A, INTRODUCTION Consider the case in which normal rats (i.e., those deprived of no sense capacities) have been trained to find food on a simple T-maze. After several days of such training we observe that whenever the rats are put at the starting place, they run quickly to the choice point and without hesitation turn down the path which leads to the food box. We then say that the rats have learned. But what is it that they have learned ? There are at least three different answers which have been given to this question. . I. Such training may have produced a disposition in the rats to run on a path which has certain specific characteristics (e.g., knotholes of such and such a pattern, or the like) and to avoid running on all paths which have certain other specific characteristics. 2. Such training may have produced a disposition to turn right whenever they come to the choice point. 3. Finally, such training may have produced a disposition to orient towards the place where the food is located (e.g., under the window, to the left.of the radiator, etc.).Each of these answers has at one time or another been defended by some psychologist as the only way in which rats learn mazes. Today, however, the first hypothesis has few supporters. The experiments of Honzik (i, and others on the sensory control of maze learning have demonstrated clearly that learning in terms of intra-maze cues alone (i.e., when extra-maze stimuli are changed from trial to trial) is extremely difficult for the rat. Thus we must conclude that the rapid learning exhibited by rats in most maze problems is probably based on other cues than intra-maze ones.. There is, however, no direct evidence which enables us to choose between the last two hypotheses. So far no experiment has been performed which has separated these two dispositions. In all Tmazes, as they have usually been constructed, running to a given place in the environment is always accomplished by a certain response (e.g., a right turn at the choice point) or set of responses. From such behavior it is obviously impossible to determine whether the training
T h e question I am going to discuss is the very straightforward and specific one of "why rats turn the way they do, at a given choice-point in a given maze at a given stage of learning." The first item in the answer is fairly obvious. They turn the way they do because they have on the preceding trials met this same choicepoint together with such and such further objects or situations, down the one path and down the other, for such and such a number of preceding trials. Let me, however, analyze this further, with the aid of a couple of diagrams. First, consider a diagram of a single choice point (Figure 1). In this figure the point of choice itself is designated as 0,; the complex of stimulus-objects met going down the left alley, as O,, that met going down the right alley, as OR; the goal at the left, as 0,; and that at the right, as OcR. The behavior of turning to the left is represented by the arrow B,; and that of turning to the right, by the arrow B E .
I wish to suggest that our familiar theoretical disputes about learning may perhaps (I emphasize 'perhaps') be resolved, if we can agree that there are really a number of different kinds of learning. For then it may turn out that the theory and laws appropriate to one kind may well be different from those appropriate to other kinds. Each of the theories of learning now current may, in short, still have validity for some one or more varieties of learning, if not for all. But to assume that this will settle our squabbles is, I know, being overly optimistic. Other theorists will certainly not support what I am going to say. Not only will each of them feel that his theory is basic for all kinds of learning, but also each of these others will be sure to object to the general conceptual framework within which my distinctions alone make sense. Thus, whereas I would like to hope that this paper will prove an end to all future papers on learning, I realize that such a hope is mere fantasy or wish-fulfillment on my part or something that my clinical colleagues would undoubtedly dub by some far more unpleasant name.But, to get down to business; I am going to hold that the connections or relations that get learned can be separated into at least six .types. These I shall name as:1. Cathexes 2. Equivalence Beliefs 3. Field Expectancies 4. Field-Cognition Modes 5. Driye Discriminations 6. Motor Patterns
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