Animal intelligence: Experimental studiesThorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Science
Animal intelligence: Experimental studies
Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Animal intelligence; Psychology, Comparative
No. 1 saw me do 9 different acts and No. 3, 7, which they had failed
of themselves to do.[30] After from 1 to 40 chances to imitate me they
still failed to operate at all 11 of these mechanisms. In the case of
3 out of 5 that were worked the act was not the same as that taught.
No. 1, who saw me pull a nail out by taking the end of it and pulling
the nail away from the box, himself put his hand round the nail and
wriggled it out by pulling his hand back and forth. No. 3, who saw me
pull a bolt up with my fingers, succeeded by jerking and yanking the door
until he shook the bolt up. He saw me pull a hook out of an eye, but he
succeeded by pulling at a bar to which it was attached. In the case of
one of the two remaining acts (No. 3 with _nail chute_) the act was done
once and never again, though ample opportunity was given and tuition
continued. It could, therefore, hardly have been due to an idea instilled
by the tuition. The remaining case, No. 1, with loop, must, I think,
be attributed to accident, especially since No. 3 failed to profit by
precisely the same sort of tuition with precisely the same act.
Nor is there any evidence to show that although tuition failed to cause
successes where unaided effort failed, it yet caused attempts which would
not otherwise have occurred. Out of fifteen cases where such might have
appeared, there were only three where it is possible to claim that they
did. No one of these three is a sure case. With RR (wood plug) No. 1 did
seem to pull the plug more definitely after seeing me than before. With
QQ (c) (nail chute) and MM (bolt at top) he may possibly have done so.
In 5 cases I tried the influence of seeing me make the movement on
animals who had done the act of themselves, the aim being to see whether
there would be a marked shortening of the time, a change in their way of
operating the mechanism or an attempt at such change. I will give the
essential facts from the general table on pages 226-229.
(_a_) No. 1 had succeeded in pulling in the box by the upper string in
OOO (upper string box) in 2.20 and then failed in 3.00. I showed him 4
times. He failed in 10. I showed him 4 more times. He failed in 10. I
showed him 4 more times. He succeeded in .20. No change in manner of act
or objects attacked, though my manner was different from his.
(_b_) No. 1 had succeeded in QQ (a) (chute bar) in 8.00. I showed him 20
times. He failed in 10. I showed him 10 more times. He succeeded in 2.00.
I showed him 10 more times. He succeeded in 50 seconds. No change in his
manner of performance or in the object attacked, though my manner was
different from his.
(_c_) No. 1 had succeeded in 3.00, .25, .07, .25, .20, .06 and .09 with
QQ (b) (chute bar double) and then failed in 5.00. I showed him 10 times.
He then failed in 5 twice, succeeded in 3.00, and failed in 5 again. No
change in manner of performance or in the object attacked, though my
manner was different from his.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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