--------+-----------+--------------+--------------+---------
-----+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---+---+---+---+-------- | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | | 1.2.3 | 8.9 | 3.4.5.6.7 | 7.8.9 | 2.3.4.5.6 | 6.7.8 | 5.6.7 | 4.5.6.7.8 | 7.8.9 | 1.2.3 | | | | | --------+-----------+--------------+--------------+---------
-----+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+--------------+---+---+---+---+-------- 12 | 301-310 | 1 | 8 | 3 | 7 | 2 | 6 | 5 | 4 | 7 | 1 |10 | 0 |10 | 0 | 1:0.00 ========+===========+==============+==============+=========
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A series of correct first choices was obtained on May 11, greatly to the surprise of the experimenter, for no indication had previously appeared of this approaching solution of the problem.  It seemed possible, however, that the successes were accidental, and it was anticipated that in a control series Julius would again make mistakes.  But on the following day, May 12, the presentation of the original series of ten settings, which, of course, differed radically from the settings used from May 4 to May 11 was responded to promptly, readily, and without a single mistake.  Julius had solved his problem suddenly and, in all probability, ideationally.

Only three reactive tendencies or methods appeared during Julius’s work on this problem:  (a) choice of the open door nearest to the starting point (sometimes the adjacent boxes were entered); (b) a tendency to avoid the “nearest” door and select instead one further toward the left end of the group; (c) direct choice of the first door on the left.

The curve of learning plotted from the daily wrong choices and presented in figure 18, had it been obtained with a human subject, would undoubtedly be described as an ideational, and possibly even as a rational curve; for its sudden drop from near the maximum to the base line strongly suggests, if it does not actually prove, insight.

Never before has a curve of learning like this been obtained from an infrahuman animal.  I feel wholly justified in concluding from the evidences at hand, which have been presented as adequately as is possible without going into minutely detailed description, that the orang utan solved this simple problem ideationally.  As a matter of fact, for the solution he required about four times the number of trials which Sobke required and twice as many as were necessary for Skirrl.