| Dog 3 Imitating Dog 1 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Times 1 did | Times 3 saw | Times probably 3 saw | Time in alone | ||
| 30 | 7 | 14 | 3.00 | F | |
| After 1 Hour | 35 | 9 | 14 | 3.00 | F |
| After 1 Hour | 10 | 3 | 3 | 5.00 | F |
| After 24 Hours | 20 | 6 | 8 | ||
| 30 | 8 | 13 | 6.00 | F | |
| After 48 Hours | 25 | 8 | 11 | 8.00 | F |
| 25 | 6 | 12 | 6.00 | F | |
| 25 | 9 | 7 | 10.00 | F | |
| After 24 Hours | 30 | 10 | 11 | 40.00 | F |
| Total times surely and possibly seen,— | 66 | 93 | |||
A similar failure to imitate was observed in the case of another simple act. No. 1, as may be seen on [page 60], had learned to escape from a pen about 8 by 5 feet by jumping up and biting a cord which ran from one end of the pen to the other and at the front end was tied to the bolt which held the door. Dogs 2 and 3 had failed in their accidental jumping and pawing to hit this cord, and were then given a chance to learn by seeing 1 do so, escape, and, of course, be fed. 1 always jumped in the same way, biting the cord at the same place, namely, where a loose end from a knot in it hung down 4 or 5 inches. 2 and 3 would either be tied up in the pen or left in a pen at one side. They had a perfect chance to see 1 perform his successful act. After every twenty or thirty performances by 1, 2 and 3 would be put in alone. It should be remembered that here, as also in the previous experiment and all others, the imitators certainly wanted to get out when thus left in alone. They struggled and jumped and pawed and bit, but they never jumped at the cord. Their records follow:—
Table 6 (b)
| Dog 2 Imitating Dog 1 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Times 1 did | Times 2 saw | Times Doubtful | Time 2 was in alone | ||
| 30 | 9 | 11 | 10.00 | F | |
| After 1 Hour | 30 | 10 | 9 | 10.00 | F |
| After 48 Hours | 25 | 8 | 8 | ||
| After 1 Hour | 10 | 3 | 4 | 9.00 | F[11] |
| After 24 Hours | 30 | 8 | 12 | 15.00 | F |
| After 1 Hour | 30 | 9 | 12 | 15.00 | F |
| After 48 Hours | 20 | 7 | 6 | 10.00 | F |
| 20 | 8 | 7 | |||
| After 48 Hours | 30 | 6 | 8 | 15.00 | F |
| After 24 Hours | 15 | 2 | 4 | 10.00 | F |
| Total times surely and possibly seen,— | 70 | 81 | |||
Table 6 (c)
| Dog 3 Imitating Dog 1 | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Times 1 did | Times 3 saw | Times Doubtful | Time 3 was in alone | ||
| 30 | 10 | 10 | 10.00 | F | |
| After 1 Hour | 30 | 9 | 10 | 10.00 | F |
| After 1 Hour | 15 | 6 | 4 | ||
| After 24 Hours | 30 | 9 | 11 | 15.00 | F |
| After 24 Hours | 30 | 10 | 12 | 15.00 | F |
| After 1 Hour | 30 | 8 | 9 | 10.00 | F |
| After 48 Hours | 20 | 6 | 7 | 40.00 | F |
| After 1 Hour | 20 | 6 | 5 | ||
| After 48 Hours | 30 | 8 | 9 | 15.00 | F |
| After 24 Hours | 15 | 3 | 4 | 20.00 | F |
| Total times surely and possibly seen,— | 75 | 81 | |||
Another corroborative, though not very valuable, experiment was the following: Dog 3 had been taught for the purpose of another experiment to jump up on a box and beg when I held a piece of meat above the box. I then caused him to do this 110 times (within two days) in the presence of 1. Although 1 saw him at least 20 per cent of the times (3 was always fed each time he jumped on the box), he never tried to imitate him.
It seems sure from these experiments that the animals were unable to form an association leading to an act from having seen the other animal, or animals, perform the act in a certain situation. Thus we have further restricted the association process. Not only do animals not have associations accompanied, more or less permeated and altered, by inference and judgment; they do not have associations of the sort which may be acquired from other animals by imitation. What this implies concerning the actual mental content accompanying their acts will be seen later on. It also seems sure that we should give up imitation as an a priori explanation of any novel intelligent performance. To say that a dog who opens a gate, for instance, need not have reasoned it out if he had seen another dog do the same thing, is to offer, instead of one false explanation, another equally false. Imitation in any form is too doubtful a factor to be presupposed without evidence. And if a general imitative faculty is not sufficiently developed to succeed with such simple acts as those of the experiments quoted, it must be confessed that the faculty is in these higher mammals still rudimentary and capable of influencing to only the most simple and habitual acts, or else that for some reason its sphere of influence is limited to a certain class of acts, possessed of some qualitative difference other than mere simplicity, which renders them imitable. The latter view seems a hard one to reconcile with a sound psychology of imitation or association at present, without resorting to instinct. Unless a certain class of acts are by the innate mental make-up especially tender to the influence of imitation, the theory fails to find good psychological ground to stand on. The former view may very well be true. But in any case the burden of proof would now seem to rest upon the adherents to imitation; the promising attitude would seem to be one which went without imitation as long as it could, and that is, of course, until it surely found it present.
Returning to imitation considered in its human aspect, to imitation as a transferred association in particular, we find that here our analytical study of the animal mind promises important contributions to general comparative psychology. If it is true, and there has been no disagreement about it, that the primates do imitate acts of such novelty and complexity that only this out-and-out kind of imitation can explain the fact, we have located one great advance in mental development. Till the primates we get practically nothing but instincts and individual acquirement through impulsive trial and error. Among the primates we get also acquisition by imitation, one form of the increase of mental equipment by tradition. The child may learn from the parent quickly without the tiresome process of seeing for himself. The less active and less curious may share the progress of their superiors. The brain whose impulses hitherto could only be dislodged by specific sense-impressions may now have any impulse set agoing by the sight of the movement to which it corresponds.