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My work contrasts sharply with that briefly mentioned above in that I applied systematically and over a period of several months an experimental method suited to reveal problem solving ability. Previously, the so-called problem or puzzle-box method had been used as a means of testing for the presence of ideas. For this I substituted the multiple-choice method.
Into these holes aluminum cups fitted snugly, and the iron flanges, when the doors were closed, fitted so closely over the cups that it was impossible for the animals to obtain food from them. Ground plan of multiple-choice apparatus in experiment room A. Scale 1/60
When the middle box is chosen, the entrance door is lowered and the exit door immediately raised, thus uncovering the food, which the animal eats. As a rule, by my monkeys and ape the reward was eaten in the alleyway G instead of in the multiple-choice box.
What has been referred to as the multiple-choice method was devised by me three years ago as a means of obtaining strictly comparable objective data concerning the problem-solving ability of various types and conditions of animals.
Neither in my sustained multiple-choice experiments nor from my supplementary tests did I obtain convincing indications of reasoning. What Hobhouse has called articulate ideas, I believe to appear infrequently in these animals. But on the whole, I believe that the general conclusions of previous experimental observers have done no injustice to the ideational ability of monkeys.
The delayed reaction method of Hunter, the quadruple-choice method of Hamilton, and my multiple-choice method offer new and promising approaches to forms of activity which thus far have been only superficially observed. The ability exhibited by Skirrl to try a method out and then to abandon it suddenly is characteristic of animals high in intelligence.
He had become much discouraged, and although willing to work for food, gave no indications whatever of improvement and seemed to have exhausted his methods. It seemed wise instead of giving up work with him in the multiple-choice method to return to a form of problem 1. We may designate it as problem 1a.
The first result of this accident was that more than two weeks were lost, for it was impossible, during the next few days, to induce the animal to enter any of the multiple-choice boxes voluntarily. From May 14 to May 24, I labored daily to overcome his newly acquired fear.
To these features of behavior others of minor importance might be added. But as they have been sufficiently emphasized in the foregoing detailed descriptions, I need only repeat my conclusion, from the summation of evidence, that this young orang utan exhibited numerous free ideas and simple thought processes in connection with the multiple-choice experiment.
Moreover, my multiple-choice method has the merit of having yielded the first curve of learning for an anthropoid ape. This fact is especially interesting when one considers the nature of the particular curve. For so far as one may say by comparing it with the curves for various learning processes exhibited by other mammals, it is indicative of ideation of a high order, and possibly of reasoning.
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