Download Chapter 1: Introduction

Chapter 1: Introduction – Historical Developments in the study of the Mind
• Learning theory can trace its roots to the
philosophy of Rene Descartes (15961650).
– Cartesian Dualism
• Two classes of human behavior
– Involuntary (Body)
– Voluntary (Mind)
More Historical developments
• Nativism vs. Empiricism
– Does this argument sound familiar?
• Nature/Nurture argument
• Human behaviors as a result of Nature?
• Human behaviors as result of Nurture?
• Are these concepts every truly separate?
– Always an interaction of nature and nurture
More Historical antecedents
• Descartes believed that the mind did not
function in an orderly and predictable
manner.
– To maintain Free will?
• The Empiricists disagreed.
– Hobbes – the principle of hedonism
• People do things in the pursuit of pleasure and
avoidance of pain.
• Empiricists concept of association
• Believed all contents of the mind were
learned
– attempted to explain how
• knowledge was derived through the association of
sensory stimuli.
• Led to the Four Tenets of Association
Theory
Four Tenets of Association Theory
• 1) Temporal Contiguity
– We are better able to associate stimuli that occur
close together in time.
• 2) Intensity
– More intense stimuli are more easily
associated.
• 3) Frequency
– The more often we are presented with stimuli
increases their ability to be learned.
• 4) Similarity
– Some things seem to belong together
• The Dawn of the Modern Era
– The Darwinian Revolution
– Comparative Cognition and the Evolution of
Intelligence
• First let’s discuss the theory of evolution
Theory of Evolution
•
Charles Darwin (1809-1882)
–
•
Origin of Species (1859)
There is diversity in living things even within a species
–
–
•
We don't all look alike
We don't all behave alike
Those traits can be passed on from parent to offspring
–
–
•
Darwin didn't know how.
Mendel did = Genes
There is a struggle to survive
–
–
Many organism mass produce offspring and few make it.
There is fairly high infant mortality for humans as well in some
places
Theory of Evolution
• Organisms that are best suited to their environment have a survival
advantage
– Doesn't necessarily mean the strongest
– At times it might be good to be small and quiet (early mammals)
– Survival of the fittest
• Those with a survival advantage will produce more offspring and
pass their traits on to those offspring, thus the population will begin
to have those particular traits
– Natural selection
– Already known from "unnatural selection" breeding techniques
• Large boar with large sow = large piglet.
Influence of Darwin on Psychology
• Darwin argued that human intelligence
evolved from lower organisms.
– The human mind is a product of evolution.
• George Romanes (1848-1894)
– Animal Intelligence
– tended to evaluate how an animal behaved
according to how he would have behaved in a
similar situation
• Freeing trapped ants
• Anthropomorphism?
– Not good science
• C. Lloyd Morgan (1852-1936) was against
flippantly attributing human abilities to
animals.
– Morgan’s canon
• “in no case may we interpret an action as the
outcome of the 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.”
Animal Models
• Darwin’s ideas allowed for the use of
animal models
• Modern Psychology, Neuroscience, and
Medical Research relies heavily on animal
models.
– Why?
• Methodological aspects of the study of learning
• Learning is an Experimental Science
• What is the difference between an experimental approach and an
observational approach to science?
• Why emphasize experimentation in learning research?
– Observation alone cannot tell us if a behavior is learned.
– There are always alternative explanations that are not ruled out.
• Put a rat in an operant chamber and provide a pellet of food for every lever press.
• I see that lever pressing goes up.
• Conclude that reward increases behavior?
• Known as the learning performance distinction
• The learning and Performance distinction.
– There can be many reasons for changes in behavior,
that are unrelated to learning.
• Motivation
• Fatigue
– We must rule out these alternative explanations with
control groups
– Also - sometimes learning can occur without an
immediate change in performance.
• Childs knowledge of driving?
• Tolman and Honzik (1930)
HNR= Hungry not Rewarded, HR = Hungry Rewarded, HNR-R, Hungry not Rewarded until day 11
• The General-Process Approach to the
Study of Learning
• Thus, comparative psychologists tend to
study things using simple preparations, and
subjects that are cheap, and cooperative.
– Operant chambers
– Rats
– pigeons