The psychology of learning / by Edward L. Thorndike.

  • Edward Thorndike
Date:
1913
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Licence: In copyright

Credit: The psychology of learning / by Edward L. Thorndike. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by The University of Leeds Library. The original may be consulted at The University of Leeds Library.

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    I 44 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF LEARNING The process of learning to respond to the difference of pitch of tones from whatever instrument, to the ‘square-root- ness’ of whatever number, to triangularity in whatever size or combination of lines, to equality of whatever pairs, or to honesty in whatever person and instance, is thus a consequence of associative learning, requiring no other forces than those of use, disuse, satisfaction, and discomfort. “What happens in such cases is that the response, by being connected with many situations alike in the presence of the element in question and different in other respects, is bound firmly to that ele- ment and loosely to each of its concomitants. Conversely any element is bound firmly to any one response that is made to all situations containing it and very, very loosely to each of those responses that are made to only a few of the situations containing it. The element of triangularity, for example, is bound firmly to the response of saying or think- ing ‘triangle’ but only very loosely to the response of saying or thinking white, red, blue, large, small, iron, steel, wood, paper and the like. A situation thus acquires bonds not only with some response to it as a gross total, but also with responses to each of its elements that has appeared in any other gross totals. Appropriate response to an element regardless of its concomitants is a necessary consequence of the laws of exer- cise and effect if an animal learns to make that response to the gross total situations that contain the element and not to make it to those that do not. Such prepotent determination of the response by one or another element of the situation is no transcendental mystery, but, given the circumstances, a general rule of all learning.”* Such are at bottom only extreme cases of the same learning as a cat exhibits that depresses a platform in a certain box whether it faces north or south, whether the temperature is 50 or 80 degrees, whether one or two persons are in sight, whether she is exceedingly or moderately hungry, whether fish or milk is outside the *The quotation is from the author [’n (b), p. 264].
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