Learning Theory and Behaviorism
Learning Theory and Behaviorism October 16, 2012
Wundt’s Structuralism: • Goal was to analyze the structure of conscious experience into its elements and components and their associative relationships. It was a form of metal chemistry • Developed of the technique introspection, which requires trained introspectionists to look inward and describe/analyze the contents of their experience to a stimulus word • Edward Titchner brought structuralism to the U.S. @ Cornell university listing 1000’s of elements of consciousness
William James: • James studied with Wundt, but rejected a static description of the elements of the mind. James thought the mind and consciousness to be adaptive function that envolved just as any other adaptive function • Therefore, proper study of the mind is to relate its characteristics to purposeful, adaptive behavior. • Hence the rise of functionalism. James was professor of psychology at Harvard
Principles of Psychology: • James wrote this • Titles were stream of thought, memory, reasoning, emotion, will, effects of experience
Edward Thorndike: • In the late 1800s at Harvard, drawing from James and functionalism and also Darwin’s ideas of evolution of species and their adaption to environment, he studied the progress cats made in solving a puzzle by learning a desired that is instrumental in bringing about desired outcome • Notion of stimulus-response (reflexive vs. rational) was already firmly in the thinking of leading philosophers at the time, in the field of education
Ivan Pavlov: • In 1904, Pavlov received the Nobel prize for his work on the chemistry of digestive juices in saliva • His work with dogs required gathering large amounts of saliva for chemical analyses. Done through a tube surgically implanted in dog’s salivary gland and then simulating salvation with dried meat powder
Unconditional….
• Dried meat powder is an unconditional stimulus 9UCS) in that it
Wundt’s Structuralism: • Goal was to analyze the structure of conscious experience into its elements and components and their associative relationships. It was a form of metal chemistry • Developed of the technique introspection, which requires trained introspectionists to look inward and describe/analyze the contents of their experience to a stimulus word • Edward Titchner brought structuralism to the U.S. @ Cornell university listing 1000’s of elements of consciousness
William James: • James studied with Wundt, but rejected a static description of the elements of the mind. James thought the mind and consciousness to be adaptive function that envolved just as any other adaptive function • Therefore, proper study of the mind is to relate its characteristics to purposeful, adaptive behavior. • Hence the rise of functionalism. James was professor of psychology at Harvard
Principles of Psychology: • James wrote this • Titles were stream of thought, memory, reasoning, emotion, will, effects of experience
Edward Thorndike: • In the late 1800s at Harvard, drawing from James and functionalism and also Darwin’s ideas of evolution of species and their adaption to environment, he studied the progress cats made in solving a puzzle by learning a desired that is instrumental in bringing about desired outcome • Notion of stimulus-response (reflexive vs. rational) was already firmly in the thinking of leading philosophers at the time, in the field of education
Ivan Pavlov: • In 1904, Pavlov received the Nobel prize for his work on the chemistry of digestive juices in saliva • His work with dogs required gathering large amounts of saliva for chemical analyses. Done through a tube surgically implanted in dog’s salivary gland and then simulating salvation with dried meat powder
Unconditional….
• Dried meat powder is an unconditional stimulus 9UCS) in that it