In each entrance door, as is shown in figure 15 of plate IV, a window
was cut so that the experimenter might watch the animal after it had
entered a given box, and especially note when it left the box after
having received its reward. This window was covered with wire netting.
No such windows were necessary in the exit doors, but to them were
attached heavy galvanized iron flanges which served to cover the food
receptacles. One of these flanges is labelled o in figure 17. The food
receptacles were provided by boring holes in a 2 by 4 inch timber
securely nailed to the floor immediately outside of the exit doors. Into
these holes aluminum cups fitted snugly, and the iron flanges, when the
doors were closed, fitted so closely over the cups that it was
impossible for the animals to obtain food from them.
[Illustration: FIGURE 17.--Ground plan of multiple-choice apparatus in
experiment room A. Scale 1/60
A, record stand; C, bench for observer; B, step as approach to C; D,
alleyway leading to E, response-compartment; F, one of the nine (1-9)
similar multiple-choice boxes; G, H, alleyways leading from boxes to
starting point at D; I, alleyway used by experimenter as approach to
rear of apparatus; W, W, windows; P, alleyway; Z, large cage; 16,
entrance to room A; 17, entrance to apparatus and thence via 10 to
cages; 18, entrance to alleyway 1; 11, 15, entrances to D; 12, entrance
to E; 13, entrance door of box 5; 14, exit door of box 5; o, cover for
food receptacle.]
As originally constructed, no provision was made in the apparatus for
locking the entrance and exit doors of the several boxes when they were
closed. But as two of the subjects after a time learned to open the
doors from either outside or inside the boxes, it became necessary to
introduce locking devices which could be operated by the experimenter
from the observation bench. This was readily accomplished by cutting
holes in the floor, which permitted an iron staple, screwed to the lower
edge of each door, to project through the floor. Through these staples
by means of a lever for each of the nine boxes, the observer was able to
slide a wooden bar, placed beneath the floor of the room, thus locking
or unlocking either the entrance door, the exit door, or both, in the
case of any one of the nine boxes.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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