Two methods of subjective learning in the monkey Macacus Rhesus.

Kempf, Edward J.

doi:10.1037/h0072492

Cited by 7 publications

(5 citation statements)

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“…As a man refines himself and his instruments, he feels a decided progression in general efficiency and integration of thought. This tendency to perfection through practice, in manipulating the self as well as the environment, is also to be seen in animals (36 In such cases, the personality regresses to a heedless, self-indulgent, indolent, childhood level, where, with its enormous reserve of physical power, it easily gratifies its slothful, childish requirements with relatively careless incoordinated forms of thought. Affective regression essentially produces a disintegration of the higher integrations of function or thought, whereas affective progression requires the construction of more comprehensive and refined integrations of thought.…”

Section: Il6 Autonomic Functions and The Personality Affective Progrementioning

confidence: 96%

The Autonomic Functions and the Personality.

Blumgart¹,

Kempf²

1919

The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods

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and others. Holt's adoption of the "wish" in his book on "The Freudian Wish" as the "first key which psychology has ever had which fitted and, moreover, the only one that psychology will ever need" 1,(29, p. vii), indicates the nature of the physiological trend in academic psychology. As to the nature or source of the energy of the wish Holt says: "One will best, I think, not hypothecate to this end any such thing as ' psychic energy,' but look rather, for the energy so expended in the nervous system " (29, p. 4). This brings the student abruptly to the physiology of the emotions and the nature of the autonomic functions of the personality. Watson, in his physiological work on "Behavior," in order to avoid the dilemma that always arises with the adoption of the parallelistic soul-body hypothesis, wholly ignored the function of consciousness, which rather weakened the monistic position, the phenomena attending consciousness being the last stronghold of the parallelist. Consciousness of self is too omnipresent a fact to be disregarded. There is a distinct functional difference between the integrative functions of the unconscious and the fully conscious individual which lies in the persistent fact that in tli^l atter consciousness of self exists, and in the former it does not. [The assumption that in the unconscious animal some coordinating cerebral area or center is out of order is unsatisfactory, if it is held that in this center or centers consciousness of the functions of the rest of the body exists when the center is in proper working order, because cerebral pathology cannot demonstrate it even by elimination of each cerebral area. If it is, however, assumed that the afunctional brain area prevents the organism from reacting as an integrative unity to the special or sensational activity of some one or several of its parts and the result of this function of reacting as a unity is consciousness, that is awareness by the body as a whole of the hyper-activities of some division of itself, then the behaviorist and psycho-pathologist may deal with consciousness as a physiological phenomenon without being embarrassed by the mind-matter riddle. The phenomenon of consciousness, as a result of the synthetic activity of the constituent parts of the organism, is as much of an entity or fact as a nerve cell is a synthetic structure; duration of existence not being a fundamental difference. There has been a sleight-of-hand movement in psychology to drop the term "consciousness " and adopt the term " awareness " in order to escape the Sphinx. If the above physiological conception of the mechanism of consciousness of self is true then the psycho-physiologist has an en-Part II is devoted to a consideration of such physiological data as are suited to demonstrate the dominant nature of the autonomic apparatus. The interpretation of (i) the continuity of postural tonus of the striped muscles as the source of a continuous kinesthetic stream, and of (2) the unstriped muscles as the source of a continuous affective stream, is based p...

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Section: Il6 Autonomic Functions and The Personality Affective Progrementioning

confidence: 96%

The Autonomic Functions and the Personality.

Blumgart¹,

Kempf²

1919

The Journal of Philosophy, Psychology and Scientific Methods

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“…'stimulus enhancement' (Spence, 1937). Kempf's (1916) experiments, using six Rhesus monkeys, are also inconclusive, for, using method (l), it cannot be clearly established that anything more than the place relevant to solution was what the 0 learned, by watching the successful D, to discriminate. Indeed, Kempf says as much in concluding: 'Imitation seems possible only when similar movements under similar circumstances have already been previously acquired by the organism.…”

Section: The Evidence On Monkeys and Apesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Observational Learning in Monkeys and Apes

Hall

1963

British J of Psychology

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In natural groups of mammals, there is a variety of social influences which seem to inhibit or facilitate the expression of instinctive behaviour-patterns, and indeed which contribute importantly to the fr,rm the repertoire of behaviour characteristic of the species takes. Such influences include what goes under the terms 'social facilitation' and 'imitation', as well as other terms such as 'identification' which imply a special affectional relationship.From an analysis of the evidence about these influences on monkeys and apes, it is clear that negative experimental findings have often been due to the limitations of the experimental procedures, and that some of the positive findings are difficult to interpret or aasess for validity because of deficient method. By and large, there is convincing observiitional evidence, chiefly from informal developmental and from field studies, that young monkeys and apes acquire certain basic feeding and avoidance habits chiefly by applying their exploratory tendencies to places and objects indicated in the behaviour of their mothers or others of the group.Although, in terms of learning operations, it is unlikely that much more than stimulusenhancement or place discriminations is usually involved, a 'new' motor sequence almost never being in evidence, there is no doubt that the affectional situation of the participants is crucial m to whether a 'demonstrator' is attended to, closely approached, and 'imitated', or not. The nature of the affectional variables and their influence upon learning require extensive experimental study and analysis, and a comparison with related forms of early learning, such aa imprinting, can then be made. 202K. R. L. HALL heavily emphasized by Darwin (1874), Tarde (1904)) McDougall(1908), and others. But the comparative assessment of the importance of such tendencies in non-human animals has been somewhat neglected. Axiomatically, it seems likely that the origins, in individual mammalian life experience, of the conventionalizing tendency come early in ontogeny as the infant animal learns to achieve a certain independence of its mother, having of necessity conformed to the mother's control during the period of weaning, and having, inevitably in the natural group situation, observed almost exclusively the behaviour of those closest to the mother. Then, as the young animal matures, its spontaneous and characteristic playfulness leads it to learn certain social habits in the rough-and-tumble of the play subgroup, but its physical survival habits, such as those connected with feeding and drinking and avoidance of the noxious, are probably early established in the daily process of observing the mother and her immediate associates.All this sounds obvious, but so suspiciously obvious that one finds the real nature of the conforming process in the higher animals has by no means been elucidated experimentally or in the course of naturalistic studies of wild groups. Only in the most general terms have the complex processes involved been described, and, within the...

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“…The results of similar tests on an orang and chimpanzee were entirely negative (105, 107). Kempf's rhesus monkeys showed surprisingly little aptitude for imitating such a simple act as reaching through a small aperture in the cage wall to obtain food from a box (57). Similarly there are a number of incidental observations indicating the difficulty of eliciting imitative behavior in monkey (15,76,79,146), orang (149) and gorilla (151,152).…”

Section: Secondary Problem Solutions: Trial and Error Learningmentioning

confidence: 99%