The associative processes of the guinea pig : a study of the psychical development of an animal with a nervous system well medullated at birth : a dissertation submitted to the Faculties of the Graduate Schools of Arts, Literature and Science, in candidacy for the degree of doctor of philosophy (Department of Philosophy) / by Jessie Blount Allen.

  • Allen, Jessie Blount.
Date:
[1904]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The associative processes of the guinea pig : a study of the psychical development of an animal with a nervous system well medullated at birth : a dissertation submitted to the Faculties of the Graduate Schools of Arts, Literature and Science, in candidacy for the degree of doctor of philosophy (Department of Philosophy) / by Jessie Blount Allen. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The Royal College of Surgeons of England. The original may be consulted at The Royal College of Surgeons of England.

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    rant of these objections, and so far as they are legitimate, they will hold against my work. But I do not think the presence of hunger can be considered as vitiating the experiments. The desire for food is a natural condition, and can scarcely be regard- ed as an abnormal stimulus in any case. The guinea pig is a phlegmatic animal, insusceptible to considerable variations of temperature and food, as one would naturally suppose from its thick covering of fur, and its ready accumulation of fat upon which it may live. When beginning my experiments even with animals perfectly tame, the problem was to get them to attend to the food in the problem box. The incentive to obtain the food had to be rendered quite strong. My custom was to ^ed the guinea pigs once a day, about five o’clock in the afternoon ; enough hay and oats were left in the cage to last all night and well into the next morning. Those animals with which I in- N tended to experiment were left unfed one day and experiment- ed with at about 2:30 p. m. the next day, when they were fed as usual. This was found to produce the requisite degree of hun- ger to gain attention to the problem, though there was nothing like the “utter hunger” of Thorndike’s cats and dogs. In no case was there “frantic activity” indicative of an abnormal state. Previous observations had demonstrated that hunger any less intense did not succeed in eliminating mere curious exploration, or even quiescence in one corner of the cage. Upon first introducing the guinea pigs into the laboratory they were wild and easily frightened, and disturbed by my pres- ence, or by any unusual sound or movement. An attempt was made to carry on the experiments in their customary room, but the sight of the other guinea pigs, and when that was shut off, their sound proved a disturbing factor. For that reason the animals to be experimented upon were removed to another room. A few weeks of persistent and continuous petting, hand- ling and training finally accustomed them to the presence of the experimenter, and gradually the problem came to absorb atten- tion to the neglect of any outside element. Animals born in the laboratory did not have to pass through this preliminary [26]