Conditioning and motor learning

Since motor learning deals only with non-verbal tasks, it can be studied in animals, in infants, and in other instances where linguistic material cannot be employed. In a way, motor learning is therefore fun­damental to the study of rational learning and to other more complex psychological processes. To conduct an experiment in motor learning the experimenter sets the subjects some problem or task to master and observes and measures the improvement in the subject's method of per­forming the task upon successsive trials. The dependent variable is the number of trials or the degree of training.

Undoubtedly, the most widely used of all devices for the study of motor learning is the spatial maze; which has a variety of forms, from the elevated maze for animal subjects to the paper and pencil maze for humans. Other devices include mirror drawing, tossing balls at a target, and the pursuit-meter. Tasks like these, which require the slow or graduai deveiopment of a skirt for their mastery, are to be con­trasted with tasks in which the learning consists of the discovery of some general principle. In the latter instance the correct method of solution may dawn upon the learner suddenly, like a bright idea. The Umweg or detour experiment, in which the subject must find his way around a barrier, and the multiple-choice procedure are techniques for the study of insight learning of this sort.

In recording progress in a learning experiment, the standard method is by means of the learning curve, a graphical device for showing the relationship between trials and performance. Curves of decreasing score, like time and error curves, take special account of the subject's early mistakes. They may be thought of as recording the subject's improve­ment in learning what not to do. Curves of increasing score, on the other hand, show more clearly how the subject improves in learning what to do. Most learning curves, both increasing and decreasing in score, have been found to be negatively accelerated. The Vencent method, a tech­nique for equating curves of varying length, is employed for combining the learning curves of different subjects into a single composite curve.

Although conditioning was first extensively studied by means of the salivary reflex and was called by Pavlov the conditioned reflex, it has since been produced with a variety of responses , many of which are not true reflexes in any sense of the word. It is essentially the process of association expressed in the more objective laboratory concepts of stimulus and response. The fundamentals of the method consist of two steps: (1) there must exist an unconditioned S — R situation that works, (2) there must be regularly paired with this in the proper manner a neutral and conditioned stimulus. Forward conditioning, in which the conditioned stimulus precedes the unconditioned stimulus, has been found to be more efficient, than simultaneous or backward conditioning.

The conditioning technique can be used to measure both absolute and differential threshold. In higher-order conditioning, conditioned responses can also be built upon already existing CRs, provided that motivation is maintained. From the point of view of experimental psychology, conditioning is best thought of as a laboratory procedure for the study of learning problems of all sorts, rather than as a «kind» or category of learning to be sharply differentiated from maze learn­ing, insightful learning, or any other learning. It is a method which emphasizes a few specific stimuli and which usually deals with the minute analysis of a single movement, rather than with gross and gen­eralized behaviour.

(W.N.Kellog. «Conditioning and Motor Learning» in «Methods of

Psychology», ed. T.G.Andrews, N.Y.,1964, pp. 59 - 60),

Read after Lesson VI.

REWARD

Psychologists define the word reward as a 'positive incentive capable of arousing pleasure'. They study the learning ability of animals by offering rewards such as food or drink for correct solutions to prob­lems. At school and college praise for good work, excellent and good marks are rewards. In the adult world, money and promotion are rewards. All such rewards have this in common: they are given after the task has been learnt or the work has been accomplished. Such rewards are called extrinsic awards because they do not belong to the task itself; they are beyond or outside the task.

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There are also intrinsic rewards in which pleasure accompanies the actual performance of the task; the task is enjoyed for its own sake, it is not performed simply for the extrinsic reward that comes after its successful conclusion. Hobbies are examples of activities in which the rewards are intrinsic. Effort and energy are required in a hobby, but the work is pleasurable.

Many jobs bring both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Any job can be intrinsically rewarding. What is important is the attitude of the worker.

In order for a job to bring satisfaction, a person must fee 1 that it presents sufficient challenge to maintain his interest. If it is too diffi­cult, he will lose interest. If it is too easy, he will become bored and dislike it. The jobs in which intrinsic rewards are stressed are invari­ably concerned with people rather than with things. Work which involves helping people is satisfying, but it is also challenging because no two individuals ever behave in exactly the same way. No situation will be repeated; thus monotony can be avoided.

Everything should be done to ensure that the work offers intrinsic reward as well as extrinsic. If a Sixth Former is studying subjects that he likes he will make better progress than if his only motive for study is the extrinsic reward of the examination success. If a man is doing a job which gives him pleasure as well as money, he will experience a deeper sense of fulfilment. However great the extrinsic reward, it is difficult for anyone to retain his enthusiasm and his happiness if the intrinsic reward is entirely lacking. Ideally the main purpose of extrinsic reward is to help us over those periods when work presents difficulties. As members of society we have obligations. We depend on other peo­ple and they depend on us. However enjoyable our work may be. there will be times when we act from a sense of duty rather than from plea­sure. One of the purposes of education is to help us to realize that we cannot always do what we ourselves want. Some activities are often thought to be pleasures rather than duties: playing football, dancing, playing the guitar and acting. But once we undertake any of these as a job, there will be moments when we want to be excused from taking part. Any activity, however pleasurable it seems at first, can become a chore, and correspondingly, any activity can bring pleasure, even doing the washing-up or polishing a floor — it depends on the individ­ual and his attitude to the occasion.

People enjoy hobbies — yet these are activities into which they need to put effort and industry. They may not count as work, but they require as much thought, time and persistence as is needed in work. This is a prime example of intrinsic reward.

(James Breese. « Psychology and Life». L., 1971, pp. 121 - 125)

Read after Lesson VII.

MEMORY

Memory is a eommonsense concept as well as intelligence but it has caused much trouble to psychologists. For some time it was asserted that we should speak of memories rather than of memory, since the ability to remember seemed to be specific to the material concerned. A man who could not remember the registration number of his own car might be able to tell you the score of a football match ten years ago. The artist who had just painted a picture from memory might be unable to remem­ber where he had left his hat. It all seems very confusing but some order is coming out of it all.

The present position appears to be that we can postulate three factors concerned with what is normally thought of memory. One of these is span memory, which has more relation to perceptual speed than to the other two memory factors. It is simply a measure of how much one can retain of unrelated material (such as numbers or letters) after one presentation.

We have already pointed out that the limitations on this capacity are of three-bit order which we find in perceptual activity and which we might expect to underlie perceptual speed. Memory-span and perceptual speed, however, are not identical, probably because some further influence is involved in the latter.

The second form of memory is rote memory, which again involves a time period of minutes rather than seconds.

Related to this is the third form of memory, that for meaningful mate­rial. The reason why this comes out as a separate factor is doubtless because it depends on understanding, and the availability of suitable cod­ing material. Some tests which might be expected to involve chiefly this factor, e.g. remembering a paragraph with considerable detail so as to be able to answer specific questions about the content, turn out to involve chiefly the verbal factor. All things considered, therefore, it looks as though we can consider rote memory to be the key to the memory group.

(C.J. Adcock. «Fundamentals of Psychology». Penguin Books, 1967, pp. 191 - 192).

Read after Lesson VIII.