Major themes and issues
- Key People:
- Leslie Valiant
Association
A dominant ancient theme in theories of learning has been that of association. Although the concept was accepted by Aristotle, it was brought into the developing psychology of learning by British empiricist philosophers (Locke, Berkeley, Hume, the Mills, and Hartley) during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Popular acceptability of the notion of association was related to progress in the physical sciences. The physical universe had been shown to consist of a limited number of chemical elements that can combine in innumerable ways. By analogy, a science of “mental chemistry” seemed appealing. The theorized elements in this new “science” were called ideas, said to be based on what were named sensations. The synthesizing principles by which these posited ideas combined in conscious experience were expressed as so-called laws of association. It was suggested that such conditions as temporal and spatial contiguity, repetition, similarity, and vividness favoured the formation of associations, and each was called a law of association. Thus, there were “laws” of repetition, of similarity, and so on.
At the end of the 19th century the notion of association was widely accepted among psychologists. German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt (1832–1920) took a position nearly identical with that of the British empiricist philosophers. Also in Germany, Hermann Ebbinghaus (1850–1909) began to study rote learning of lists of nonsense verbal items (e.g., XOQ, ZUN, ZIB). He maintained that the association of each word with every succeeding word was the primary mechanism in learning these lists. Pavlov in Russia offered temporary associative connections in the nervous system as a hypothetical basis for conditioned reflexes.
These European influences coalesced in North America. Wundt’s notions were introduced there when a student of his from England, Edward Bradford Titchener (1867–1927), came to teach at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. Ebbinghaus’ method and theory became standard in Canadian and U.S. studies of verbal learning; Watson and other behaviourists applied Pavlov’s conceptions to their learning experiments. Experimental psychology in the Western Hemisphere came to be dominated by what seemed to be a search for laws of association.
What is associated?
Investigators asked whether associations are formed between observable stimuli and responses (S–R) or between subjective sensory impressions (S–S). One group that included Hull, Guthrie, and Thorndike took the relatively objective S–R position, while Tolman and others favoured the more introspective, perceptual S–S approach. For a time S–R theorists held popularity; behavioral responses are readily observable evidence of learning, and many included them in the associative process itself.
But the reduction of learning to mere external stimuli and overt responses raised discordant theoretical objections that the inner activities of the organism were being ignored. S–R theories failed to account for a host of learned phenomena. For example, people could be trained to say they heard sounds even when such auditory stimuli were absent. They said they dreamed about what they had learned, too; yet there need be no immediate external stimulus, nor does the dreamer always make the responses he dreams about.
Physiological psychologists and biologists found ways of delivering electrical stimulation directly to the brain; this eliminated the sensory stimuli and vocal or motor responses on which S–R theories hinge. Direct neural stimulation was found to be an adequate signal and the electrical response of the brain itself proved susceptible to conditioning. At this level of the nervous system, distinctions between stimulus and response mean less than at the periphery, and the S–S versus S–R controversy is no longer such a burning issue.
Direction of association
Classical conditioning dependably has been shown to proceed only forward in time. Bell must precede food if a conditioned reaction is to be established. If it had any effect, the reverse procedure (food before bell) would be called backward conditioning; but at most it only inhibits other reactions. There seems to be a relatively brief optimal interval in classical conditioning at which associations are most easily made. For quick reflexes such as the eyeblink, this interval is about one-half second; longer or shorter intervals are less effective. For slower reactions such as salivation the interval is longer, perhaps two seconds or so.
In learning verbal associations the situation appears to be quite different. When one learns the Russian–English forward association da–“yes,” he also learns the English–Russian backward association “yes”–da. Moreover, timing is much less critical than in classical conditioning. Verbal pairs are learned with almost equal ease whether presented simultaneously or separated by several seconds.
In what is called context association, the general environment may begin to elicit a response that is being conditioned to a specific stimulus. Thus, a dog may salivate simply on being brought into the experimental room—before any bell rings. Verbal associations also can be weakened by changes in the general situation.
Repetition
A major theoretical issue concerns whether associations grow in strength with exercise or whether they are fully established all at once. Evidence is that learning usually proceeds gradually; even when a problem is solved insightfully, practice with similar tasks tends to improve performance. Some (perhaps most) learning theorists have concluded that repetition gradually enhances some underlying process in learning.
The view that associations develop at full strength in a single trial leads to a typical question. How can the gradual nature of most learning be explained if all-or-nothing is the rule? One possible answer suggested by Guthrie has led to so-called stimulus-sampling theory. The theory assumes that associations indeed are made in just one trial. However, learning seems slow, it is said, because the environment (context) in which it occurs is complex and constantly changing. Given a changing environment, the sample of stimuli will differ from trial to trial. Thus, it is reasoned, it should take many trials before a response is associated with a relatively complete set of all possible stimuli.
In this light, the strength (or probability) of a response should increase with practice even if the elementary associative process occurs in a single trial.
These stimulus-sampling notions translate easily into mathematical form; they are an example of statistical learning theory, a more general development in the quantitative treatment of learning.
Reinforcement
Repetition alone does not ensure learning; eventually it produces fatigue and suppresses responses. An additional process called reinforcement has been invoked to account for learning, and heated disputes have centred on its theoretical mechanism.
Objectively reinforcement refers to the use of stimuli that have been found to facilitate learning. Under appropriate conditions, these include praise, food, water, opportunity to explore, sexual stimuli, money, electric shock, and direct brain stimulation.
More theoretically, the term reinforcement expresses various theoretical hunches about some specialized subjective quality all such stimuli might share. Food for a hungry animal is a well-established reinforcer, conceivably through its distinctive appearance and odour. It tends to elicit a set of responses: approaching, chewing, tasting, swallowing; these may produce additional perceptual activities that reduce the drive or desire for food (e.g., by halting stomach contractions that are experienced as hunger pangs). But no single subjective quality imagined by theorists seems invariably effective in reinforcement studies. Perhaps some combination of introspective influences is critical, or it may be that perceptual processes apply differently from one learning situation to another.