Chapter I: Preface

The main purpose of this volume is to make accessible to students of psychology and biology the author’s experimental studies of animal intellect and behavior.[1] These studies have, I am informed by teachers of comparative psychology, a twofold interest. Since they represent the first deliberate and extended application of the experimental method in animal psychology, they are a useful introduction to the later literature of that subject. They mark the change from books of general argumentation on the basis of common experience interpreted in terms of the faculty psychology, to monographs reporting detailed and often highly technical experiments interpreted in terms of original and acquired connections between situation and response. Since they represent the point of view and the method of present animal psychology, but in the case of very general and simple problems, they are useful also as readings for students who need a general acquaintance with some sample of experimental work in this field.

It has seemed best to leave the texts unaltered except for the correction of typographical errors, renumbering of tables and figures, and redrawing the latter. In a few places, where the original text has been found likely to be misunderstood, brief notes have been added. It is hard to resist the impulse to temper the style, especially of the ‘Animal Intelligence,’ with a certain sobriety and restraint. What one writes at the age of twenty-three is likely to irritate oneself a dozen years later, as it doubtless irritated others at the time. The charitable reader may allay his irritation by the thought that a degree of exuberance, even of arrogance, is proper to youth.

To the reports of experimental studies are added two new essays dealing with the general laws of human and animal learning.

JANUARY, 1911.

CONTENTS

PAGE

THE STUDY OF CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE STUDY OF BEHAVIOR 1

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE 20

Introduction 20

Description of Apparatus 29

Experiments with Cats 35

Experiments with Dogs 56

Experiments with Chicks 61

Reasoning or Inference 67

Imitation 76

In Chicks 81

In Cats 85

In Dogs 92

The Mental Fact in Association 98

Association by Similarity and the Formation of Concepts 116

Criticism of Previous Theories 125

Delicacy of Association 128

Complexity of Associations 132

Number of Associations 135

Permanence of Associations 138

Inhibition of Instincts by Habit 142

Attention 144

The Social Consciousness of Animals 146

Interaction 147

Applications to Pedagogy, Anthropology, etc. 149

Conclusion 153

THE INSTINCTIVE REACTIONS OF YOUNG CHICKS 156

A NOTE ON THE PSYCHOLOGY OF FISHES 169

THE MENTAL LIFE OF THE MONKEYS 172

Introduction 173

Apparatus 177

Learning without Tuition 182

Tests with Mechanisms 184

Tests with Signals 195

Experiments on the Influence of Tuition 209

Introduction 209

Imitation of Human Beings 211

Imitation of Other Monkeys 219

Learning apart from Motor Impulses 222

General Mental Development of the Monkeys 236

LAWS AND HYPOTHESES OF BEHAVIOR 241

THE EVOLUTION OF THE HUMAN INTELLECT 282

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE