Animal intelligence: Experimental studiesThorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Science
Animal intelligence: Experimental studies
Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Animal intelligence; Psychology, Comparative
By reference to the previous descriptions of apparatus, it will be seen
that box D was arranged with two compartments, separated by a wire
screen. The larger of these had a front of wooden bars with a door which
fell open when a string stretched across the top was bitten or clawed
down. The smaller was closed by boards on three sides and by the wire
screen on the fourth. Through the screen a cat within could see the one
to be imitated pull the string, go out through the door thus opened and
eat the fish outside. When put in this compartment, the top being covered
by a large box, a cat soon gave up efforts to claw through the screen,
quieted down and watched more or less the proceedings going on in the
other compartment. Thus this apparatus could be used to test the power of
imitation. A cat who had no experience with the means of escape from the
large compartment was put in the closed one; another cat, who would do it
readily, was allowed to go through the performance of pulling the string,
going out, and eating the fish. Record was made of the number of times he
did so and of the number of times the imitator had his eyes clearly fixed
on him. These were called ‘times seen.’ Cases where the imitator was
looking in the general direction of the ‘imitatee’ and might very well
have seen him and probably did, were marked ‘doubtful.’ In the remaining
cases the cat did not see what was done by his instructor. After the
imitatee had done the thing a number of times, the other was put in the
big compartment alone, and the time it took him before pulling the string
was noted and his general behavior closely observed. If he failed in 5
or 10 or 15 minutes to do so, he was released and not fed. This entire
experiment was repeated a number of times. From the times taken by the
imitator to escape and from observation of the way that he did it, we can
decide whether imitation played any part. The history of several cases
are given in the following tables. In the first column are given the
lengths of time that the imitator was shut up in the box watching the
imitatee. In the second column is the number of times that the latter did
the trick. In the third and fourth are the times that the imitator surely
and possibly saw it done, while in the last is given the time that, when
tried alone, the imitator took to pull the string, or if he failed,
the time he was in the box trying to get out. Times are in minutes and
seconds, failures denoted by F:
TABLE 5 (a)
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