ABSTRACT
Genetically determined, or instinctive, behaviour arises from the selective effects of environment on the life history of a species, and at its first appearance in the life of an individual owes little or nothing to the previous experience of that individual. Most, if not all, organisms are also able to modify their behaviour through ‘personal’ experience. By their ability to learn, animals adapt themselves more intimately to their own particular environment. The new behaviour patterns set up are biologically advantageous to the individual. They arise out of, and are continuous with, the past history of the individual.
‘Reasoning ‘is used as a term of discourse throughout this article to indicate the mental processes by which rats solve the Maier three-table test described later in this paper. In so doing, no assumptions are made about the nature of the process, or about its relation to any human accomplishment. An extensive theoretical discussion of reasoning, and the spontaneous assembly of isolated segments of behaviour, is given by Hull (1935). Hull also discussed whether the ability to solve the problem described in this paper could be interpreted in terms of association theory, and proposed experiments that would test his conclusions. The results of some of these experiments had been reported by Wolfe & Spragg (1934).
