Three experiments are described in which rats were given the experience of electric shock, food deprivation, and water deprivation while being confined in a white compartment. Subsequently reduction of these states was secured by allowing the animals to escape to a black compartment where, depending on the experiment, there was absence of shock, food available, water available. When the rats were re-placed in the white compartment in the absence of shock, or satiated for food or water, it was found that they learned to operate a bar and a wheel to escape into the black compartment. Since it was also found that the subjects would also operate a bar or a wheel, or both devices, to pass from black to white compartments, in many cases, attachment of states of “fear”, hunger, or thirst, to whiteness and the alleviation of these states to blackness was discounted. A general escape association to the apparatus as a whole was hypothesized.

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Of the dominance hierarchy of the free-ranging rabbit, the author observed that pre-dominant male wanted to possess the females exclusively and aggressed on the other males, and as its results often socio-psycho-castrated male was produced.
This experimental observation was carried out to analyse more minutely the relation between the dominance and the sexual behavior, and their male homosexuality, by keeping a group of male rabbits in a narrow space. Five males were placed in a pen (about 3m × 2m) and brought up without any contact with other rabbits.
Under those conditions, following results were observed :
(1) In their infancy, the linear dominance ranking among them was decided but their antagonisms were small.
(2) About 6-month-old, when they became young, the antagonisms between them increased and grew severe, and uneasiness, attempt to escape, neurotic aggression and homosexual behavior came to appear.
(3) The dominance hierarchy was complicated by their homosexual behavior. In this male group, there developed some passive partners (the males acting as the females), and the active partners (the males acting as the males) dominated them, but there was small antagonism between both. They tended to make a homosexual pairs, and their homosexual behaviors were almost same as heterosexual behaviors, and anal intercourses were observed in two occasions. These relations, caused a change of ranking and a socio-psycho-castrated male was developed. The appearance of these passive partners and psycho-castrated male seemed to be one of the social accommodation to moderate the social tension in the group and to get the situation settled.
(4) On account of these relations, this group seemed to be stabilized for a while, but in a short time the passive partner, who paired with the predominant and seldom attacked by others, became the No. 1 in t he group.
In summary, each males wanted to dominate over others, and taking passive part was merely for the temporary accommodation to adjust their tense social relations.
As the first pre-dominant and the socio-psycho-castrated male were killed, this experiment was stopped.

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E. R. GUTHRIE & G. P. HORTON investigated closely the behavior of the cats in the puzzle-box. The result showed repetition of their identical behavior. The movement just before their escaping from the puzzle-box were apt to be stereotyped. At length this fact showed that at their first trial, they learnt the method of escape and then repeated essentially the method of solution. F.WESLEY, also, put emphasis upon the stereotypedness of behavior. The author's previous experiment gave the same result as that of E. R. GUTHRIE'S experiment.
This experiment aims to find out experimentally escape posture when position of the pole as the Stimulus is shifted as for the experimental apparatus. The apparatus used was what the author improved E. R. GUTHRIE'S apparatus (Fig.1).
Experimental procedure : After the pole as the stimulus was put in the center and thus the cat was conditioned, the pole was shifted to the left and then to the right. After the pole as the stimulus was put to the left, it was shifted to the center and then to the right. After the pole as the stimulus was put to the right, it was shifted to the left and then to the center. The change of the escape-behavior was observed.
The results of experiment are as following :
(1) When the position of the pole as the stimulus in the puzzle-box was changed, the repetition of quite the same escape-posture as formerly stereotyped was given.
(2) Regardless to the course which cats passed before they approach to the pole, the repetition of the formerly stereotyped escape-behavior resulted.
(3) Cats' wandering movement in the puzzle-box never happened.
(4) It seems that escape-posture depended on the cats' position of contiguity to the pole as the stimulus and not on their behavior-passage.

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The present experiment was designed to examine K. F. MUENZINGER'S conclusion that a moderate electric shock, added after passing the point of choice, accelerated the discrimination learning.
The six groups, each of seven rats motivated by hunger, were trained in a T-shaped discrimination box provided with electrodes in both choice alleys (Fig. 1), to the brightness-darkness discrimination learning, in accordance with brightness-positive and darkness-negative. In a corrective situation, a half of the groups was trained under three conditions : receiving (1) no shock, (2) shock for right choice and (3) shock for wrong choice in the corresponding choice alley. The other half was trained under the same condition as the former except that the situation was non-corrective. Rats were run until they received ten reinforcements in a day. Training was continued until a criterion permitting the animal to make one wrong choice on a certain day and no wrong choice on the subsequent was attained. The shock consisting of direct current was controlled by a compensating circuit with a pentode (Fig. 2). The strength of the electric current was gradually increased from 60 to 100 microamperes.
In both situations, the results obtained were as follows :
Both shock groups were much better than a no-shock group and a shock-right group was poorer than a shock-wrong group in the learning efficiency which was stated in terms of number of reinforcements given and errors, made to reach the criterion. (Table I and Fig. 3) Moreover, both shock groups showed more VTE than the no-shock group. Because of the VTE and the fact that rats of the shock-right group frequently jumped across the electrodes, it might be said that an accelerating effect of shock was essentially due to its avoiding function.
A comparison of the shock groups in the corrective situation with that in the non-corrective situation showed that the accelerating effect of shock tended to be influenced by the experimental conditions.

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The aim of this experiment is to examine the effects of early and and late distribution in the partial reinforcement schedule.
Thirty-two male white rats were trained in a simple elevated runway (see Fig. 1) They were divided into three experimental groups and one control group. Experimental groups all received twelve reinforcements (food rewards) during the acquisition period of twenty-four trials, but the distribution patterns of reinforcements were varied group to group. Group I (1/2) received uniform distribution of reinforcements, Group II (1/4+3/4) received three reinforcements in the first half period and nine in the second half period, and Group III (3/4+1/4) received nine reinforcements in the first half period and three in the second half period (Table 1). The control group (1/1) received reinforcements in every trials during the acquisition period of twenty-four trials. All the four groups were given extinction trials immediately after the acquisition trials.
Each group reached the similar response level in terms of latent periods at the last part of acquisition trials. But the degrees of the increment of latent period on the early extinction period were positively related to the distribution of reinforcements on the last part of acquisition period (Table 2). The number of trials required to reach the extinction criterion (no response for two or five minutes) was reciprocally related to the distribution of reinforcements on the last part of acquisition period (Table 3).
These results indicate that the early distribution of reinforcements will delay the extinction, while the late distribution will quicken the extinction. It is suggested that the resistance to extinction depends on the degree of similarity between the distribution of reinforcements in acquisition period and that in extinction period.

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[in Japanese]

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[in Japanese]

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