Chapter 1: Introduction – Historical Developments in the study of the Mind

• Learning theory can trace its roots to the philosophy of Rene Descartes (1596-1650).– 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