Animal intelligence: Experimental studiesThorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Science
Animal intelligence: Experimental studies
Thorndike, Edward L. (Edward Lee)
Animal intelligence; Psychology, Comparative
In the case of body temperature, again, each observes as before, there
being the same variability in the reports; but John _may also observe
in a second way_, not by observing a thermometer with eyes, but by
observing the temperature of his body through other sense-organs so
situated that they lead to knowledge of only his own body’s temperature.
It is important to note that for efficient knowledge of his own
body-temperature, John does not use the sense approach peculiar to him,
but that available for all observers. He identifies and measures his
‘feverishness’ by studying himself as he would study any other animal, by
thermometer and eye.
In the case of the toothache the students proceed as before, except
that they use John’s gestures, facial expression, cries and verbal
reports, as well as his mere bodily structure and condition. They not
only observe the cavities in his teeth, the signs of ulcer and the like,
but they also ask him, tapping a tooth, “Does it hurt?” “How long has
it hurt?” “Does it hurt very much?” and the like. John, if their equal
in knowledge of dentistry, would use the same methods, testing himself,
asking himself questions and using the replies made by himself to himself
in inner speech. But, as with temperature, he would get data, for his
identification of the toothache, from a source unavailable for the
others, the sense-organs in his teeth.
It is worth while to consider how they and he would proceed to an exact
identification or measure of the intensity of his toothache such as was
made of his stature or body-temperature. First, they would need a scale
of toothaches of varying intensities. Next, they would need means of
comparing the intensity of his toothache with those of this scale to see
which it was most like. Given this scale and means of comparison, they
would turn John’s attention from the original toothache to one of given
intensity, and compare the two, both by his facial expression, gestures
and the like, and by the verbal reports made. John would do likewise,
reporting to himself instead of to them. The similarity of the procedure
to that in studying a so-called physical fact is still clearer if we
suppose a primitive condition of the scales of length and temperature.
Suppose for example that for the length of a man we had only ‘short’ or
‘tall as a deer,’ ‘medium’ or ‘tall as a moose,’ and ‘tall’ or ‘tall
as a horse’; and for the intensity of the toothache of a man ‘little’
or ‘intense as a pin-prick,’ ‘medium’ or ‘intense as a knife-cut,’
and ‘great’ or ‘intense as a spear-thrust.’ Then obviously the only
difference between the identification of the length of a man’s body and
the identification of the intensity of his toothache would be that the
latter was made by all on the basis of behavior as well as anatomy, and
made by the individual having it on the basis of data from an additional
sense-organ.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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