On Transitions From Perceptual to Conceptual Learning

SJÖBERG, L. The new functionalism. Scand. J. Psychol., 1971, 12, 29–52. – The paper reviews the development of Brunswik's probabilistic functionalism. Brunswik's major contribution is held to be his consistent emphasis of the importance of the ecology. Brief reviews are then given of the many recent applications of probabilistic functionalism in perception, learning, and applied psychology. Finally, a mentalistic approach to psychology is considered as an alternative to functionalism.

Section: Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%

The New Functionalism

Sjöberg

1971

“…Even if the above arguments were accepted as granting reasonable reliability to the subject's answers their seeming unawareness in the present case may be attributed to a lacking verbalizability of the awarenesses of relationships similar to or equal to those specified by the non-general principle. This attribution is not convincing in principle, however, since comparable subjects of previous studies mostly invoked exactly such relationships when attempting to solve the present prediction task (see for instance Lindahl, 1968). It is thought to be of relevance in one specific way, however, namely as follows.…”

Section: Delimitations and Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 84%

Awareness, conditioning, and information processing in complex learning situations

Lindahl

1973

Self Cite

Lindahl, Maj‐Britt. Awareness, conditioning, and information processing in complex learning situations. Scand. J. Psychol., 1973, 14, 121–130.‐Learning without awareness was studied with a method involving three phases for each of 2. 10 subjects: (1) a problem solving phase, (2) a phase of applying the solution found in (1), and (3) a test phase. In (2) the solution was applied to the classification of 50 successively presented instances. These were in one condition sampled so that a perceptually easily discriminable basis of classification obtained that was different from and redundant to the one of the solution of phase (1). The results of the test phase showed that this redundant basis of classification influenced the performance of the subjects in this condition despite unawareness of it according to verbal reports. The phenomenon was interpreted as a case of learning without awareness, describable in conditioning terms, that influenced performance. The limitations of this type of learning were discussed, and its relationship to an aware information processing type of learning was outlined.

“…Previous results (Lindahl, 1968;1971) showed that subjects reported applying (1) some variant of the general principle, o r (2) weighing procedures developed on experiential o r intuitive basis (distance-and ribbon differences were for instance said to be weighed against each other in a way that was difficult to specify), or (3) some nongeneral principles. Subjects of category (1) were thought to solve the problem mainly deductively and were said to apply a deductive strategy.…”

Section: Previous Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Concept learning and the intradimensional spread of the relevant values of the instances I. Effects of intraclass variability

Lindahl

1974

Self Cite

Abstract.— The effect on concept learning of the intra‐class variability of the relevant values of the instances was investigated. 20 subjects took part, and two ranges of the concerned intraclass variability, one about twice the other, were used. Depending upon the learning strategy used by the subjects the smaller intraclass variability was shown to have a limited facilitating effect on concept learning. Some facilitation thus occurred when strategies involved a rather unselective attention to the appearance characteristics of the instances but not when they involved selective focusing on these characteristics, or on elements of relevant knowledge established pre‐experimentally. The results were discussed in relation both to relevant S‐R‐conceptions and information processing models of concept learning. It was concluded that automatic generalization as described in S‐R‐theories might have to be integrated into the information processing models for some categories of learning.