Work was begun on problem 1a, August 20, and for six successive days two
series of trials per day were given, the settings for which as well as
the resulting choices are given in table 10. Most notable in these
results is the large number of cases in which Julius chose first the
second box from the right end of the series, or in other words that box
which had been the right one in problem 2. Contrary to expectation, he
showed no inclination to abandon this tendency to choose the second from
the right end, and the ratio of right to wrong choices changed in the
direction opposite from expectation, beginning with 1 to 4 and ending on
the sixth day with 0 to 20.
It was obviously useless to continue the experiment further since Julius
had given up his attempts to locate the right box in the first choice
and was apparently satisfied to discover it by a process of trial and
error. He had, it would seem, satisfied himself that the problem was
insoluble. These results obtained in problem 1a constitute a most
interesting comment on the effects of problem 2 on the orang utan.
Behavior similar to that which he developed well might have been
obtained from a child of three to four years placed in a like situation
and forced to strive, day after day, to solve a problem beyond its
ideational capacity.
In many respects the most interesting and to the experimenter the most
surprising result of this long series of observations with Julius was
the lack of consistent improvement. It seemed almost incredible that he
should continue, day after day, to make incorrect choices in a
particular setting while choosing correctly in some other setting which
from the standpoint of the experimenter was not more difficult.
TABLE 10
Results for Orang utan in problem 1a
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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