Chapter II (2)

In BB 0 out of 2 (that is, without previous experience of AA).

In CC 1 out of 2.

In II 3 out of 3.

In M 1 out of 2.

In N 1 out of 3.

In G 1 out of 3.

EXPERIMENTS WITH CHICKS

The apparatus was as follows:

P was simply a small pen arranged with two exits, one leading to the inclosure where were the other chicks and food, one leading to another pen with no exit. The drawing (Fig. 15 on this page) explains itself. A chick was placed at A and left to find its way out. The walls were made of books stuck up on end.

Q was a similar pen arranged so that the real exit was harder to find. (See Fig. 16.)

R was still another pen similarly constructed, with four possible avenues to be taken. (See Fig. 17.)

S was a pen with walls 11 inches high. On the right side an inclined plane of wire screening led from the floor of the pen to the top of its front wall. Thence the chick could jump down to where its fellows and the food and drink were. S was 17 × 14 in size.

T was a pen of the same size as S, with a block of wood 3 inches by 3 and 2 inches high in the right back corner. From this an inclined plane led to the top of the front wall (on the right side of the box). But a partition was placed along the left edge of this plane, so that a chick could reach it only _via_ the wooden block, not by a direct jump.

U was a pen 16 × 14 × 10 inches. Along the back toward the right corner were placed a series of steps 1½ inches wide, the first 1, the second 2, and the third 3 inches high. In the corner was a platform 4 × 4, and 4 high, from which access to the top of the front wall of the pen could be gained by scrambling up inside a stovepipe 11 inches long, inclined upward at an angle of about 30°. From the edge of the wall the chick could, of course, jump down to food and society. The top of the pen was covered so that the chick could not from the platform jump onto the edge of the stovepipe or the top of the pen wall. The only means of exit was to go up the steps to the platform, up through the stovepipe to the front wall, and then jump down.

The time-curves for chicks 90, 91, 92, 93, 94 and 95, all 2-8 days old when experimented on, follow on page 65. The scale is the same as that in the curves of the cats and dogs. Besides these simple acts, which any average chick will accidentally hit upon and associate, there are, in the records of my preliminary study of animal intelligence, a multitude of all sorts of associations which some chicks have happened to form. Chicks have escaped from confinement by stepping on a little platform in the back of the box, by jumping up and pulling a string like that in D, by pecking at a door, by climbing up a spiral staircase and out through a hole in the wall, by doing this and then in addition walking across a ladder for a foot to another wall from which they jump down, etc. Not every chick will happen upon the right way in these cases, but the chicks who did happen upon it all formed the associations perfectly after enough trials.

The behavior of the chicks shows the same general character as that of the cats, conditioned, of course, by the different nature of the instinctive impulses. Take a chick put in T (inclined plane) for an example. When taken from the food and other chicks and dropped into the pen he shows evident signs of discomfort; he runs back and forth, peeping loudly, trying to squeeze through any openings there may be, jumping up to get over the wall, and pecking at the bars or screen, if such separate him from the other chicks. Finally, in his general running around he goes up the inclined plane a way. He may come down again, or he may go on up far enough to see over the top of the wall. If he does, he will probably go running up the rest of the way and jump down. With further trials he gains more and more of an impulse to walk up an inclined plane when he sees it, while the vain running and pecking, etc., are stamped out by the absence of any sequent pleasure. Finally, the chick goes up the plane as soon as put in. In scientific terms this history means that the chick, when confronted by loneliness and confining walls, responds by those acts which in similar conditions in nature would be likely to free him. Some one of these acts leads him to the successful act, and the resulting pleasure stamps it in. Absence of pleasure stamps all others out. The case is just the same as with dogs and cats. The time-curves are shown in Fig. 18.

Coming now to the question of differences in intelligence between the different animals, it is clear that such differences are hard to estimate accurately. The chicks are surely very much slower in forming associations and less able to tackle hard ones, but the biggest part of the difference between what they do and what the dogs and cats do is not referable so much to any difference in intelligence as to a difference in their bodily organs and instinctive impulses. As between dogs and cats, the influence of the difference in quantity of activity, in the direction of the instinctive impulses, in the versatility of the fore limb, is hard to separate from the influence of intelligence proper. The best practical tests to judge such differences in general would be differences in memory, which are very easily got at, differences in the delicacy and complexity attainable, and, of course, differences in the slope of the curves for the same association. If all these tests agreed, we should have a right to rank one animal above the other in a scale of intelligence. But this whole question of grading is, after all, not so important for comparative psychology as its popularity could lead one to think. Comparative psychology wants first of all to trace human intellection back through the phylum to its origin, and in this aim is helped little by knowing that dogs are brighter than cats, or whales than seals, or horses than cows. Further, the whole question of ‘intelligence’ should be resolved into particular inquiries into the development of attention, activity, memory, etc.

So far as concerns dogs and cats, I should decide that the former were more generally intelligent. The main reason, however, why dogs seem to us so intelligent is not a good reason for the belief. It is because, more than any other domestic animal, they direct their attention to _us_, to what we do, and so form associations connected with acts of ours.

Having finished our attempt to give a true description of the facts of association, so far as observed from the outside, we may now progress to discuss its inner nature. A little preface about certain verbal usages is necessary before doing so. Throughout I shall use the word ‘animal’ or ‘animals,’ and the reader might fancy that I took it for granted that the associative processes were the same in all animals as in these cats and dogs of mine. Really, I claim for my animal psychology only that it is the psychology of just these particular animals. What this warrants about animals in general may be left largely to the discretion of the reader. As I shall later say, it is probable that in regard to imitation and the power of forming associations from a lot of free ideas, the anthropoid primates are essentially different from the cats and dogs.

The reasons why I say ‘animals’ instead of ‘dogs and cats of certain ages’ are two. I do think that the probability that the other mammals, barring the primates, offer no objections to the theories here advanced about dogs and cats is a very strong probability, strong enough to force the burden of proof upon any one who should, for instance, say that horse-goat psychology was not like cat-dog psychology in these general matters. I should claim that, till the contrary was shown in any case, my statements should stand for the mammalian mind in general, barring the primates. My second reason is that I hate to burden the reader with the disgusting rhetoric which would result if I had to insert particularizations and reservations at every step. The word ‘animal’ is too useful, rhetorically, to be sacrificed. Finally, inasmuch as most of my theorizing will be in the line of denying certain relatively high functions to animals, the evidence from cats and dogs is sufficient, for they are from among the most intelligent animals, and functions of the kind to be discussed, if absent in their case, are probably absent from the others.

REASONING OR INFERENCE

The first great question is whether or not animals are ever led to do any of their acts by reasoning. Do they ever conclude from inference that a certain act will produce a certain desired result, and so do it? The best opinion has been that they do not. The best interpretation of even the most extraordinary performances of animals has been that they were the result of accident and association or imitation. But it has after all been only opinion and interpretation, and the opposite theory persistently reappears in the literature of the subject. So, although it is in a way superfluous to give the _coup de grâce_ to the despised theory that animals reason, I think it is worth while to settle this question once for all.

The great support of those who do claim for animals the ability to infer has been their wonderful performances which resemble our own. These could not, they claim, have happened by accident. No animal could learn to open a latched gate by accident. The whole substance of the argument vanishes if, as a matter of fact, animals do learn those things by accident. _They certainly do._ In this investigation choice was made of the intelligent performances described by Romanes in the following passages. I shall quote at some length because these passages give an admirable illustration of an attitude of investigation which this research will, I hope, render impossible for any scientist in the future. Speaking of the general intelligence of cats, Romanes says:

“Thus, for instance, while I have only heard of one solitary
case ... of a dog which, without tuition, divined the use of
a thumb latch so as to open a closed door by jumping on the
handle and depressing the thumb-piece, I have received some
half-dozen instances of this display of intelligence on the
part of cats. These instances are all such precise repetitions
of one another that I conclude the fact to be one of tolerably
ordinary occurrence among cats, while it is certainly rare
among dogs. I may add that my own coachman once had a cat
which, certainly without tuition, learnt thus to open a door
that led into the stables from a yard into which looked some
of the windows of the house. Standing at these windows when
the cat did not see me, I have many times witnessed her _modus
operandi_. Walking up to the door with a most matter-of-course
kind of air, she used to spring at the half hoop handle just
below the thumb latch. Holding on to the bottom of this
half-hoop with one fore paw, she then raised the other to the
thumb piece, and while depressing the latter finally with her
hind legs scratched and pushed the door posts so as to open the
door....

“Of course in all such cases the cats must have previously
observed that the doors are opened by persons placing their
hands upon the handles and, having observed this, the animals
act by what may be strictly termed rational imitation. But it
should be observed that the process as a whole is something
more than imitative. For not only would observation alone be
scarcely enough (within any limits of thoughtful reflection
that it would be reasonable to ascribe to an animal) to enable
a cat upon the ground to distinguish that the essential part
of the process consists not in grasping the handle, but in
depressing the latch; but the cat certainly never saw any one,
after having depressed the latch, pushing the door posts with
his legs; and that this pushing action is due to an originally
deliberate intention of opening the door, and not to having
accidentally found this action to assist the process, is shown
by one of the cases communicated to me; for in this case, my
correspondent says, ‘the door was not a loose-fitting one, by
any means, and I was surprised that by the force of one hind
leg she should have been able to push it open after unlatching
it.’ Hence we can only conclude that the cats in such cases
have a very definite idea as to the mechanical properties of
a door: they know that to make it open, even when unlatched,
it requires to be _pushed_—a very different thing from trying
to imitate any particular action which they may see to be
performed for the same purpose by man. The whole psychological
process, therefore, implied by the fact of a cat opening a
door in this way is really most complex. First the animal must
have observed that the door is opened by the hand grasping
the handle and moving the latch. Next she must reason, by
‘the logic of feelings’—‘If a hand can do it, why not a paw?’
Then strongly moved by this idea she makes the first trial.
The steps which follow have not been observed, so we cannot
certainly say whether she learns by a succession of trials that
depression of the thumb piece constitutes the essential part
of the process, or, perhaps more probably, that her initial
observations supplied her with the idea of clicking the thumb
piece. But, however this may be, it is certain that the pushing
with the hind feet after depressing the latch must be due to
adaptive reasoning unassisted by observation; and only by the
concerted action of all her limbs in the performance of a
highly complex and most unnatural movement is her final purpose
attained.” (Animal Intelligence, pp. 420-422.)

A page or two later we find a less ponderous account of a cat’s success in turning aside a button and so opening a window:—

“At Parara, the residence of Parker Bowman, Esq., a full-grown
cat was one day accidentally locked up in a room without any
other outlet than a small window, moving on hinges, and kept
shut by means of a swivel. Not long afterwards the window was
found open and the cat gone. This having happened several
times, it was at last found that the cat jumped upon the window
sill, placed her fore paws as high as she could reach against
the side, deliberately reached with one over to the swivel,
moved it from its horizontal to a vertical position, and then,
leaning with her whole weight against the window, swung it open
and escaped.” (Animal Intelligence, p. 425.)

A description has already been given on page 31 of the small box (C), whose door fell open when the button was turned, and also of a large box (CC) for the dogs, with a similar door. The thumb-latch experiment was carried on with the same box (G) for both cats and dogs, but the door was arranged so that a greater force (1.3 kilograms) was required in the case of the dogs. It will be remembered that the latch was so fixed that if the thumb piece were pressed down, without contemporaneous outward pressure of the door, the latch bar would merely drop back into its catch as soon as the paw was taken off the door. If, however, the door were pushed outward, the latch bar, being pressed closely against the outer edge of its catch, would, if lifted, be likely to fall outside it and so permit the door to open if then or later sufficient pressure were exerted. Eight cats (Nos. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 and 13) were, one at a time, left in this thumb-latch box. All exhibited the customary instinctive clawings and squeezings and bitings. Out of the eight all succeeded in the course of their vigorous struggles in pressing down the thumb piece, so that if the door had been free to swing open, they could have escaped. Six succeeded in pushing both thumb-piece down and door out, so that the bar did not fall back into its place. Of these five succeeded in also later pushing the door open, so that they escaped and got the fish outside. Of these, three, after repeated trials, associated the complicated movements required with the sight of the interior of the box so firmly that they attacked the thumb latch the moment they were put in. The history of the formation of the association in the case of 3 and of 4 is shown in the curves in Figs. 6 and 7. In the case of 13 the exact times were not taken. The combination of accidents required was enough to make No. 1 and No. 6 take a long time to get out. Consequently, weariness and failure inhibited their impulses to claw, climb, etc., more than the rare pleasure from getting out strengthened them, and they failed to form the association. Like the cats who utterly failed to get out, they finally ceased to try when put in. The history of their efforts is as in Table 3: the figures in the columns represent the time (in minutes and seconds) the animal was in the box before escaping or before being taken out if he failed to escape. Cases of failure are designated by an F after the figures. Double lines represent an interval of twenty-four hours.

TABLE 3

+----------+---------+
| No. 1. | No. 6. |
+==========+=========+
| 13.00 F | 17.50 |
| 9.30 | 3.30 |
| 1.40 | 9.00 |
| .50 | 2.10 |
| 15.00 | 1.45 |
| 6.00 F | 1.55 |
+==========+ |
| 14.00 | 13.00 |
| +=========+
| 20.00 F | 5.00 |
| 4.30 | 2.30 |
| 20.00 F | 15.00 |
| 20.00 F | 10.00 F |
| +=========+
| 15.00 F | 5.00 |
+==========+ |
| 60.00 F | 15.00 F |
| +=========+
| | 10.00 F |
| +=========+
| | 10.00 F |
+----------+---------+

It should be noted that, although cats 3 and 4 had had some experience in getting out of boxes by clawing at loops and turning buttons, they had never had anything at all like a thumb latch to claw at, nor had they ever seen the door opened by its use, nor did they even have any experience of the fact that the part of the box where the thumb piece was was the door. And we may insert here, what will be stated more fully later, that there was displayed no observation of the surroundings or deliberation upon them. It was just a mad scramble to get out.

Three dogs (1, 2 and 3) were given a chance to liberate themselves from this same box. 2 and 3, who were rather inactive, failed to even push the thumb piece down. No. 1, who was very active, did push it down at the same time that she happened to be pushing against the door. She repeated this and formed the association as shown in the curve on page 60. She had had experience only of escaping by pulling a loop of string.

Out of 6 cats who were put in the box whose door opened by a button, not one failed, in the course of its impulsive activity, to push the button around. Sometimes it was clawed to one side from below; sometimes vigorous pressure on the top turned it around; sometimes it was pushed up by the nose. No cat who was given repeated trials failed to form a perfect association between the sight of the interior of that box and the proper movements. Some of these cats had been in other boxes where pulling a loop of string liberated them, 3 and 4 had had considerable experience with the boxes and probably had acquired a general tendency to claw at loose objects. 10, 11 and 12 had never been in _any box_ before. The curves are on pages 41 and 43.

Of two dogs, one, when placed in a similar but larger box, succeeded in hitting the button in such a way as to let the door open, and formed a permanent association, as shown by the curves on page 41. No one who had seen the behavior of these animals when trying to escape could doubt that their actions were directed by instinctive impulses, not by rational observation. It is then absolutely sure that a dog or cat _can_ open a door closed by a thumb latch or button, merely by the accidental success of its natural impulses. If _all_ cats, when hungry and in a _small_ box, will accidentally push the button that holds the door, an _occasional_ cat in a _large_ room may very well do the same. If three cats out of eight will accidentally press down a thumb piece and push open a small door, three cats out of a thousand may very well open doors or gates in the same way.

But besides thus depriving of their value the facts which these theorizers offer as evidence, we may, by a careful examination of the method of formation of these associations as it is shown in the time-curves, gain positive evidence that no power of inference was present in the subjects of the experiments. Surely if 1 and 6 had possessed any power of inference, they would not have failed to get out after having done so several times. Yet they did. (See p. 71.) If they had once even, much less if they had six or eight times, inferred what was to be done, they should have made the inference the seventh or ninth time. And if there were in these animals any power of inference, however rudimentary, however sporadic, however dim, there should have appeared among the multitude some cases where an animal, seeing through the situation, knows the proper act, does it, and from then on does it immediately upon being confronted with the situation. There ought, that is, to be a sudden vertical descent in the time-curve. Of course, where the act resulting from the impulse is very simple, very obvious, and very clearly defined, a single experience may make the association perfect, and we may have an abrupt descent in the time-curve without needing to suppose inference. But if in a complex act, a series of acts or an ill-defined act, one found such a sudden consummation in the associative process, one might very well claim that reason was at work. Now, the scores of cases recorded show no such phenomena. The cat does not look over the situation, much less _think_ it over, and then decide what to do. It bursts out at once into the activities which instinct and experience have settled on as suitable reactions to the situation ‘_confinement when hungry with food outside_.’ It does not ever in the course of its successes realize that such an act brings food and therefore decide to do it and thenceforth do it immediately from _decision_ instead of from impulse. The one impulse, out of many accidental ones, which leads to pleasure, becomes strengthened and stamped in thereby, and more and more firmly associated with the sense-impression of that box’s interior. Accordingly it is sooner and sooner fulfilled. Futile impulses are gradually stamped out. The gradual slope of the time-curve, then, shows the absence of reasoning. They represent the wearing smooth of a path in the brain, not the decisions of a rational consciousness.

In a later discussion of imitation further evidence that animals do not reason will appear. For the present, suffice it to say, that a dog, or cat, or chick, who does not in his own impulsive activity learn to escape from a box by pulling the proper loop, or stepping on a platform, or pecking at a door, will not learn it from seeing his fellows do so. They are incapable of even the inference (if the process may be dignified by that name) that what gives another food will give it to them also. So, also, it will be later seen that an animal cannot learn an act by being put through it. For instance, a cat who fails to push down a thumb piece and push out the door cannot be taught by having one take its paw and press the thumb piece down with it. This _could_ be learned by a certain type of associative process without inference. _Were there inference, it surely would be learned._

Finally, attention may be called to the curves which show the way that the animal mind deals with a series of acts (_e.g._ curves for G, J, K, L and O, found on pages 45 to 55 and 60). Were there any reasoning the animals ought early to master the method of escape in these cases (see descriptions on pages 31 to 34) so as to do the several acts in order, and not to repeat one after doing it once, or else ought utterly to fail to master the thing. But, in all these experiments, where there was every motive for the use of any reasoning faculty, if such existed, where the animals literally lived by their intellectual powers, one finds no sign of abstraction, or inference, or judgment.

So far I have only given facts which are quite uninfluenced by any possible incompetence or prejudice of the observer. These alone seem to disprove the existence of any rational faculty in the subjects experimented on. I may add that my observations of all the conduct of all these animals during the months spent with them, failed to find any act that even _seemed_ due to reasoning. I should claim that this quarrel ought now to be dropped for good and all,—that investigation ought to be directed along more sensible and profitable lines. I should claim that the psychologist who studies dogs and cats in order to defend this ‘reason’ theory is on a level with a zoölogist who should study fishes with a view to supporting the thesis that they possessed clawed digits. The rest of this account will deal with more promising problems, of which the first, and not the least important, concerns the facts and theories of _imitation_.

IMITATION

To the question, ‘Do animals imitate?’ science has uniformly answered, ‘Yes.’ But so long as the question is left in this general form, no correct answer to it is possible. It will be seen, from the results of numerous experiments soon to be described, that imitation of a certain sort is not possible for animals, and before entering upon that description it will be helpful to differentiate this matter of imitation into several varieties or aspects. The presence of some sorts of imitation does not imply that of other sorts.

There are, to begin with, the well-known phenomena presented by the imitative birds. The power is extended widely, ranging from the parrot who knows a hundred or more articulate sounds to the sparrow whom a patient shoemaker taught to get through a tune. Now, if a bird really gets a sound in his mind from hearing it and sets out forthwith to imitate it, as mocking birds are said at times to do, it is a mystery and deserves closest study. If a bird, out of a lot of random noises that it makes, chooses those for repetition which are like sounds that he has heard, it is again a mystery _why_, though not as in the previous case a mystery _how_, he does it. The important fact for our purpose is that, though the imitation of sounds is so habitual, there does not appear to be any marked general imitative tendency in these birds. There is no proof that parrots do muscular acts from having seen other parrots do them. But this should be studied. At any rate, until we know what sort of sounds birds imitate, what circumstances or emotional attitudes these are connected with, how they learn them and, above all, whether there is in birds which repeat sounds any tendency to imitate in other lines, we cannot, it seems to me, connect these phenomena with anything found in the mammals or use them to advantage in a discussion of animal imitation as the forerunner of human. In what follows they will be left out of account, will be regarded as a specialization removed from the general course of mental development, just as the feathers or right aortic arch of birds are particular specializations of no consequence for the physical development of mammals. For us, henceforth, imitation will mean imitation minus the phenomena of imitative birds.

There are also certain pseudo-imitative or semi-imitative phenomena which ought to be considered by themselves. For example, the rapid loss of the fear of railroad trains or telegraph wires among birds, the rapid acquisition of arboreal habits among Australian rodents, the use of proper feeding grounds, etc., may be held to be due to imitation. The young animal stays with or follows its mother from a specific instinct to keep near that particular object, to wit, its mother. It may thus learn to stay near trains, or scramble up trees, or feed at certain places and on certain plants. Actions due to following pure and simple may thus simulate imitation. Other groups of acts which now seem truly imitative may be indirect fruits of some one instinct. This must be kept in mind when one estimates the supposed imitation of parents by young. Further, it is certain that in the case of the chick, where early animal life has been carefully observed, instinct and individual experience between them rob imitation of practically all its supposed influence. Chicks get along without a mother very well. Yet no mother takes more care of her children than the hen. Care in other cases, then, need not mean instruction through imitation.

These considerations may prevent an unreserved acceptance of the common view that young animals get a great number of their useful habits from imitation, but I do not expect or desire them to lead to its summary rejection. I should not now myself reject it, though I think it quite possible that more investigation and experiment may finally reduce all the phenomena of so-called imitation of parents by young to the level of indirect results of instinctive acts.

Another special department of imitation may be at least vaguely marked off: namely, apparent imitation of certain limited sorts of acts which are somewhat frequent in the animal’s life. An example will do better than further definition.

Some sheep were being driven on board ship one at a time. In the course of their progress they had to jump over a hurdle. On this being removed before all had passed it, the next sheep was seen to jump as if to get over a hurdle, and so on for five or six, apparently sure evidence that they imitated the action, each of the one in front. Now, it is again possible that among gregarious animals there may be elaborate connections in the nervous system which allow the sight of certain particular acts in another animal to arouse the innervation leading to those acts, but that these connections are _limited_. The reactions on this view are specific responses to definite signals, comparable to any other instinctive or associational reaction. The sheep jumps when he sees the other sheep jump, not because of a general ability to do what he sees done, but because he is furnished with the instinct to jump at such a sight, or because his experience of following the flock over boulders and brooks and walls has got him into the habit of jumping at the spot where he sees one ahead of him jump; and so he jumps even though no obstacle be in his way. If due to instinct, the only peculiarity of such a reaction would be that the sense-impression calling forth the act would be the same act as done by another. If due to experience, there would be an exact correspondence to the frequent acts called forth _originally_ by several elements in a sense-impression, one of which is essential, and done _afterwards_ when only the _non-essentials_ are present. These two possibilities have not been sufficiently realized, yet they may contain the truth. On the other hand, these limited acts may be the primitive, sporadic beginnings of the general imitative faculty which we find in man. To this general faculty we may now turn, having cleared away some of the more doubtful phenomena which have shared its name.

It should be kept in mind that an imitative act may be performed quite unthinkingly, as when a man in the mob shouts what the others shout or claps when the others clap; may be done from an inference that since A by doing X makes pleasure for himself, I by doing X may get pleasure for myself; may, lastly, be done from what may be called a transferred association. This process is the one of interest in connection with our general topic, and most of my experiments on imitation were directed to the investigation of it. Its nature is simple. One sees the following sequence: ‘A turning a faucet, A getting a drink.’ If one can free this association from its narrow confinement to A, so as to get from it the association, ‘impulse to turn faucet, _me_ getting a drink,’ one will surely, if thirsty, turn the faucet, though he had never done so before. If one can from an act witnessed learn to do the act, he in some way makes use of the sequence seen, transfers the process to himself; in the common human sense of the word, he _imitates_. This kind of imitation is surely common in human life. It may be apparent in ontogeny before any power of inference is shown. After that power does appear, it still retains a wide scope, and teaches us a majority, perhaps, of the ordinary accomplishments of our practical life.

Now, as the writers of books about animal intelligence have not differentiated this meaning from the other possible ones, it is impossible to say surely that they have uniformly credited it to animals, and it is profitless to catalogue here their vague statements. Many opposers of the ‘reason’ theory have presupposed such a process and used it to replace reason as the cause of some intelligent performances. The upholders of the reason theory have customarily recognized such a process and claimed to have discounted it in their explanations of the various anecdotes. So we found Mr. Romanes, in the passage quoted, discussing the possibility that such an imitative process, without reason, could account for the facts. In his chapter on Imitation in ‘Habit and Instinct,’ Principal C. Lloyd Morgan, the sanest writer on comparative psychology, seems to accept imitation of this sort as a fact, though he could, if attacked, explain most of his illustrations by the simple forms. The fact is, as was said before, that no one has analyzed or systematized the phenomena, and so one cannot find clear, decisive statements to quote.

At any rate, whether previous authorities have agreed that such a process is present or not, it is worth while to tackle the question; and the formation of associations by imitation, if it occurs, is an important division of the formation of associations in general. The experiments and their results may now be described.

IMITATION IN CHICKS

No. 64 learned to get out of a certain pen (16 × 10 inches) by crawling under the wire screening at a certain spot. There was also a chance to get out by walking up an inclined plane and then jumping down. No. 66 was put in with 64. After 9 minutes 20 seconds, 66 went out by the inclined plane, although 64 had in the meantime crawled out under the screen 9 times. (As soon as he got out and ate a little he was put back.) It was impossible to judge how many of these times 66 really saw 64 do this. He was looking in that direction 5 of the times. So also, in three more trials, 66 used the inclined plane, though 64 crawled under each time. 67 was then tried. In 4 minutes 10 seconds, he crawled under, 64 having done so twice. Being then put in _alone_, he, without the chance to imitate, still crawled under. So probably he went under _when with 64_ not by imitation but by accident, just as 64 had learned the thing himself.

The accompanying figure (19) shows the apparatus used in the next experiment. A represents the top of a box (5 × 4 inches), 13 inches above the level of the floor C. On the floor C were the chicks and food. B is the top of a box 10 inches high. Around the edges of A except the one next B a wire screen was placed, and 65 was repeatedly put upon A until he learned to go quickly back to C _via_ B. Then the screen was bent outward at X so that a chick could barely squeeze through and down (A to C). Eleven chicks were then one at a time placed on A with 65. In every case but one they went A-C. In the case of the chick (75) who went A-B-C, there could have been no imitation, for he went down _before_ 65 did. One other went through the hole before 65 went to B. The remaining nine all had a chance to imitate 65 and to save the uncomfortable struggle to get through the hole, 65 going A-B-C 8 times before 68 went A-C, 2 times when with 66 and 76, once in the case of each of the others.

In still another experiment the apparatus was (as shown in Fig. 20) a pen 14 inches square, 10 inches high, with a wire screen in front and a hole 3½ inches square in the back. This hole opened into a passageway (B) leading around to C, where were the other chicks and food. Chicks who had failed, when put in alone, to find the way out, were put in with other chicks who had learned the way, to see if by seeing them go out they would learn the way. Chick 70 was given 4 trials alone, being left in the box 76 minutes all told. He was then given 9 trials (165 minutes) with another chick who went out _via_ B 36 times. 70 failed to follow him on any occasion. The trials were all given in the course of two days. Chick 73 failed in 1 trial (12 minutes) to get out of himself, and was then given 4 trials (94 minutes) with another chick who went out _via_ B 33 times. In this experiment, as in all others reported, sure evidence that the animals wanted to get out, was afforded by their persistent peckings and jumpings at the screen or bars that stood between them and C. Chick 72, after 8 unsuccessful trials alone (41 minutes), was given 8 trials with a chance to imitate. After the other chick had gone out 44 times, 72 _did go out_. He did not follow the other but went 20 seconds later. It depends upon one’s general opinion whether one shall attribute this one case out of three to accident or imitation.

I also took two chicks, one of whom learned to escape from A (in Fig. 19) by going to B and jumping down the side to the _right_ of A, the other of whom learned to jump down the side to the _left_, and placed them together upon A. Each took his own course uninfluenced by the other in 10 trials.

Chicks were also tried in several pens where there was only one possible way of escape to see if they would learn it _more quickly_ when another chick did the thing several times before their eyes. The method was to give some chicks their first trial with an imitation possibility and their second without, while others were given their first trial without and their second with. If the ratio of the average time of the first trial to the average time of the second is smaller in the first class than it is in the second class, we may find evidence of this sort of influence by imitation. Though imitation may not be able to make an animal _do_ what he would otherwise _not do_, it may make him do _quicker_ a thing he would have done sooner or later any way. As a fact the ratio is _much larger_. This is due to the fact that a chick, when in a pen with another chick, is not afflicted by the discomfort of loneliness, and so does not try so hard to get out. So the other chick, who is continually being put in with him to teach him the way out, really prolongs his stay in. This factor destroys the value of these quantitative experiments, and I do not insist upon them as evidence against imitation, though they certainly offer none for it. I do not give descriptions of the apparatus used in these experiments or a detailed enumeration of the results, because in this discussion we are not dealing primarily with imitation as a slight general factor in forming experience, but as a definite associational process in the mind. The utter absence of imitation in this limited sense is apparently demonstrated by the results of the following experiments.

V was a box 16 × 12 × 8½, with the front made of wire screening and at the left end a little door held by a bolt but in such a way that a sharp peck at the top of the door would force it open.

W was a box of similar size, with a door in the same place fixed so that it was opened by raising a bolt. To this bolt was tied a string which went up over the top of the edge of the box and back across the box, as in D. By jumping up and coming down with the head over this thread, the bolt would be pulled up. The thread was 8½ inches above the floor.

X was a box of similar size, with door, bolt and string likewise. But here the string continued round a pulley at the back down to a platform in the corner of the box. By stepping on the platform the door was opened.

Y was a box 12 × 8 × 8½, with a door in the middle of the front, which I myself opened when a chick pecked at a tack which hung against the front of the box 1½ inches above the top of the door.

These different acts, pecking at a door, jumping up and with the neck pulling down a string, stepping on a platform, and pecking at a tack, were the ones which various chicks were given a chance to imitate. The chicks used were from 16 to 30 days old. The method of experiment was to put a chick in, leave him 60 to 80 seconds, then put in another who knew the act, and on his performing it, to let both escape. No cases were counted unless the imitator apparently saw the other do the thing. After about ten such chances to learn the act, the imitator was left in alone for ten minutes. The following table gives the results. The imitators, of course, had previously failed to form the association of themselves. F denotes failure to perform the act:

TABLE 4

======+=====+=========+============+==============
| |NO. TIMES| TIME IN |
CHICK | ACT | SAW |WHICH FAILED| FINAL TIME
------+-----+---------+------------+--------------
84 | V | 38 | 45.00 F | 15.00 F
85 | V | 30 | 30.00 F | 10.00 F
86 | V | 44 | 55.00 F | 15.00 F
87 | V | 26 | 35.00 F | 15.00 F
80 | W | 54 | 60.00 F | 15.00 F
81 | W | 40 | 45.00 F | 15.00 F
87 | W | 27 | 30.00 F | 10.00 F
81 | X | 18 | 20.00 F | 10.00 F
82 | X | 21 | 20.00 F | 8.40 _Did_
83 | X | 33 | 35.00 F | 15.00 F
84 | X | 46 | 55.00 F | 15.00 F
84 | Y | 45 | 55.00 F | 15.00 F
83 | Y | 29 | 35.00 F | 15.00 F
======+=====+=========+============+==============

Thus out of all these cases only one did the act in spite of the ample chance for imitation. I have no hesitation in declaring 82’s act in stepping on the platform the result of mere accident, and am sure that any one who had watched the experiments would agree.

IMITATION IN CATS

By reference to the previous descriptions of apparatus, it will be seen that box D was arranged with two compartments, separated by a wire screen. The larger of these had a front of wooden bars with a door which fell open when a string stretched across the top was bitten or clawed down. The smaller was closed by boards on three sides and by the wire screen on the fourth. Through the screen a cat within could see the one to be imitated pull the string, go out through the door thus opened and eat the fish outside. When put in this compartment, the top being covered by a large box, a cat soon gave up efforts to claw through the screen, quieted down and watched more or less the proceedings going on in the other compartment. Thus this apparatus could be used to test the power of imitation. A cat who had no experience with the means of escape from the large compartment was put in the closed one; another cat, who would do it readily, was allowed to go through the performance of pulling the string, going out, and eating the fish. Record was made of the number of times he did so and of the number of times the imitator had his eyes clearly fixed on him. These were called ‘times seen.’ Cases where the imitator was looking in the general direction of the ‘imitatee’ and might very well have seen him and probably did, were marked ‘doubtful.’ In the remaining cases the cat did not see what was done by his instructor. After the imitatee had done the thing a number of times, the other was put in the big compartment alone, and the time it took him before pulling the string was noted and his general behavior closely observed. If he failed in 5 or 10 or 15 minutes to do so, he was released and not fed. This entire experiment was repeated a number of times. From the times taken by the imitator to escape and from observation of the way that he did it, we can decide whether imitation played any part. The history of several cases are given in the following tables. In the first column are given the lengths of time that the imitator was shut up in the box watching the imitatee. In the second column is the number of times that the latter did the trick. In the third and fourth are the times that the imitator surely and possibly saw it done, while in the last is given the time that, when tried alone, the imitator took to pull the string, or if he failed, the time he was in the box trying to get out. Times are in minutes and seconds, failures denoted by F:

TABLE 5 (a)

=======================+=====================================+===========
| NO. 7 IMITATING NO. 2 |
--------------+--------+------------+-----------+------------+-----------
| Time |No. of times| No. of |No. of times| Time of 7
|Watching| 2 did |times 7 saw| Doubtful |when alone
--------------+--------+------------+-----------+------------+-----------
| 10.00 | 11 | 3 | 5 |
After 48 Hours| 11.00 | 10 | 4 | 2 |
| 12.00 | 20 | 4 | 13 | 10.00 F
| | | | | 1.00[8]
After 24 Hours| 8.00 | 20 | 6 | 11 | 3.30
| | | | | 10.00 F
| 13.00 | 25 | 8 | 12 | 20.00 F
After 24 Hours| 9.00 | 20 | 4 | 11 | 10.00 F
After 24 Hours| 12.00 | 35 | 5 | 21 | 30.00 F
After 2 Hours | 10.00 | 25 | 3 | 8 | 25.00 F
After 24 Hours| 15.00 | 35 | 6 | 21 | 20.00 F
After 24 Hours| 6.00 | 20 | 0 | 7 | 10.00 F
Total times surely and possibly seen,— 43 111 |
=============================================================+===========

TABLE 5 (b)

=======================+=====================================+===========
| NO. 5 IMITATING NO. 2 |
--------------+--------+------------+-----------+------------+-----------
| Time |No. of times| No. of |No. of times| Time of 5
|Watching| 2 did |times 5 saw| Doubtful |when alone
--------------+--------+------------+-----------+------------+-----------
| 12.00 | 15 | 3 | 8 | 5.00 F
After 2 Hours| 10.00 | 8 | 4 | 4 |
After 24 Hours| 5.00 | 5 | 0 | 3 |
After 1 Hour | 14.00 | 10 | 5 | 3 | 10.00 F
After 1 Hour | 13.00 | 22 | 7 | 11 | 10.00 F
After 24 Hours| 7.00 | 15 | 3 | 8 | 5.00 F
After 48 Hours| 18.00 | 20 | 2 | 9 | 20.00 F
After 24 Hours| 14.00 | 20 | 2 | 10 | 30.00 F
After 24 Hours| 10.00 | 20 | 7 | 12 | 20.00 F
Total times surely and possibly seen,— 33 68 |
=============================================================+===========

TABLE 5 (c)

=======================+=====================================+===========
| NO. 6 IMITATING NO. 2 |
--------------+--------+------------+-----------+------------+-----------
| Time |No. of times| No. of |No. of times| Time of 6
|Watching| 2 did |times 6 saw| Doubtful |when alone
--------------+--------+------------+-----------+------------+-----------
| 12.00 | 30 | 0 | 19 | 1.10[9]
After 48 Hours| 11.00 | 30 | 0 | 11 | 9.30
After 72 Hours| 10.00 | 30 | 0 | 15 | 3.00
After 72 Hours| 6.00 | 20 | 3 | 7 | 1.50
After 24 Hours| 9.00 | 30 | 1 | 13 | 10.00 F
After 24 Hours| 10.00 | 30 | 6 | 9 | 10.00 F
After 24 Hours| 10.00 | 30 | 1 | 8 | 9.40
Total times surely and possibly seen,— 11 82 |
=============================================================+===========

TABLE 5 (d)

=======================+=====================================+===========
| NO. 3 IMITATING NO. 2 |
--------------+--------+------------+-----------+------------+-----------
| 8.00 | 30 | 2 | 19 | 3.30[10]
| | | | | 3.30
After 48 Hours| 10.00 | 30 | 2 | 14 | .20
| | | | | .20
After 72 Hours| 10.00 | 30 | 2 | 8 | .18
| | | | | .08
Total times surely and possibly seen,— 6 41 |
=============================================================+===========