel the impulse to climb up the front of the cage. In fact, experience had previously established the habit of climbing up whenever I moved toward the cage, so that in the experiment the cat did not ordinarily wait until I arrived there with the fish. In this experiment
A = The sense-impression of my movements and voice when giving the signal.
B = The sense-impression of my movements in taking fish, rising, walking to box, etc.
C = The act of climbing up, with the impulse leading thereunto.
The question was whether after a while A would remind the cat of B, and cause him to do C before he got the _sense-impression_ of B, that is, before the ten seconds were up. If A leads to C through a memory of B, animals surely _can_ have association of ideas proper, and probably often _do_. Now, as a fact, after from thirty to sixty trials, the cat does perform C immediately on being confronted by A or some seconds later, at all events before B is presented. And it is my present opinion that their action is to be explained by the presence, through association, of the idea B. But it is not impossible that A was associated _directly_ with the impulse to C, although that impulse was removed from it by ten seconds of time. Such an association is, it seems to me, highly improbable, unless the neurosis of A, and with it the psychosis, continues until the impulse to C appears. But if it does so continue during the ten seconds, and thus get directly linked to C, we have exactly a representation, an image, a memory, in the mind for eight of those ten seconds. It does not help the deniers of images to substitute an image of A for an image of B. Yet, unless they do this, they have to suppose that A comes and goes, and that after ten seconds C comes, and, passing over the intervening blank, willfully chooses out A and associates itself with it. There are some other considerations regarding the behavior of the cats from the time the signal was given till they climbed up, which may be omitted in the hope that it will soon be possible to perform a decisive experiment. If an observer can make sure of the animal’s attention to a sequence A-B, where B does not arouse any impulse to an act, and then later get the animal to associate B with C, leaving A out this time, he may then, if A, when presented anew, arouses C, bid the deniers of representations to forever hold their peace.
Another reason for allowing animals representations and images is found in the longer time taken to form the association between the act of licking or scratching and the consequent escape. If the associations in general were simply between situation and impulse and act, one would suppose that the situation would be associated with the impulse to lick or scratch as readily as with the impulse to turn a button or claw a string. Such is not the case. By comparing the curves for Z on pages 57-58 with the others, one sees that for so simple an act it takes a long time to form the association. This is not a final reason, for lack of attention, a slight increase in the time taken to open the door after the act was done, or an absence of preparation in the nervous system for connections between these particular acts and definite sense-impressions, may very well have been the cause of the difficulty in forming the associations. Nor is it certain that _ideas_ of clawing loops would be easier to form than ideas of scratching or licking oneself. The matter is still open to question. But, as said before, my opinion would be that animals _do_ have representations and that such are the beginning of the rich life of ideas in man. For the most part, however, such are confined to specific and narrow practical lines. There was no evidence that my animals habitually _did_ form associations of ideas from their experience throughout, or that such were constantly revived without the spur of immediate practical advantage.[15]
Before leaving the topic an account may be given of experiments similar to the one described above as performed on Cats 3 and 4, which were undertaken with Cat 13 and Dogs 1, 2 and 3.
Cat 13 was fed with pieces of fish at the top of the wire netting 45 times, to accustom it to climbing up when it saw me come with fish. I then went through the same process as with 3 and 4, but at intervals of 60 to 90 seconds instead of 120. After 90 such trials it occasionally climbed up a little way, but though 135 trials in all were given, it never made the uniform and definite reaction which 3 and 4 did. It reacted, when it reacted at all, at from 5 to 9 seconds after the signal. Whether age, weight, lack of previous habitual climbing when I approached, or a slowness in forming the association made the difference, is uncertain.
Dog 1 was experimented on in the following manner: I would put him in a big pen, 20×10 feet, and sit outside facing it, he watching me as was his habit. I would pound with a stick and say, “Go over to the corner.” After an interval (10 seconds for 35 trials, 5 seconds for 60 trials) I would go over to the corner (12 feet off) and drop a piece of meat there. He, of course, followed and secured it. On the 6th, 7th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th trials he did perform the act before the 10 seconds were up, then for several times went during the two-minute intervals without regarding the signal, and finally abandoned the habit altogether, although he showed by his behavior when the signal was given that he was not indifferent to it.
Dogs 1, 2 and 3 were also given 95, 135 and 95 trials, respectively, the acts done being (1) standing up against the wire netting inclosing the pen, (2) placing the paws on top of a keg, and (3) jumping up onto a box. The time intervals were 5 seconds in each case. No dog of these ever performed the act before I started to take the meat to feed them, but they did show, by getting up if they were lying down when the signal was given, or by coming to me if they were in some other part of the pen, that something was suggested to them by it. Why these cases differ from the cases of Cats 3 and 4 (10 and 12 also presented phenomena like those reported in the cases of 3 and 4) is an interesting though not very important question. The dogs were not kept so hungry as were the cats, and experience had certainly not rendered the particular impulses involved so sensitive, so ready to discharge. Dogs 2 and 3 were older. There is no reason to invoke any qualitative difference in the mental make-up of the animals until more illuminating experiments are made.
