ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXI, Issue 24, 13 September 1911, Page 3

ANIMAL INTELLIGENCE.

For years men have sought to prove that animals possess the power of reasoning. It is a fascinating study and one upon which most lovers of animals have come to a more, or less definite conclusion. To these a study of a translation of Oscar I'fungst’s hook “Clever Hans” would prove interesting. Hans was a Russian trotting horse, and the subject of an experiment by a certain retired teacher of mathematics. Von Osten, a man possessed of the linn conviction that his kind did not. possess a monopoly in. the faculty of putting two and two together. For four year's he laboured, and at last satisfied himself that Hans had mastered the rudiments of the subject upon ‘ which 1 he had formerly lectured. The simple operations oi addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division were satisfactorily, performed by Hans. As a substitute for speech he was taught to rap out the answers to the questions. Vulgar fractions were not beyond his capabilities. In 1904 Hans’s master invited a committee of experts to test the accuracy of his experiments. Such a question as “How much is 2 plus 5 plus £?” was correctly rapped out in their presence. Each man watched a certain portion of the questioner’s body capable of influencing the actions of the horse. They discovered no discernible movements of this 'sort, and when one of their number, in, the, .absence, of the trainer, received a- correct answer to his question,! they were satisfied as to the genuinhness of the feats.' The commission’s report was investigated by a skilled psychologist, Hungst, ■ with remarkable results. On investigation he satisfied himself that there was no conscious trickery oh the part of | the trainer of the.; horse; Then he j found that when the answer was not known to the questioner the horse gave wildly incorrect replies. On this the examiner built up a theory which he claims to prove beyond question. Bnially, it is that the horse acted on unconscious signals—perhaps a faint inclination of the li®ad downward when the order was given, and' then an equally faint recovery when the correct number was reached. Herr Pfungst went further. By the mid of mechanical contrivances, in his own laboratory he was.able to register the. amount of those movements, in ot.ior, human subjects, and■ to reproduce ine performances of the horse fly guessing a number thought of by ills' subjects who were,, of course, ignprant of the purpose oi' meaning, of the experiment. .! 'I - c horse was capable of detecting'sighs which not ohl'y'the trained observer failed to perceive, but which the questioner was not aware of having made. diOG/.d ■