Table Of ContentWhy You Need This New Edition?
1. Major reorganization and streamlining throughout the text.
2. Chapter 6: Introduction of the testing effect as an example
of the superiority of distributed practice and updates on
progress in biofeedback.
3. Chapter 7: Extensive discussion of Siegel’s notion of conditional
compensatory responses, added material on progress and advances in
conditioned immune responses, and an introduction to the negative
transfer effect.
4. Chapter 10: The cognitive neuroscience of Gestalt psychology,
including studies of the “Aha”! phenomenon.
5. Chapter 11: More evidence that Piaget underestimated the
cognitive abilities of infants and toddlers.
6. Chapter 13: Exploration of the role of mirror neurons in
observational learning.
7. Chapter 14: New information on the role of hippocampus in
consolidation and spatial learning.
8. Chapter 15: Introduction to the Behavioral Immune System and
the role of sense of smell in mate selection.
9. Chapter 16: A look at and discussion of educational trends.
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AN INTRODUCTION TO
THEORIES OF LEARNING
N E
INTH DITION
MATTHEW H. OLSON
Hamline University
B. R. HERGENHAHN
Professor Emeritus
Hamline University
First published 2013, 2009, 2005 by Pearson Education, Inc.
Published 2016 by Routledge
Routledge Routledge
Taylor & Francis Group Taylor & Francis Group
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Copyright © 2013, 2009, 2005 Taylor & Francis. All rights reserved.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in
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only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe.
Cover Designer: S uzanne Duda
Credits and acknowledgments borrowed from other sources and reproduced, with
permission, in this textbook appear on the appropriate page within text.
ISBN: 9780205871865 (hbk)
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Olson, Matthew H.
An introduction to theories of learning/by Matthew H. Olson, B.R.
Hergenhahn.—9th ed.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-205-87186-0 (alk. paper)
1. Learning, Psychology of. I. Hergenhahn, B. R., 1934- II. Title.
LB1051.H42 2012
370.15’23--dc23
2012016918
Please visit the companion website at www.routledge.com/9780205871865
Contents
PREFACE xvi
PART ONE INTRODUCTION TO LEARNING 1
Chapter 1 WHAT IS LEARNING? 1
Must Learning Result in a Behavioral Change? 2
How Permanent Is Relatively Permanent? 3
Learning and Performance 4
Why Do We Refer to Practice or Experience? 4
Does Learning Result from a Specific Kind of Experience? 6
A Modified Definition of Learning 6
Are There Different Kinds of Learning? 7
Classical Conditioning 7
Instrumental Conditioning 7
Learning and Survival 8
Why Study Learning? 9
Chapter 2 APPROACHES TO THE STUDY OF LEARNING 12
The Systematic Study of Learning 13
What Is Science? 13
Aspects of Theory 13
From Research to Theory 14
Theories as Tools 15
The Principle of Parsimony 16
The Learning Experiment 17
Arbitrary Decisions in Setting Up a Learning Experiment 17
The Use of Models 21
v
vi CONTENTS
Learning in the Laboratory versus Naturalistic Observation 22
Kuhn’s Views of How Sciences Change 22
Popper’s View of Science 24
Kuhn versus Popper 25
Chapter 3 EARLY NOTIONS ABOUT LEARNING 27
Epistemology and Learning Theory 27
Plato 28
Reminiscence Theory of Knowledge 29
Aristotle 30
The Beginning of Modern Psychology 32
Other Historical Influences on Learning Theory 36
Psychology’s Early Schools 41
Voluntarism 41
Structuralism 42
Functionalism 43
Behaviorism 44
Summary and Overview 46
PART TWO PREDOMINANTLY FUNCTIONALISTIC THEORIES 49
Chapter 4 EDWARD LEE THORNDIKE 49
Animal Research Before Thorndike 51
Major Theoretical Concepts 53
Connectionism 53
Selecting and Connecting 53
Learning Is Incremental, Not Insightful 54
Learning Is Not Mediated by Ideas 55
All Mammals Learn in the Same Manner 56
Thorndike Before 1930 56
The Law of Readiness 56
The Law of Exercise 57
The Law of Effect: Thorndike on Reinforcement 58
Secondary Concepts Before 1930 58
Multiple Response 59
Set or Attitude 59
Prepotency of Elements 59
Response by Analogy 60
Associative Shifting 62
CONTENTS vi i
Thorndike After 1930 62
Revised Law of Exercise 63
Revised Law of Effect 63
Belongingness 63
Spread of Effect 65
Thorndike on Education 65
Evaluation of Thorndike’s Theory 67
Contributions 67
Criticisms 68
Chapter 5 BURRHUS FREDERIC SKINNER 71
Major Theoretical Concepts 73
Radical Behaviorism 73
Respondent and Operant Behavior 74
Type S and Type R Conditioning 74
Skinner on Reinforcement 75
The Skinner Box 77
The Cumulative Recording 77
Conditioning the Lever-Pressing Response 78
Shaping 79
Extinction 80
Spontaneous Recovery 81
Superstitious Behavior 81
Discriminative Operant 82
Secondary Reinforcement 83
Generalized Reinforcers 84
Chaining 84
Positive and Negative Reinforcers 86
Punishment 87
Alternatives to Punishment 90
Comparison of Skinner and Thorndike 91
Schedules of Reinforcement 92
Skinner’s Attitude toward Learning Theory 102
The Relativity of Reinforcement 103
David Premack 103
Revisions of the Premack Principle 105
William Timberlake 105
Skinner on Education 107
Skinner’s Legacy: PSI, CBI, and Online Learning 108
Personalized Systems of Instruction 110
Computer-Based Instruction 111
viii CONTENTS
Evaluation of Skinner’s Theory 112
Contributions 112
Criticisms 112
Chapter 6 CLARK LEONARD HULL 115
Hull’s Approach to Theorizing 117
Major Theoretical Concepts 117
Major Differences Between Hull’s 1943 and 1952 Theories 124
Incentive Motivation (K) 124
Stimulus-Intensity Dynamism 125
Change from Drive Reduction to Drive Stimulus Reduction 126
Fractional Antedating Goal Response 126
The Habit Family Hierarchy 129
Hull’s Final System Summarized 131
Hull on Education 132
Evaluation of Hull’s Theory 133
Contributions 133
Criticisms 133
Kenneth W. Spence 135
Abram Amsel 140
Neal E. Miller, Visceral Conditioning and Biofeedback 144
PART THREE PREDOMINANTLY ASSOCIATIONISTIC THEORIES 149
Chapter 7 IVAN PETROVICH PAVLOV 149
Empirical Observations 152
Development of a Conditioned Reflex: Pavlov
on Reinforcement 152
Experimental Extinction 153
Spontaneous Recovery 153
Higher-Order Conditioning 153
Generalization 155
Discrimination 156
Relationship between the CS and the US 156
Major Theoretical Concepts 157
Excitation and Inhibition 157
The Dynamic Stereotype 158
Irradiation and Concentration 158
Excitatory and Inhibitory Conditioning 159
CONTENTS ix
Summary of Pavlov’s Views on Brain Functioning 160
First and Second Signal Systems 161
A Comparison Between Classical and Instrumental Conditioning 162
Recent Research on Classical Conditioning 163
The Rescorla-Wagner Theory of Classical Conditioning 168
Contingency Not Contiguity 170
Learned Helplessness 173
Other Theoretical Accounts of Classical Conditioning 175
Learned Irrelevance, Latent Inhibition, and Superconditioning 177
Conditioned Taste Aversion: The Garcia Effect 179
John B. Watson’s Experiment with Little Albert 181
Further Applications of Classical Conditioning to Clinical Psychology 183
Applications of Classical Conditioning to Medicine 186
Pavlov on Education 187
Evaluation of Pavlov’s Theory 188
Contributions 188
Criticisms 188
Chapter 8 EDWIN RAY GUTHRIE 192
Major Theoretical Concepts 193
The One Law of Learning 193
One-Trial Learning 194
The Recency Principle 194
Movement-Produced Stimuli 194
Why Does Practice Improve Performance? 195
Guthrie on Reinforcement 197
The Guthrie-Horton Experiment 198
Forgetting 198
Summary of Guthrie’s Theory as Presented Thus Far 200
How to Break Habits 201
Sidetracking a Habit 204
Punishment 204
Summary of Guthrie’s Views on Punishment 206
Drives 207
Intentions 208
Transfer of Training 208
Voeks’s Formalization of Guthrie’s Theory 209
