Animal intelligence: Experimental studiesThorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Science
Animal intelligence: Experimental studies
Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Animal intelligence; Psychology, Comparative
First the animal must
have observed that the door is opened by the hand grasping
the handle and moving the latch. Next she must reason, by
‘the logic of feelings’—‘If a hand can do it, why not a paw?’
Then strongly moved by this idea she makes the first trial.
The steps which follow have not been observed, so we cannot
certainly say whether she learns by a succession of trials that
depression of the thumb piece constitutes the essential part
of the process, or, perhaps more probably, that her initial
observations supplied her with the idea of clicking the thumb
piece. But, however this may be, it is certain that the pushing
with the hind feet after depressing the latch must be due to
adaptive reasoning unassisted by observation; and only by the
concerted action of all her limbs in the performance of a
highly complex and most unnatural movement is her final purpose
attained.” (Animal Intelligence, pp. 420-422.)
A page or two later we find a less ponderous account of a cat’s success
in turning aside a button and so opening a window:—
“At Parara, the residence of Parker Bowman, Esq., a full-grown
cat was one day accidentally locked up in a room without any
other outlet than a small window, moving on hinges, and kept
shut by means of a swivel. Not long afterwards the window was
found open and the cat gone. This having happened several
times, it was at last found that the cat jumped upon the window
sill, placed her fore paws as high as she could reach against
the side, deliberately reached with one over to the swivel,
moved it from its horizontal to a vertical position, and then,
leaning with her whole weight against the window, swung it open
and escaped.” (Animal Intelligence, p. 425.)
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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