My work, although obviously preliminary and incomplete, differs from
most of the previous studies of the complex behavior of the infrahuman
primates in that I relied chiefly upon a specially devised method and
applied it systematically over a period of several months. The work was
intensive and quantitative instead of more or less incidental, casual,
and qualitative as has usually been the case. Naturally, during the
course of my special study of ideational behavior observations were made
relative to various other aspects of the life of my subjects. Such, for
example, are my notes on the use of the hands, the instincts, the
emotions, and the natural aptitudes of individuals. It is, indeed,
impossible to observe any of the primates without noting most
interesting and illuminating activities. And although the major portion
of my time was spent in hard and monotonous work with my experimental
apparatus, I found time each day to get into intimate touch with the
free activities of my subjects and to observe their social relations and
varied expressions of individuality. As a result of my close
acquaintance with this band of primates, I feel more keenly than ever
before the necessity of taking into account, in connection with all
experimental analyses of behavior, the temperamental characteristics,
experience, and affective peculiarities of individuals.
The light which I have obtained on the general problem of ideation has
come, first, through a method which I have rather inaptly named the
multiple-choice method, and second, and more incidentally, through a
variety of supplementary methods which are described in Section IV of
this report. These supplementary methods are simple tests of ideation
rather than systematic modes of research. They differ from my chief
method, among other respects, in that they have been used by various
investigators during the past ten or fifteen years. It was not my aim to
repeat precisely the observations made by others, but instead to verify
some of them, and more especially, to throw additional light on my main
problem and to further the analysis of complex behavior.
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