Conditioning: A theory of learning in terms of stimulus, response, and association.

Guthrie, Edwin R.

doi:10.1037/11335-001

Cited by 27 publications

(19 citation statements)

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“…In fact, the former group retained more of the correct translations over time, despite the fact that they had less overall exposure to the correct answers and inferred the wrong meanings of the words at a rate of nearly 80% during reading. Thus, contrary to concerns that have been raised by learning theorists in the behaviorist tradition (e.g., Guthrie, 1942;Skinner, 1958), producing errors during learning does not appear to impair memory for the correct answer, as long as corrective feedback is provided (e.g., see also Kang, Pashler, Cepeda, Rohrer, Carpenter, & Mozer, 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

“…If learners infer the wrong meaning of a word, how does this error affect learning? The prominent view espoused by influential learning theorists is that self-generated errors might become reinforced and interfere with memory for the correct answer (e.g., Guthrie, 1942;Skinner, 1958). According to this view, learning would be best under conditions in which errors are avoided and students are exposed to only the correct information.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Learning new vocabulary in German: the effects of inferring word meanings, type of feedback, and time of test

et al. 2011

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In the present study, introductory-level German students read a simplified story and learned the meanings of new German words by reading English translations in marginal glosses versus trying to infer (i.e., guess) their translations. Students who inferred translations were given feedback in English or in German, or no feedback at all. Although immediate retention of new vocabulary was better for students who used marginal glosses, students who inferred word meanings and then received English feedback forgot fewer translations over time. Plausible but inaccurate inferences (i.e., those that made sense in the context) were more likely to be corrected by students who received English feedback as compared with German feedback, providing support for the beneficial effects of mediating information. Implausible inaccurate inferences, however, were more likely to be corrected on the delayed vocabulary test by students who received German feedback as compared with English feedback, possibly because of the additional contextual support provided by German feedback.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 70%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Learning new vocabulary in German: the effects of inferring word meanings, type of feedback, and time of test

et al. 2011

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“…Influential behaviorists have long asserted that learning is facilitated by the avoidance of errors, for the occurrence of an error does more harm than punishment can offset (e.g., Thorndike, 1932). The claim is that the commission of an error causes it to be ingrained in memory, hence interfering with correct learning (e.g., Guthrie, 1942). Although there were previous studies that attempted to address this issue (e.g., Forlano & Hoffman, 1937), ours is the first to use a procedure that, in our opinion, provides a fairly straightforward model for examining consequences of incorrect guessing for fact learning.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The learning theorist Edwin Guthrie (1942) is famous for asserting that people learn only by doing: "A student does not learn what was in a lecture or in a book. He learns only what the lecture or book caused him to do" (p. 55).…”

Section: Theoretical Perspectives On the Effects Of Errorsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Does incorrect guessing impair fact learning?

Kang

Pashler

Cepeda

et al. 2011

Journal of Educational Psychology

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Taking a test has been shown to produce enhanced retention of the retrieved information. On tests, however, students often encounter questions the answers for which they are unsure. Should they guess anyway, even if they are likely to answer incorrectly? Or are errors engrained, impairing subsequent learning of the correct answer? We sought to answer this question in 3 experiments. In Experiments 1 and 2, subjects read 80 obscure facts (e.g., “Where is Disko Island? Greenland”) and then took a cued recall test. When a subject reported being unable to answer a question, on a randomly chosen half of those questions the computer program insisted upon a guess. Corrective feedback was provided either immediately (Experiment 1) or after a delay (Experiment 2). Forced guessing did not affect subjects' performance on a final test given 1 day later. We extended the investigation to more complex material in Experiment 3. Subjects saw a question (e.g., “Why do ice cubes often pop as they melt in your drink?”) and its answer, but for half of the questions, subjects did not see the answer until they first provided a plausible explanation. On a test administered either on the same day or 1 week later, recall performance was again unaffected by a prior wrong guess.

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“…As learning theory was explicitly based on the results of Pavlovian and instrumental conditioning experiments with animals, it follows that such experiments were widely thought to provide the basic data on which a science of human behaviour should be based. The 1940s saw the appearance of major statements, or restatements, of their position by such learning theorists as Guthrie (1942), Hull (1943), Skinner (1950), and Tolman (1948Tolman ( , 1949 and, by the end of the decade, the emergence of a new brand of more sophisticated mathematical learning theory at the hands of Bush and Mosteller (1951) and of Estes (1950). By 1950, Leonard Carmichael, writing an editorial As if in sympathy, or at least in an evident desire not to be left behind, many animal psychologists have also renounced their discredited behaviourist past.…”

Section: The Decline and Fall Of Learning Theorymentioning

confidence: 99%

Has the Wheel Turned Full Circle? Fifty Years of Learning Theory, 1946–1996

Mackintosh

1997

The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology Section A

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Fifty years ago, learning theory, whose principles were derived from experiments on conditioning in animals, was a central focus of much of experimental psychology. But the cognitive revolution that swept through human experimental psychology in the 1960s, especially when it was taken up by many animal psychologists themselves, seemed to consign traditional learning theory to the scrap heap. Liberation from the shackles of old-fashioned behaviourism, however, should not be bought at the price of dismissing associative learning theory. Suitably modi ed and extended, associative theory is capable of explaining much of the behavior of animals and of pointing precisely to the ways in which that behaviour is complex. And under some circumstances, at least, the behaviour of people mirrors that of other animals and is equally amenable to an associative analysis. preface to Munn' s Handbook of psychological research in the rat, commended the volume as essential reading for undergraduate and graduate students as well as professional psychologists [who] will nd in these pages a treatment of some of the most important aspects of general modern scienti c psychology (Carmichael, 1950).And anyone who has read Hull' s or Skinner's autobiographies (Hull, 1952; Skinner required three volumes for his : Skinner, 1976: Skinner, , 1979: Skinner, , 1983 will not be left long in doubt about the value they placed on their work.If this was hubris, divine retribution was swift and harsh. The decline of animal learning theory from its pinnacle of importance was rapid and, at one time, seemed complete. Two sets of statistics give some measure of the change. In 1946, the American Psychological Association published two main journals devoted to reports of empirical research in mainstream experimental psychology, Journal of Experimental Psychology and Journal of Comparative Psychology. In that year, just over 20% of the articles appearing in the former, and 50% of those appearing in the latter were reports of experimental studies of animal learning (narrowly de ned-excluding, for example, research on animal behaviour, ethology, or physiological psychology, which made up the other 50% of the Journal of Comparative Psychology). Thirty years later, in 1974, the last year in which the Journal of Experimental Psychology was published as a single journal, less than 5% of its articles were on animal learning, and the contents of Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, which had long since replaced Journal of Comparative Psychology, were now largely (over 75% ) devoted to physiological rather than comparative psychology.More recently, Thomas and Blackman (1991) reported that between 1977 and 1989 there had been a decline of over 20% in the number of British psychology departments with an animal laboratory. They also reported that although there had been a signi cant increase in the overall number of research students in psychology over this 12-year period, the number undertaking research requiring a Home Of ce licence had halved.What is t...

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Conditioning: A theory of learning in terms of stimulus, response, and association.

Cited by 27 publications

References 0 publications

Learning new vocabulary in German: the effects of inferring word meanings, type of feedback, and time of test

Learning new vocabulary in German: the effects of inferring word meanings, type of feedback, and time of test

Does incorrect guessing impair fact learning?

Has the Wheel Turned Full Circle? Fifty Years of Learning Theory, 1946–1996

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