In Table 35 I have given the time required for escape
in the case of 40 tests which were given to these
3 individuals at the rate of 2 tests per day.
When the time exceeded 15 minutes the mice were helped
out by the experimenter; a record of 15 minutes, therefore,
indicates failure. Naturally enough the motives
for escape were not sufficiently strong or constant
to bring about the most rapid learning of which the
dancer is capable. Sometimes they would remain
in the wooden box washing themselves for several minutes
before attempting to find a way of escape. On
this account I made it a rule to begin the time record
with the appearance of active running about.
The daily average time of escape as indicated in the
table does not decrease regularly and rapidly.
On the fourth day, which was the first on which all
three of the dancers returned to the cage by way of
the ladder of their own initiative in both tests, the
average is 214 seconds. In contrast with this,
on the twentieth day the time was only 5 seconds.
It is quite evident that the dancers had learned to
climb the ladder.
At the end of the twentieth day the experiment was
discontinued with Nos. 2 and 6, and after two weeks
they were given memory tests, which showed that they
remembered perfectly the ladder-climbing act, for when
placed in the wooden box, with Nos. 4 and 5 as controls,
they returned to the cage by way of the ladder immediately
and directly.
TABLE 35
LADDER CLIMBING TEST
Time in Minutes and Seconds
No. of Date No. 1000 No. 2 No. 6
Average Daily Av.
Exp. 1905
For All For All
