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1. Thorndike

   The Law of Effect
2. Animal Research Before Thorndike Romanes: was a student of Darwin's very interested in evolution and intelligence not a psychologist- more a philosopher/biologist remember its 1878 no real data lots of ancedotes not really defined variables this is psychology at the beginning attempting to distinguish between learned and innate assume ability to learn represents higher intelligence lower animals can only survive with INNATE behavior patterns- cannot adapt (that is learn) to deal with new situations.
3. Conwy Lloyd Morgan (1842-1936): Introduction to Comparative Psychology: First book of it’s kind Morgan’s cannon: “in no case may we interpret an action as the outcome of exercise of a higher psychical faculty, if it can be interpreted as the outcome of the exercise of one which stands lower in the psychological scale”. Don’t let human thoughts/actions guide our interpretation of animal thoughts/actions Don’t anthropomorphize: think like the animal
4. Margaret Floy Washington (1871-1939) First woman PhD in psych in U.S. The animal mind (1908) First to use experimental studies to investigate animal behavior Set the groundwork for Thorndike’s research
5. E.L. Thorndike 1874-1949
6. Major theoretical concepts Connectionism Association between senses impressions and impusles to action First formal attempt to link sensory events with behavior Trial and error learning: How we select and connect Puzzle box research helped demonstrate this Learning is incremental, not insightful Occurs trial by trial Gradual change The learning curve
7. The Law of Effect Thorndike (1911): Animal Intelligence Experimented with cats in a puzzle box Put cats in the box Cats had to figure out how to pull/push/move lever to get out; when out got reward The cats got faster and faster with each trial Law of Effect emerged from this research: When a response is followed by a satisfying state of affairs, that response will increase in frequency.
8. Major theoretical concepts Learning is not mediated by ideas but is direct The IDEA (e.g. seeing someone engage in a response) of a response is in and of itself UNABLE to produce that response All mammals learn the same: believes that all "higher" organisms simply engage in laws of instinct, exercise and effect able to use these in more complex situations- but all learning basically the same thus: most organisms basically the same- can use same laws to describe most behavior
9. Basic Premises Behavior is predictable Behavior occurs for a reason Just like body developed via evolution, so to does behavior May not necessarily be orderly, but is predictable Assumption that nature is orderly Or at least orderly in that can follow the pattern of development One change leads to another Most critical premise: If we can predict behavior, we can control behavior This has incredible ethical consequences!
10. Basic Premises Every response or change in the response of an animal is the result of the interaction of its original knowledgeable nature and the environment disagrees that movements of early infancy are random believes in PURPOSEFUL behavior Infants are constantly testing and trying out behaviors/consequences Crib studies showing infants developing cause/effect Organisms are always learning!
11. Basic Premises Law of instinct: to any situation an animal will, apart from learning, respond by virtue of the inherited nature of its reception, connection, and action systems important idea: animal do what "knows" best instinct can overrule learning Learning can ‘overrule’ instinct ONLY when connection is stronger than instinct
12. The Law of Readiness When a conduction unit is ready to conduct, conduction by it is satisfying When an animal is ready to learn, learning is satisfying For a conduction unit ready to conduct, not to conduct is annoying When an animal is not ready to learn, forcing it to learn annoys the animal Don’t try to teach a pig to sing- it is a waste of your time and it really irritates the pig! When conduction unit is not ready for conduction and is forced to conduct, conduction is annoying Not learning when ready to learn is just as annoying!
13. The Law of Exercise Any response to a situation will, other things being equal, be more strongly connected with the situation Each time you engage in a behavior in response to a stimulus, it strengths the connection between that response and that setting/stimulus This connection will be in proportion to the number of times it has been connected with that situation Practice strengthens the response This connection will also be in proportion to the average vigor and duration of the connection. Wimpy practice produces less learning than vigorous learing!
14. The Law of Effect Of several responses made to the same situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more firmly connected with the situation When an action recurs, the more firmly connected reaction will be more likely to recur Those reactions which are accompanied or closely followed by discomfort to the animal will, other things being equal, have their connections with that situation weakened when it recurs, they will be less likely to occur. The greater the satisfaction or discomfort, the greater the strengthening or weakening of the bond.
15. Parameters of these laws include: Quality of the satisfaction/discomfort Difficulties arise here in terms of defining satisfaction/discomfort Note that Thorndike allows animal to “define”- not a equipotentialist Close pairing of the act with the reinforcer/punisher in time Does assume contiguity is critical Susceptibility of the response and situation to connection: suggests that the response must have a high degree of "readiness of the response to be connected to the situation“ Biological readiness Explains imitation via several laws: behavior rewarded or punished if rewarded/punished- changes likelihood that will do it again readiness of response is important
16. How deal with modeling? Interesting perspective on modeling and linguistic acquisition of children agrees that reinforcement plays MAJOR role does not, however, deny existence of some innate mechanisms Rational connections are, in their causation, like any others, the difference being in what is connected really discussing discrimination and generalization here Also begins to discuss parameters of learning: Jenkins law of resolution of physical states = learning curve that is: the more frequently an animal does a behavior, the faster it is able to perform it distinguishing between HABIT and learning
17. Multiple Responses Varied reaction First step in all learning Animal engages in many (but not random) responses Timberlake (2001): biological modes Animal tries many different responses Tries different responses to situation Tries different versions of response In sense, animal is “creative” at first, until response is selected for
18. Set or Attitude: Dispositions, pre-adjustments or sets (attitudes) come with the animal Idea that learner is not “tabula rasa” but brings set of givens to learning situation Biological givens Environmental/experiential givens What set or attitude that learner has will affect learning Old experience affects new!
19. Prepotency of Elements “Partial or piecemeal activity of situation” Only some elements of situation govern behavior Not all stimuli in setting are relevant Organism must determine which are critical stimuli Some elements have prepotency Again, biological Also experiential
20. Response by Analogy Set or attitude Prepotency of elements Response by analogy Associative shifting
21. Response by Analogy Response by analogy: determines how we respond to situation not previously encountered? Transfer of training: Not mental muscle (strengthening general abilities) Believed in education in highly specific skills that would transfer
22. Response by Analogy Little evidence for formal discipline of theory of transfer (of general knowledge) But: why brighter students do better in general studies? Are brighter, thus more capable Only ones who CAN succeed at general transfer Transfer of training should be emphasized instead \ Why can we respond smoothly in novel situations? Has to do with degree of overlap with older situations If sufficient elements overlap, no problem!
23. Associative Shifting Shift association from one stimulus to another Gradually replace elements of 1 stimulus with the other Slowly change until is “new” stimulus Errorless learning of Terrace is good example Herb Terrace really brought out this idea Widely used with autism/developmental disabilities Start with picture of a cat, superimpose “cat” on the picture, fade the image and leave the word Idea is that the individual makes few, if any errors No chance to strengthen “wrong” answer Data strongly support this approach for initial learning