The Mental Fact in Association
It is now time to put the question as to just what is in an animal’s mind when, having profited by numerous experiences, he has formed the association and does the proper act when put in a certain box. The commonly accepted view of the mental fact then present is that the sight of the inside of the box reminds the animal of his previous pleasant experience after escape and of the movements which he made which were immediately followed by and so associated with that escape. It has been taken for granted that if the animal remembered the pleasant experience and remembered the movement, he would make the movement. It has been assumed that the association was an association of ideas; that when one of the ideas was of a movement the animal was capable of making the movement. So, for example, Morgan says, in the ‘Introduction to Comparative Psychology’: “If a chick takes a ladybird in its beak forty times and each time finds it nasty, this is of no practical value to the bird unless the sight of the insect suggests the nasty taste” (p. 90).
Again, on page 92, Morgan says, “A race after the ball had been suggested through the channel of olfactory sensations.” Also, on page 86 “... the visual impression suggested the idea or representation of unpleasant gustatory experience.” The attitude is brought out more completely in a longer passage on page 118: “On one of our first ascents one of them put up a young coney, and they both gave chase. Subsequently they always hurried on to this spot, and, though they never saw another coney there, reiterated disappointment did not efface the memory of that first chase, or so it seemed.” That is, according to Morgan, the dogs thought of the chase and its pleasure, on nearing the spot where it had occurred, and so hurried on. On page 148 of ‘Habit and Instinct,’ we read, “Ducklings so thoroughly associated water with the sight of their tin that they tried to drink from it and wash in it when it was empty, nor did they desist for some minutes,” and this with other similar phenomena is attributed to the ‘association by contiguity’ of human psychology.
From these quotations it seems fairly sure that if we should ask Mr. Morgan, who is our best comparative psychologist, what took place in the mind of one of these cats of our experiments during the performance of one of the ‘tricks’ he would reply: “The cat performs the act because of the association of ideas. He is reminded by the sight of the box and loop of his experience of pulling that loop and of eating fish outside. So he goes and pulls it again.” This view has stood unchallenged, but its implication is false. It implies that an animal, whenever it thinks of an act, can supply an impulse to do the act. It takes for granted that the performance of a cat who gets out of a box is mentally like that of a man who thinks of going down street or of writing a letter and then does it. The mental process is not alike in the two cases, for animals can not provide the impulse to do whatever act they think of. No cat can form an association leading to an act unless there is included in the association an impulse of its own which leads to the act. There is no general storehouse from which the impulse may be supplied after the association is formed.
Before describing the experiments which justify these statements, it will be worth while to recall the somewhat obvious facts about the composition of one of these associations. There might be in an association, such as is formed after experience with one of our boxes, the following elements:—
1. Sense-impression of the interior of the box, etc.
2. (a) Discomfort and (b) desire to get out.
3. Representation of oneself pulling the loop.
4. Fiat comparable to the human “I’ll do it.”
5. The impulse which actually does it.
6. Sense-impression of oneself pulling the loop, seeing one’s paw in a certain place, feeling one’s body in a certain way, etc.
7. Sense-impression of going outside.
8. Sense-impression of eating, and the included pleasure.
Also between 1 and 4 we may have 9, representations of one’s experience in going out, 10, of the taste of the food, etc. 6, 7 and 8 come after the act and do not influence it, of course, except in so far as they are the basis of the future 3’s, 9’s and 10’s. About 2 we are not at present disputing. Our question is as to whether 3 or 5 is the essential thing. In human associations 3 certainly often is, and the animals have been credited with the same kind. Whatever he thinks, Professor Morgan surely talks as if 1 aroused 9 and 10 and 3 and leaves 5 to be supplied at will. We have affirmed that 5 is the essential thing, that no association without a specific 5 belonging to it and acquired by it can lead to an act. Let us look at the reasons.
A cat has been made to go into a box through the door, which is then closed. She pulls a loop and comes out and gets fish. She is made to go in by the door again, and again lets herself out. After this has happened enough times, the cat will of her own accord go into the box after eating the fish. It will be hard to keep her out. The old explanation of this would be that the cat associated the memory of being in the box with the subsequent pleasure, and therefore performed the equivalent of saying to herself, “Go to! I will go in.” The thought of being in, they say, makes her go in. The thought of being in will not make her go in. For if, instead of pushing the cat toward the doorway or holding it there, and thus allowing it to itself give the impulse, to innervate the muscles, to walk in, you shut the door first and drop the cat in through a hole in the top of the box, she will, after escaping as many times as in the previous case, not go into the box of her own accord. She has had exactly the same opportunity of connecting the idea of being in the box with the subsequent pleasure. Either a cat cannot connect ideas, representations, at all, or she has not the power of progressing from the thought of being in to the act of going in. The only difference between the first cat and the second cat is that the first cat, in the course of the experience, has the impulse to crawl through that door, while the second has not the impulse to crawl through the door or to drop through that hole. So, though you put the second cat on the box beside the hole, she doesn’t try to get into the box through it. The impulse is the sine qua non of the association. The second cat has everything else, but cannot supply that. These phenomena were observed in six cats, three of which were tried by the first method, three by the second. Of the first three, one went in himself on the 26th time and frequently thereafter, one on the 18th and the other on the 37th; the two last as well as the first did that frequently in later trials. The other three all failed to go in themselves after 50, 60 and 75 trials, respectively.
The case of No. 7 was especially instructive, though not among these six. No. 7 had had some trials in which it was put in through the door, but ordinarily in this particular experiment was dropped in. After about 80 trials it would frequently exhibit the following phenomena: It would, after eating the fish, go up to the doorway and, rushing from it, search for fish. The kitten was very small and would go up into the doorway, whirl round and dash out, all in one quick movement. The best description of its behavior is the paradoxical one that it went out without going in. The association evidently concerned what it had done, what it had an impulse for, namely, coming out through that door to get fish, not what it remembered, had a representation of.
Still more noteworthy evidence is found in the behavior of cats and dogs who were put in these boxes, left one or two minutes, and then put through the proper movement. For example, a cat would be put in B (O at back) and left two minutes. I would then put my hand in through the top of the box, take the cat’s paw and with it pull down the loop. The cat would then go out and eat the fish. This would be done over and over again, and after every ten or fifteen such trials the cat would be left in alone. If in ten or twenty minutes he did not escape, he would be taken out through the top and not fed. In one series of experiments animals were taken and thus treated in boxes from which their own impulsive activity had failed to liberate them. The results, given in the table below, show that no animal who fails to perform an act in the course of his own impulsive activity will learn it by being put through it.
In these experiments some of the cats and all of the dogs but No. 1 showed no agitation or displeasure at my handling from the very start. Nor was there any in Dog 1 or the other cats after a few trials. It may also be remarked that in the trials alone which took place during and at the end of the experiment the animals without exception showed that they did not fail to perform the act from lack of a desire to get out. They all tried hard enough to get out and would surely have used the association if they had formed it.
Table 7
| Individual | Apparatus | Time in which impulsive activity failed to lead to the act | Number of times the animal was put through the movement | Time in which this experience failed to lead to the act | Time of final trial |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cat 1 | F (String outside unfastened) | 55.00 | 77 | 120.00 | 20.00 |
| Cat 5 | G (Thumb latch) | 57.00 | 59 | 55.00 | 10.00 |
| Cat 7 | G (Thumb latch) | 50.00 | 30 | 35.00 | 10.00 |
| Cat 2 | G (Thumb latch) | 54.00 | 141 | 110.00 | 20.00 |
| Dog 2 | BB1 (O at back, high) | 48.00 | 30 | 80.00 | 60.00 |
| Dog 3 | BB1 (O at back, high) | 20.00 | 85 | 55.00 | 10.00 |
| Dog 2 | M (Lever outside) | 15.00 | 95 | 140.00 | 30.00 |
| Dog 1 | FF[12] | 30.00 | 110 | 135.00 | 60.00 |
| Chick 89 | X (see [page 53]) | 20.00 | 30 | 60.00 | 30.00 |
| Cat 13 | KKK,[13][14] | 40.00 | 65 | 60.00 | 10.00 |
Now, the only difference between the experiences of the animals in these experiments and their experiences in those where they let themselves out, is that here they only saw and felt themselves making the movement, whereas in the other case they also felt the impulse, gave the innervation. That, then, is the essential. It may be objected that the animals failed because they did not attend to the process of being put through the movement, that, had they attended to it, they would later themselves have made the movement. It is, however, improbable that out of fifty times an animal should not have attended to what was going on at least two or three times. But if seeing himself do it was on a par with feeling an impulse to and so doing it, even two or three times would suffice to start the habit. And it is even more improbable that an experience should be followed by keen pleasure fifty times and not be attended to with might and main, unless animals attend only to their own impulses and the excitements thereof. But if the latter be true, it simply affirms our view from a more fundamental standpoint.
In another set of experiments animals were put in boxes with whose mechanisms they had had no experience, and from which they might or might not be able to escape by their own impulsive acts. The object was to see whether the time taken to form the association could be altered by my instruction. The results turned out to give a better proof of the inability to form an association by being put through the act than any failure to change the time-curve. For it happened in all but one of the cases that the movement which the animal made to open the door was different from the movement which I had put him through. Thus, several cats were put through (in Box C [button]) the following movement: I took the right paw and, putting it against the lower right-hand side of the button, pushed it round to a horizontal position. The cats’ ways were as follows: No. 1 turned it by clawing vigorously at its top; No. 6, by pushing it round with his nose; No. 7, in the course of an indiscriminate scramble at first, in later trials either by pushing with his nose or clawing at the top, settling down finally to the last method. Nos. 2 and 5 did it as No. 1 did. Cat 2 was tried in B (O at back). I took his paw and pressed the loop with it, but he formed the habit of clawing and biting the string at the top of the box near the front. No. 1 was tried in A. I pressed the loop with his paw, but he formed the habit of biting at it.
In every case I kept on putting the animal through the act every time, if at the end of two minutes (one in several cases) it had not done it, even after it had shown, by using a different way, that my instruction had no influence. I never succeeded in getting the animal to change its way for mine. Moreover, if any one should fancy that the animal really profited by my instruction so as to learn what result to attain, namely, the turning of a certain button, but chose a way of his own to turn it, he would be deluding himself. The time taken to learn the act with instruction was no shorter than without.
If, then, an animal happens to learn an act by being put through it, it is just happening, nothing more. Of course, you may direct the animal’s efforts so that he will perform the act himself the sooner. For instance, you may hold him so that his accidental pawing will be sure to hit the vital point of the contrivance. But the animal cannot form an association leading to an act unless the particular impulse to that act is present as an element of the association; he cannot supply it from a general stock. The groundwork of animal associations is not the association of ideas, but the association of idea or sense-impression with impulse.
In the questionnaire mentioned elsewhere, some questions were asked with a view to obtaining corroboration or refutation of this theory that an impulse or innervation is a necessary element in every association formed if that association leads to an act. The questions and answers were:—
Question 1: “If you wanted to teach a horse to tap seven times with his hoof when you asked him, ‘How many days are there in a week?,’ would you teach him by taking his leg and making him go through the motions?”
A answered, “Yes! at first.”
B answered, “No! I would not.”
C answered, “At first, yes!”
D answered, “No!”
Question 2: “Do you think you could teach him that way, even if naturally you would take some other way?”
A answered, “In time, yes!”
B answered, “I think it would be a very hard way.”
C answered, “Certainly I do.”
D answered, “I do not think I could.”
E answered, “Yes.”
Question 3: “How would you teach him?”
A answered, “I should tap his foot with a whip, so that he would raise it, and reward him each time.”
B answered, “I should teach him by the motion of the whip.”
C answered, “First teach him by pricking his leg the number of times you wanted his foot lifted.”
D answered, “You put figure 2 on blackboard and touch him on leg twice with cane, and so on.”
E answered ambiguously.
It is noteworthy that even those who think they could teach an animal by putting him through the trick do not use that method, except at first. And what they really do then is probably to stimulate the animal to the reflex act of raising his hoof. The hand simply replaces the cane or whip as the means of stimulus. The answers are especially instructive, because the numerous counting tricks done by trained horses seem, at first, to be incomprehensible, unless the trainer can teach the horse by putting it through the movement the proper number of times. The counting tricks performed by Mascot, Professor Maguire’s horse, were quoted to me by a friend as incomprehensible on my theory. The answers given above show how simple the thing really is. All the counting-tricks of all the intelligent horses depend on the fact that a horse raises his hoof when a certain stimulus is given. One simple reaction gives the basis for a multitude of tricks. In the same way other tricks, which at first sight seem to require that the animal should learn by being put through the movement, may depend on some simple reflex or natural impulse.
Another question was, “How would you teach a cat to get out of a box, the door of which was closed with a thumb latch?”
A answered, “I should use a puffball as a plaything for the cat to claw at.” This means, I suppose, that he would get the cat to claw at the puffball and thus direct its clawings to the vicinity of the thumb piece.
B answered, “I would put the cat in and get it good and hungry and then open the door by lifting the latch with my finger. Then put some food that the cat likes outside, and she will soon try to imitate you and so learn the trick.”
C answered, “I would first adjust all things in connection with the surroundings of the cat so they would be applicable to the laws of its nature, and then proceed to teach the trick.”
I suppose this last means that he would fix the box so that some of the cat’s instinctive acts would lead it to perform the trick. The answer given by B means apparently that he would simply leave the thing to accident, for any such imitation as he supposes is out of the question. At all events, none of these would naturally start to teach the trick by putting the animal through the motions, which, were it a possible way, would probably be a traditional one among trainers. On the whole, I see in these data no reason for modifying our dogma that animals cannot learn acts without the impulse.
Presumably the reader has already seen budding out of this dogma a new possibility, a further simplification of our theories about animal consciousness. The possibility is that animals may have no images or memories at all, no ideas to associate. Perhaps the entire fact of association in animals is the presence of sense-impressions with which are associated, by resultant pleasure, certain impulses, and that, therefore, and therefore only, a certain situation brings forth a certain act. Returning to our analysis of the association, this theory would say that there was no (9) or (10) or (3) or (4), that the sense-impression gave rise, when accompanied by the feeling of discomfort, to the impulse (5) directly, without the intervention of any representations of the taste of the food, or the experience of being outside, or the sight of oneself doing the act. This theory might be modified so as to allow that the representations could be there, but to deny that they were necessary, were inevitably present, that the impulse was connected to the sense-impression through them. It would then claim that the effective part of the association was a direct bond between the situation and the impulse, but would not cut off the possibility of there being an aura of memories along with the process. It then becomes a minor question of interpretation which will doubtless sooner or later demand an answer. I shall not try to answer it now. The more radical question, the question of the utter exclusion of representative trains of thought, of any genuine association of ideas from the mental life of animals, is worth serious consideration. I confess that, although certain authentic anecdotes and certain experiments, to be described soon, lead me to reject this exclusion, there are many qualities in animals’ behavior which seem to back it up. If one takes his stand by a rigid application of the law of parsimony, he will find justification for this view which no experiments of mine can overthrow.
Of one thing I am sure, and that is that it is worth while to state the question and how to solve it, for although the point of view involved is far removed from that of our leading psychologists to-day, it cannot long remain so. I am sorry that I cannot pretend to give a final decision.
The view seems preposterous because, if an animal has sense-impressions when his brain is excited by currents starting in the end-organs, it seems incredible that he should not be conscious in imagination and memory by having similar excitations caused from within. We are accustomed to think of memory as the companion of sensation. But, after all, it is a question of fact whether the connections in the cat brain include connections between present sensation-neuroses and past sensation-neuroses. The only connections may be those between the former and impulse-neuroses, and there is no authoritative reason why we should suppose any others unless they are demonstrated by the cat’s behavior. This is just the point at issue. Such evidence as the phenomena of animals’ dreams does not at all prove the presence of memory or imagination. A dog may very well growl in his sleep without any idea of a hostile dog. The impulse to growl may be caused by chance excitement of its own neurosis without any sensation-neurosis being concerned. Acts of recognition may have no feelings of recognition going with or causing them. A sense-impression of me gets associated in my dog’s mind with the impulses to jump on me, lick my hand, wag his tail, etc. If, after a year, the connection between the two has lasted, he will surely jump on me, lick my hand and wag his tail, though he has not and never had any representation of me.
The only logical way to go at this question and settle it is, I think, to find some associations the formation of which requires the presence of images, of ideas. You have to give an animal a chance to associate sense-impression A with sense-impression B and then to associate B with some act C so that the presence of B in the mind will lead to the performance of C. Presumably the representation of B, if present, will lead to C just as the sense-impression B did. Now, if the chance to associate B with A has been improved, you ought, when the animal is confronted with the sense-impression A, to get a revival of B and so the act C. Such a result would, if all chance to associate C with A had been eliminated, demonstrate the presence of representations and their associations. I performed such an experiment in a form modified so as to make it practicable with my animals and resources. Unfortunately, this modification spoils the crucial nature of the experiment and robs it of much of its authority. The experiment was as follows:—
A cat was in the big box where they were kept (see [p. 90]) very hungry. As I had been for a long time the source of all food, the cats had grown to watch me very carefully. I sat, during the experiment, about eight feet from the box, and would at intervals of two minutes clap my hands four times and say, “I must feed those cats.” Of course the cat would at first feel no impulse except perhaps to watch me more closely when this signal was given. After ten seconds had elapsed I would take a piece of fish, go up to the cage and hold it through the wire netting, three feet from the floor. The cat would then, of course, feel the impulse to climb up the front of the cage. In fact, experience had previously established the habit of climbing up whenever I moved toward the cage, so that in the experiment the cat did not ordinarily wait until I arrived there with the fish. In this experiment
A = The sense-impression of my movements and voice when giving the signal.
B = The sense-impression of my movements in taking fish, rising, walking to box, etc.
C = The act of climbing up, with the impulse leading thereunto.
The question was whether after a while A would remind the cat of B, and cause him to do C before he got the sense-impression of B, that is, before the ten seconds were up. If A leads to C through a memory of B, animals surely can have association of ideas proper, and probably often do. Now, as a fact, after from thirty to sixty trials, the cat does perform C immediately on being confronted by A or some seconds later, at all events before B is presented. And it is my present opinion that their action is to be explained by the presence, through association, of the idea B. But it is not impossible that A was associated directly with the impulse to C, although that impulse was removed from it by ten seconds of time. Such an association is, it seems to me, highly improbable, unless the neurosis of A, and with it the psychosis, continues until the impulse to C appears. But if it does so continue during the ten seconds, and thus get directly linked to C, we have exactly a representation, an image, a memory, in the mind for eight of those ten seconds. It does not help the deniers of images to substitute an image of A for an image of B. Yet, unless they do this, they have to suppose that A comes and goes, and that after ten seconds C comes, and, passing over the intervening blank, willfully chooses out A and associates itself with it. There are some other considerations regarding the behavior of the cats from the time the signal was given till they climbed up, which may be omitted in the hope that it will soon be possible to perform a decisive experiment. If an observer can make sure of the animal’s attention to a sequence A-B, where B does not arouse any impulse to an act, and then later get the animal to associate B with C, leaving A out this time, he may then, if A, when presented anew, arouses C, bid the deniers of representations to forever hold their peace.
Another reason for allowing animals representations and images is found in the longer time taken to form the association between the act of licking or scratching and the consequent escape. If the associations in general were simply between situation and impulse and act, one would suppose that the situation would be associated with the impulse to lick or scratch as readily as with the impulse to turn a button or claw a string. Such is not the case. By comparing the curves for Z on [pages 57-58] with the others, one sees that for so simple an act it takes a long time to form the association. This is not a final reason, for lack of attention, a slight increase in the time taken to open the door after the act was done, or an absence of preparation in the nervous system for connections between these particular acts and definite sense-impressions, may very well have been the cause of the difficulty in forming the associations. Nor is it certain that ideas of clawing loops would be easier to form than ideas of scratching or licking oneself. The matter is still open to question. But, as said before, my opinion would be that animals do have representations and that such are the beginning of the rich life of ideas in man. For the most part, however, such are confined to specific and narrow practical lines. There was no evidence that my animals habitually did form associations of ideas from their experience throughout, or that such were constantly revived without the spur of immediate practical advantage.[15]
Before leaving the topic an account may be given of experiments similar to the one described above as performed on Cats 3 and 4, which were undertaken with Cat 13 and Dogs 1, 2 and 3.
Cat 13 was fed with pieces of fish at the top of the wire netting 45 times, to accustom it to climbing up when it saw me come with fish. I then went through the same process as with 3 and 4, but at intervals of 60 to 90 seconds instead of 120. After 90 such trials it occasionally climbed up a little way, but though 135 trials in all were given, it never made the uniform and definite reaction which 3 and 4 did. It reacted, when it reacted at all, at from 5 to 9 seconds after the signal. Whether age, weight, lack of previous habitual climbing when I approached, or a slowness in forming the association made the difference, is uncertain.
Dog 1 was experimented on in the following manner: I would put him in a big pen, 20×10 feet, and sit outside facing it, he watching me as was his habit. I would pound with a stick and say, “Go over to the corner.” After an interval (10 seconds for 35 trials, 5 seconds for 60 trials) I would go over to the corner (12 feet off) and drop a piece of meat there. He, of course, followed and secured it. On the 6th, 7th, 16th, 17th, 18th and 19th trials he did perform the act before the 10 seconds were up, then for several times went during the two-minute intervals without regarding the signal, and finally abandoned the habit altogether, although he showed by his behavior when the signal was given that he was not indifferent to it.
Dogs 1, 2 and 3 were also given 95, 135 and 95 trials, respectively, the acts done being (1) standing up against the wire netting inclosing the pen, (2) placing the paws on top of a keg, and (3) jumping up onto a box. The time intervals were 5 seconds in each case. No dog of these ever performed the act before I started to take the meat to feed them, but they did show, by getting up if they were lying down when the signal was given, or by coming to me if they were in some other part of the pen, that something was suggested to them by it. Why these cases differ from the cases of Cats 3 and 4 (10 and 12 also presented phenomena like those reported in the cases of 3 and 4) is an interesting though not very important question. The dogs were not kept so hungry as were the cats, and experience had certainly not rendered the particular impulses involved so sensitive, so ready to discharge. Dogs 2 and 3 were older. There is no reason to invoke any qualitative difference in the mental make-up of the animals until more illuminating experiments are made.