Animal intelligence: Experimental studies

by Edward L. Thorndike

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 Watching	No. of times 2 did	No. of times 7 saw	No. of times Doubtful	Time of 7 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 Watching	No. of times 2 did	No. of times 5 saw	No. of times Doubtful	Time of 5 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 Watching	No. of times 2 did	No. of times 6 saw	No. of times Doubtful	Time of 6 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)