The striking results of this investigation of re-learning
are exhibited in the curves of learning and re-learning
of Figure 32. These curves make it appear that
the mice re-acquired the white-black discrimination
habit much more readily than they had originally acquired
it. But in addition to furnishing the basis for
some such statement as the foregoing, the curves suggest
a serious criticism of the experiment.
In the original tests, the preliminary series indicated
a strong preference for black. In series A
it was chosen on the average 5.8 times in 10, and
in series B, 5.7 times. This preference
was rapidly overcome by the training series, and at
the end of 130 tests discrimination was perfect.
All this appears in the curve of learning (solid line
of figure). On the other hand, these preliminary
series when repeated as memory tests, after a rest-interval
of eight weeks, gave markedly different results.
Series A indicated preference for white (5.6
times in 10) instead of black, and series B
indicated only a slight preference for black.
In brief, series A and B show that the
preference for black was considerably stronger at
the beginning of the training than at the beginning
of the re-training.
In the light of these facts it is fair to claim that
the effects of the white-black training had not wholly
disappeared as the result of eight weeks of rest,
and that the experiment therefore fails to furnish
satisfactory grounds for the statement that re-learning
occurs more rapidly than learning. I accept this
criticism as pertinent, although not necessarily valid,
and at the same time I freely admit that the results
have a significance which I had not anticipated.
But they are not less interesting or valuable on that
account. Granting, then, that at least some of
the ten individuals which took part in the experiment
had not completely lost the memory of their white-black
training at the end of eight weeks, it is still possible
that an examination of the individual results may
justify some conclusion concerning the question which
was proposed at the outset of the investigation.
Such an examination is made possible by Tables 49
and 50, in which I have arranged separately the results
for the males and the females.
TABLE 49
WHITE-BLACK TRAINING. TEN TESTS PER DAY
Males
TRAINING RETRAINING
210 220 230 410 420 AV. 210 220 230 410 420 AV.
