Edward L.Thorndike (1874 - 1949)

Connectionism

Biography

Edward Lee Thorndike, an American pioneer in comparative psychology, was born in Lowell, Massachusetts in 1874 to the family of a Methodist minister.. He became interested in the field of psychology after reading William James' "Principles of Psychology" and after graduating from Weslyan University enrolled at Harvard in order to study under James. Thorndike did not complete his education at Harvard. Later he transferred to Columbia University, where he completed his Ph.D. In 1898, he was awarded the doctorate for his thesis, "Animal Intelligence: An Experimental Study of the Associative Processes in Animals", in which he concluded that an experimental approach is the only way to understand learning and established his famous "Law of Effect".

Upon graduation, Thorndike spent one year at the College for Women of Case Western Reserve in Cleveland, Ohio. Then he became an instructor in psychology at Teachers College at Columbia University, studying human learning, education, and mental testing. He remained at Columbia the rest of his career.

Edward L. Thorndike's pioneer investigations in the fields of human and animal learning are among the most influential in the history of Psychology. In 1912, he was recognized for his accomplishments and elected president of the American Psychological Association. In 1934, the American Association for the Advancement of Science elected Thorndike as the only social scientist to head this professional organization. Thorndike retired in 1939, but worked actively until his death in 1949. His work was a major influence on B.F.Skinner.

Thorndike was a contemporary of Pavlov and Watson. He introduced the concept of reinforcement, which Watson and Guthrie ignored. Thorndike's work frequently has not received the attention it deserves because so many aspects of his thinking became associated with B.F.Skinner. Thorndike's work is often called connectionism, because of the idea that bonds between stimulus and response take the form of neural connections. Learning involves the "stamping in" of connections, forgetting involves "stamping out" connections.

Thorndike was very prolific, and did work in areas of educational practices, verbal behavior, comparative psychology, intelligence testing, nature-nurture problem, transfer of learning, and quantitative measurement, in addition to learning theories.

Theory

One of Thorndike's great contributions to psychology was the Law of Effect, which states that responses which occur just prior to a satisfying state of affairs are more likely to be repeated, and responses just prior to an annoying state of affairs are more likely NOT to be repeated. The second contribution was his rejection of the notion that man is simply another animal that can reason. He believed intelligence should be defined solely in terms of greater or lesser ability to form connections.

Several additional laws form part of Thorndike's learning theory:
1. Multiple Response: in any given situation, the organism will respond in a variety of ways if the first response does not immediately lead to a more satisfying state of affairs. Problem solving is through trial and error.
2. Set or Attitude: there are predisposition's to behave or react in a particular way. These are unique for species or groups of related species, and may be culturally determined in humans.
3. Prepotency of Elements- Thorndike observed that a learner could filter out irrelevant aspects of a situation and respond only to significant (proponent) elements in a problem situation.
4. Response by Analogy -In a new context, responses from related or similar contexts may be transferred to the new context. This is sometimes referred to as the theory of identical elements.
5. Associative shifting - It is possible to shift any response from one stimulus to another.
6. Law of Readiness- a series of responses can be chained together to satisfy some goal which will result in annoyance if blocked.
7. Law of Exercise - connections become strengthened with practice, and weaken when practice is discontinued.
8. Intelligence is a function of the number of connections made.

Thorndike's greatest contribution is probably the emphasis he placed on consequences of behavior as determiners of what is learned and what is not. He also introduced animal studies for verifying predictions made from his theory. He also was among the first to apply psychological principles in the area of teaching.

Hull accepted Thorndike's view that connections were formed between stimuli and response rather than between reward and response.This became a central feature of Hull's system.