• DOI:10.1037/H0092987
• Corpus ID: 143644299

Animal intelligence: An experimental study of the associative processes in animals.

@article{Thorndike1898AnimalIA,
  title={Animal intelligence: An experimental study of the associative processes in animals.},
  author={Edward Lee Thorndike},
  journal={American Journal of Psychology},
  year={1898},
  volume={2},
  pages={149}
}

• E. Thorndike
• Published 1 September 1898
• Psychology
• American Journal of Psychology

II T his monograph is an attempt at an explanation of the nature of the process of association in the animal mind. Inasmuch as there have been no extended researches of a character similar to the present one either in subject-matter or experimental method, it is necessary to explain briefly its standpoint. Our knowledge of the mental life of animals equals in the main our knowledge of their sense-powers, of their instincts or reactions performed without experience, and of their reactions which are built up by experience. Confining our attention to the latter we find it the opinion of the better observers and analysts that these reactions can all be explained by the ordinary associative processes without aid from abstract, conceptual, inferential thinking. These associative processes then, as present in ani-mals' minds and as displayed in their acts, are my subject-matter. Any one familiar in even a general way with the literature of comparative psychology will recall that this part of the field has received faulty and unsuccessful treatment. The careful, minute, and solid knowledge of the sense-organs of animals finds no counterpart in the realm of associations and habits. We do not know how delicate or how complex or how permanent are the possible associations of any given group of animals. And although one would be rash who said that our present equipment of facts about instincts was sufficient or that our theories about it were surely sound, yet our notion of what occurs when a chick grabs a worm are luminous and infallible compared to our notion of what happens when a kitten runs into the house at the familiar call. The reasons that they have satisfied us as well as they have is just that they are so vague. We say that the kitten associates the sound 'kitty kitty' with the experience of nice milk to drink, which does very well for a common-sense answer. It also suffices as a rebuke to those who would have the kitten ratiocinate about the matter, but it fails to tell what real mental content is present. Does the kitten feel "sound of call, memory-image of milk in a saucer in the kitchen, thought of running into the house, a feeling, finally, of 'I will run in'?" Does he perhaps feel only the sound of the bell and an impulse to run in, similar in quality to the impulses which make …