~ The Early Learning Theorists ~
E. L. Thorndike
It was not until the early 1900s, just prior to another learning theorist, Jean Piaget, that the theory of human (and animal) learning first emerged as a breakthrough concept and then as an entire field of study unto itself. The individual that holds this distinction is the American experimental psychologist, Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949). More often then not considered an experimental behaviorist, Edward Thorndike is appropriately credited with the first true theory of learning that took elements of behaviorism and added the all-important component of learning and mastery, and he accomplished this with his simple but elegant 'puzzle box' experiment with cats, in 1898. |
Conducted in 1898 and published in 1905, Thorndike's famous 'puzzle box experiment became known as The Law of Effect. This was a detailed account of reinforcement as a means to shape behavior in animals. Thorndike placed hungry cats in a puzzle box whereby their only means to obtain food was to escape the box, and the only way to escape the box was to respond to a specific sequence of behaviors. These behaviors included being able to depress a button and then pull on a dangling rope, all things that are normally within a cats repertoire. Thorndike immediately observed that an unmistakable pattern of behaviors by the cats had formed. Initially, the escapes were made through random trial-and-error behaviors. But then the random trial-and-error behaviors were soon replaced with a rapidly decreasing need to approximate the behavioral sequence before responding correctly. In relatively short order, the animals were able to respond accurately and quickly from then on. In sum, the cats learned how to escape, and once learned, were able to perfectly repeat the sequence.
Motivated by a positive reinforcer (food) placed just outside the box, the animals not only learned how to escape the box by learning the correct response sequence, they also learned to attain it faster by responding only with those behaviors necessary for escape and by not repeating any of the responses that did not lead to escape. Perceiving food as both pleasure and the ability to escape pain, Thorndike assessed the situation by realizing that behavior changes because of its consequences, thereby stating what has become known as The Law of Effect, which stipulates the following...
when particular stimulus-response sequences are followed by pleasure, those responses tend to be stamped in;
responses followed by pain, tend to be stamped out.
As you can see in the subsection on Operant Conditioning, radical behaviorist B.F.Skinner based his Principles of Reinforcement on Thorndike's Law of Effect, known as an Instrumental Learning Theory. Thorndike's puzzle box experiment is depicted in the following video...
Motivated by a positive reinforcer (food) placed just outside the box, the animals not only learned how to escape the box by learning the correct response sequence, they also learned to attain it faster by responding only with those behaviors necessary for escape and by not repeating any of the responses that did not lead to escape. Perceiving food as both pleasure and the ability to escape pain, Thorndike assessed the situation by realizing that behavior changes because of its consequences, thereby stating what has become known as The Law of Effect, which stipulates the following...
when particular stimulus-response sequences are followed by pleasure, those responses tend to be stamped in;
responses followed by pain, tend to be stamped out.
As you can see in the subsection on Operant Conditioning, radical behaviorist B.F.Skinner based his Principles of Reinforcement on Thorndike's Law of Effect, known as an Instrumental Learning Theory. Thorndike's puzzle box experiment is depicted in the following video...
E. R. Guthrie
Edwin Ray Guthrie (1886-1959) was an American behavioral psychologist who was by his own admission heavily influenced by Thorndike and his work. Although a behaviorist, Guthrie took issue with the basic learning concept of Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner despite the fact that they, like Guthrie, were known as associationists. Guthrie's learning theory is Association by Contiguity and is based upon two primary and secondary laws of association; the Law of Contiguity, and the Law of Frequency. The principle behind the Law of Contiguity is basic and states that when two stimuli are in close spatio-temporal proximity or association with one another, that the presence of only one of those stimuli will automatically elicit the presence (or recall) of the other. The Law of Frequency states that the number of contiguous pairings of the stimuli will thus determine their associative strength.
Guthrie presented his theory of association by contiguity in his 1935 publication of The Psychology of Learning. What differentiated Guthrie from the likes of Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner is two-fold; 1) He believed in only one-trial learning as sufficient for learning to occur, and, 2) There is no no need for the use of a reinforcer, either positive or negative, that all learning is simply based on a one-trial stimulus and response sequence.
Edwin Ray Guthrie (1886-1959) was an American behavioral psychologist who was by his own admission heavily influenced by Thorndike and his work. Although a behaviorist, Guthrie took issue with the basic learning concept of Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner despite the fact that they, like Guthrie, were known as associationists. Guthrie's learning theory is Association by Contiguity and is based upon two primary and secondary laws of association; the Law of Contiguity, and the Law of Frequency. The principle behind the Law of Contiguity is basic and states that when two stimuli are in close spatio-temporal proximity or association with one another, that the presence of only one of those stimuli will automatically elicit the presence (or recall) of the other. The Law of Frequency states that the number of contiguous pairings of the stimuli will thus determine their associative strength.
Guthrie presented his theory of association by contiguity in his 1935 publication of The Psychology of Learning. What differentiated Guthrie from the likes of Pavlov, Watson, and Skinner is two-fold; 1) He believed in only one-trial learning as sufficient for learning to occur, and, 2) There is no no need for the use of a reinforcer, either positive or negative, that all learning is simply based on a one-trial stimulus and response sequence.
E. C. Tolman
Edward Chace Tolman (1886-1959), was an American behavioral psychologist known for his theory of Purposive Behaviorism, laid out in his 1932 publication Purposive Behavior in Animals and Men, and no doubt his most important and enduring concepts, the 'intervening variable', a crucial element of all quantitative research. Not unlike Guthrie, Tolman believed that Watson's stimulus-response theory was much too limiting and could not possibly be sufficient to explain learning in higher order animals and humans. Although not implicitly stated, history does credit him with being the first to introduce a cognitive aspect to behaviorism. Tolman coined the term cognitive maps as a mechanism for his important learning theory called latent learning. Latent learning occurs when something is learned without any particular motivation to do so and is used or evidenced when it later becomes important to use what was learned. Latent learning is a process that takes place in-between Pavlov's classical condition and Skinner's stimulus-response learning theories. In order for latent learning to occur, cognitive maps are formed that enable the latent learning to become front and center when needed. A cognitive map is an internal representation of an external experience. |