Fig. 7.
The curves on [pages 57 and 58], showing the history of cats 1, 5, 13 and 3, which were let out of the box Z when they licked themselves, and of cats 6, 2 and 4, which were let out when they scratched themselves, are interesting because they show associations where there is no congruity (no more to a cat than to a man) between the act and the result. One chick, too, was thus freed whenever he pecked at his feathers to dress them. He formed the association, and would whirl his head round and poke it into his feathers as soon as dropped in the box. There is in all these cases a noticeable tendency, of the cause of which I am ignorant, to diminish the act until it becomes a mere vestige of a lick or scratch. After the cat gets so that it performs the act soon after being put in, it begins to do it less and less vigorously. The licking degenerates into a mere quick turn of the head with one or two motions up and down with tongue extended. Instead of a hearty scratch, the cat waves its paw up and down rapidly for an instant. Moreover, if sometimes you do not let the cat out after this feeble reaction, it does not at once repeat the movement, as it would do if it depressed a thumb piece, for instance, without success in getting the door open. Of the reason for this difference I am again ignorant.
Previous experience makes a difference in the quickness with which the cat forms the associations. After getting out of six or eight boxes by different sorts of acts the cat’s general tendency to claw at loose objects within the box is strengthened and its tendency to squeeze through holes and bite bars is weakened; accordingly it will learn associations along the general line of the old more quickly. Further, its tendency to pay attention to what it is doing gets strengthened, and this is something which may properly be called a change in degree of intelligence. A test was made of the influence of experience in this latter way by putting two groups of cats through I (lever), one group (1, 2, 3, 4, 5) after considerable experience, the other (10, 11, 12) after experience with only one box. As the act in I was not along the line of the acts in previous boxes, and as a decrease in the squeezings and bitings would be of little use in the box as arranged, the influence of experience in the former way was of little account. The curves of all are shown on [page 49].
Fig. 8.
If the whole set of curves are examined in connection with the following table, which gives the general order in which each animal took up the different associations which he eventually formed, many suggestions of the influence of experience will be met with. The results are not exhaustive enough to justify more than the general conclusion that there is such an influence. By taking more individuals and thus eliminating all other factors besides experience, one can easily show just how and how far experience facilitates association.
When, in this table, the letters designating the boxes are in italics it means that, though the cat formed the association, it was in connection with other experiments and so is not recorded in the curves.