An idea of the extreme individual difference in the
rapidity with which the labyrinth-B path was learned
by these dancers may be obtained by an examination
of Table 38, from which it appears that the smallest
number of training tests necessary for a successful
or errorless trip through the maze was one and the
largest number fourteen. It is to be remembered
that each mouse was given an opportunity to pass through
the labyrinth once without punishment for errors,
and thus to discover, before the training tests were
begun, that a way of escape existed. This first
test we may designate as the preliminary trial.
Table 38 further indicates that the females acquired
the labyrinth habit more quickly than did the males.
RESULTS OF LABYRINTH-B EXPERIMENTS, WITH TWENTY DANCERS
MALES
FEMALES
NO. OF NO. OF FIRST NO. OF LAST OF
NO. OF NO. OF FIRST NO. OF LAST OF
MOUSE CORRECT FIVE CORRECT MOUSE
CORRECT FIVE CORRECT
TEST
TESTS TEST TESTS
76 8 14 75 4 15
78 5 20 77 7 11
86 13 22 87 12 22
58 2 14 49 1 5
50 6 23 57 3 20
60 13 37 59 14 28
410 6 20 415 4 13
220 4 8 225 6 18
212 3 7 211 6 10
214 10 28 213 5 14
AV. 7.0 19.3 AV.
6.2 15.6
A graphic representation of certain of the important
features of the process of formation of the labyrinth-B
habit is furnished by Figure 26 in which the solid
line is the curve of learning for the ten males of
Table 38, and the broken line for the ten females.
These two curves were plotted from the number of errors
made in the preliminary trial (P in the figure) and
in each of the subsequent tests up to the sixteenth.
In the case of both the males and the females, for
example, the average number of errors in the preliminary
trial was 11.3, as is indicated by the fact that the
curves start at a point whose value is given in the
left margin as 11.3. In the second training test
the number of errors fell to 3.3 for the males and
2.7 for the females. The number of the test is
to be found on the base line; the number of errors
in the left margin. If these two curves of learning
were carried to their completion, that for the males
would end with the thirty-seventh test, and that for
the females with the twenty-eighth.
[Illustration: FIGURE 26.—Curves of
habit formation, plotted from the data of labyrinth-B
tests with ten males and ten females. The figures
in the left margin indicate the number of errors;
those below the base line the number of the test.
P designates the preliminary test. Males
____[solid line]; Females ----[broken line].]
