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[Footnote *: Aided by experimenter.]
I immediately set about reinstating the former attitude by lessening the
number of trials and the punishment, and by increasing the value of the
reward, but my best efforts, continuing up to August 28, failed markedly
to improve the condition. The number of correct choices did somewhat
increase, but at no time did the animal attain the degree of success
which he had achieved as early as July 31 in the eleventh series of
trials.
During the last two weeks of experimentation, all possible efforts were
put forth to discover the best combination of rewards and punishments.
Punishment was varied from 0 to confinement of sixty seconds, and many
kinds of food in different amounts were tried as rewards, but in spite
of everything Sobke failed to improve markedly. From time to time,
notably on August 12 and 21, he exhibited peculiarly strong resentment
toward me and repeatedly attempted to attack me.
The outcome of my experiments with problem 4 is peculiarly interesting
in that it indicates the importance of a favorable attitude toward the
work and the extreme risk from disturbing or discouraging conditions. It
seems not improbable that had the work progressed without change in
experimenter, or method of procedure, and above all without the
disturbance of the painting, Sobke might have solved problem 4 within a
few days. This is by no means certain, however, for in problems 2 and 3
the ratio of right to wrong choices instead of increasing steadily
increased very irregularly.
The detailed results for this problem are given in table 7. Reactive
tendencies which appear are: (a) persistent choice of the end boxes
followed, subsequently, by (b) the tendency to locate the middle box
directly. This proved fairly easy when the number of boxes involved was
only three as in settings 1, 4, 7, and 10. Setting 4 was most difficult
of all, because box 9 was avoided or ignored. When the number of open
boxes was as great as five, as in settings 2 and 8, the task was
obviously more difficult, but whereas success in setting 2 appeared
early, in setting 8 it failed to appear during the course of
experimentation. For the settings 3, 6, and 9, involving either seven or
nine open boxes, the direct choice of the middle box was next to
impossible, and Sobke tended to choose, first of all, a particular box
toward one end of the series, for example, box 2, in setting 3, and box
7 in setting 9. To the experimenter, as he watched the animal's
behavior, it looked as though effort each time were being made to locate
the middle member of the group. This appeared relatively easy for groups
of three boxes, extremely difficult for as many as five boxes, and
almost impossible for seven or nine.
3. Julius, _Pongo pygmaeus_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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