Edward Thorndike and the Law of Effect
"Thorndike called the association between sense impressions and impulses to action a bond or connection. This marked the first formal attempt to link sensory events to behavior. Earlier brands of associationism attempted to show that ideas became linked together; this Thorndike's approach is quite different and can be regarded as the first modern theory of learning......
Thorndike's concern wan not only for stimulus conditions and tendencies in action, but for what held the stimulus together. He believed they were connected by a neural bond. His theory is called connectionism, with connection referred to being the neural connection between stimuli (S) and responses (R)."
Hergenhahn, B. R. (1982). An introduction to theories of learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. (p. 59)
Like Watson, Thorndike believed that animals learning is not mediated by thought but rather is the result on the consequences of actions. This is the fundamental S>R model of learning. While Watson defined the Behaviorist paradigm, Thorndike’s experiments on trial and error learning with animals (most famously with cats in his puzzle box experiments) established the foundational principles on which the Behaviorist perspective came to depend.
*Trial and error learning- To Thorndike the most basic form of learning was trial and error learning.... He reached this basic notion of trial and error learning through his early experimentation, which involved putting an animal in an apparatus that was arranged so that when the animal made a certain kind of response it escaped" (See the "puzzle box" above). "Thorndike plotted the time it took the animal to solve the problem as a function of the number of opportunities the animal had to solve the problem. Every opportunity was a trial and the trial terminated when the animal hit upon the correct solution. A typical graph generated under these circumstances is shown" below. "In this basic experimental arrangement Thorndike consistently noted that the time it took to solve the problem (his dependent variable) systematically decreased as the number of trials increased, that is, the more opportunities the animal had the faster it solved the problem." "Thondike concluded that learning was incremental rather than insightful. In other words, learning occurs in very small systematic steps rather than in huge jumps." "Based on this research, Thorndike also concluded emphatically that learning was direct and was not mediated by thinking or reasoning....The demotion of reasoning and of the importance of ideas in learning was the beginning of what became the behaviorist movement in America."
Hergenhahn, B. R. (1982). An introduction to theories of learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. (p. 59-62)
Video of cat escaping the puzzle box
http://www.schooltube.com/video/e3a28c30626d612a6e95/thorndikepuzzle-box
*Laws of learning- Thorndike "...also insisted that the learning of all mammals including humans followed the same laws."
Thorndike's theory consists of three primary laws:
(1) law of effect - responses to a situation which are followed by a rewarding state of affairs will be strengthened and become habitual responses to that situation,
(2) law of readiness - a series of responses can be chained together to satisfy some goal which will result in annoyance if blocked, and
(3) law of exercise - connections become strengthened with practice and weakened when practice is discontinued. A corollary of the law of effect was that responses that reduce the likelihood of achieving a rewarding state (i.e., punishments, failures) will decrease in strength.”
Of these, the Law of Effect proved the most influential, it laid out the notion that when an animal tries to learn something, for example how to escape from a puzzle box, it will try different actions to solve the problem, but it is more likely to repeat actions that have a desirable outcome and less likely to repeat actions that have unpleasant outcomes. Following this pattern, the more effective behaviors are repeated across time, while less effective behaviors are discarded. Eventually this behavior can result in achieving the desired outcome.
The full text of the Law of Effect
http://www1.appstate.edu/~kms/classes/psy3202/Thorndike.htm
*Spread of effect- "....a satisfying state of affairs not only increased the probability of recurrence of the response that lead to the satisfying state of affairs, but also increased the probability of recurrence of responses surrounding the rewarded one." In other words, Thorndike proposed that animals can transfer learning from one situation to another. “The theory suggests that transfer of learning depends upon the presence of identical elements in the original and new learning situations; i.e., transfer is always specific, never general.”
*Thorndike, E. (1911). Animal Intelligence. Chapter 5 - Laws and Hypotheses of Behavior Laws and Behavior http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Thorndike/Animal/chap5.htm
*History of Psychology Thorndike site
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/thorndike.htm
Thorndike's concern wan not only for stimulus conditions and tendencies in action, but for what held the stimulus together. He believed they were connected by a neural bond. His theory is called connectionism, with connection referred to being the neural connection between stimuli (S) and responses (R)."
Hergenhahn, B. R. (1982). An introduction to theories of learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. (p. 59)
Like Watson, Thorndike believed that animals learning is not mediated by thought but rather is the result on the consequences of actions. This is the fundamental S>R model of learning. While Watson defined the Behaviorist paradigm, Thorndike’s experiments on trial and error learning with animals (most famously with cats in his puzzle box experiments) established the foundational principles on which the Behaviorist perspective came to depend.
*Trial and error learning- To Thorndike the most basic form of learning was trial and error learning.... He reached this basic notion of trial and error learning through his early experimentation, which involved putting an animal in an apparatus that was arranged so that when the animal made a certain kind of response it escaped" (See the "puzzle box" above). "Thorndike plotted the time it took the animal to solve the problem as a function of the number of opportunities the animal had to solve the problem. Every opportunity was a trial and the trial terminated when the animal hit upon the correct solution. A typical graph generated under these circumstances is shown" below. "In this basic experimental arrangement Thorndike consistently noted that the time it took to solve the problem (his dependent variable) systematically decreased as the number of trials increased, that is, the more opportunities the animal had the faster it solved the problem." "Thondike concluded that learning was incremental rather than insightful. In other words, learning occurs in very small systematic steps rather than in huge jumps." "Based on this research, Thorndike also concluded emphatically that learning was direct and was not mediated by thinking or reasoning....The demotion of reasoning and of the importance of ideas in learning was the beginning of what became the behaviorist movement in America."
Hergenhahn, B. R. (1982). An introduction to theories of learning. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall. (p. 59-62)
Video of cat escaping the puzzle box
http://www.schooltube.com/video/e3a28c30626d612a6e95/thorndikepuzzle-box
*Laws of learning- Thorndike "...also insisted that the learning of all mammals including humans followed the same laws."
Thorndike's theory consists of three primary laws:
(1) law of effect - responses to a situation which are followed by a rewarding state of affairs will be strengthened and become habitual responses to that situation,
(2) law of readiness - a series of responses can be chained together to satisfy some goal which will result in annoyance if blocked, and
(3) law of exercise - connections become strengthened with practice and weakened when practice is discontinued. A corollary of the law of effect was that responses that reduce the likelihood of achieving a rewarding state (i.e., punishments, failures) will decrease in strength.”
Of these, the Law of Effect proved the most influential, it laid out the notion that when an animal tries to learn something, for example how to escape from a puzzle box, it will try different actions to solve the problem, but it is more likely to repeat actions that have a desirable outcome and less likely to repeat actions that have unpleasant outcomes. Following this pattern, the more effective behaviors are repeated across time, while less effective behaviors are discarded. Eventually this behavior can result in achieving the desired outcome.
The full text of the Law of Effect
http://www1.appstate.edu/~kms/classes/psy3202/Thorndike.htm
*Spread of effect- "....a satisfying state of affairs not only increased the probability of recurrence of the response that lead to the satisfying state of affairs, but also increased the probability of recurrence of responses surrounding the rewarded one." In other words, Thorndike proposed that animals can transfer learning from one situation to another. “The theory suggests that transfer of learning depends upon the presence of identical elements in the original and new learning situations; i.e., transfer is always specific, never general.”
*Thorndike, E. (1911). Animal Intelligence. Chapter 5 - Laws and Hypotheses of Behavior Laws and Behavior http://psychclassics.yorku.ca/Thorndike/Animal/chap5.htm
*History of Psychology Thorndike site
http://www.muskingum.edu/~psych/psycweb/history/thorndike.htm