Psychological monographs: general and applied . ck and forththrough three to five adjacent compartments several times beforehe proceeded to the food-box. 2) With the short box the trialswere more frequent than with the long one. It took less thanhalf the time to run the smaller maze; thus, the trials could begiven twice as frequently. 3) The getting of food was delayedby the long runways of the larger box. The influence of delay-ing food, the apparent motive for the animals effort, is notknown, but we are of the opinion that it was an important fac-tor with our animals. Although the number of
Psychological monographs: general and applied . ck and forththrough three to five adjacent compartments several times beforehe proceeded to the food-box. 2) With the short box the trialswere more frequent than with the long one. It took less thanhalf the time to run the smaller maze; thus, the trials could begiven twice as frequently. 3) The getting of food was delayedby the long runways of the larger box. The influence of delay-ing food, the apparent motive for the animals effort, is notknown, but we are of the opinion that it was an important fac-tor with our animals. Although the number of trials was reduced when the shorterbox was used there was really no difference in the rate of learn-ing between the two groups after learning once began. A studyof the learning curves in Fig. 10 confirms the accuracy of thisstatement. In constructing these curves only the last 500 trialsfor each animal were used. This was done for two reasons:1) All observable learning is included in this period. 2) It per- RATE OF LEARNING IN THE WHITE RAT 43. Trial* Fig. ioCurve 15 in Fig. 10 represents the rate of learning in the last 500 trialsfor groups of animals trained in our maze: Curve 16, the rate for thosetrained in the Freeman maze. mits a comparison of the rate of learning at the exact time learn-ing was in progress in the individual cases. This is not possiblein either group if the curve is plotted on the basis of trials madefrom the beginning of the problem, for some completed thetraining before others showed signs of improvement. In eachgroup there is a period of no apparent learning followed by ashort period of rapid learning. The large number of animals in each of these groups and thealmost uniform difference between the number of trials requiredto master the problem are conclusive evidence that the negativeresponse to pain can be more easily learned in a simple mazethan in a more complex one, and that the rate of learning isapproximately the same from the time obvious learni
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