The roots of the psychological theories of learning most closely associated with the audio-lingual theory can be traced back to antiquity. Early philosophers mentioned from time to time the possibility that learning in humans might be similar to that in animals. However, these hints and suspicions were not considered seriously by most people until the middle of the nineteenth century. The event that influenced the widespread acceptance of these speculations was the publication in 1859 of Darwin's Origin of Species. The important implication of this book from the point of view of psychology was that "there may be a continuity between the human mind and the animal mind" (Munn et al., 1969, p. 640).
'This author once observed a class in which a student who was reading aloud misplaced the accent on a word in Spanish. Becoming confused, the best she could do was to sit in embarrassed silence until the teacher finally put an end to her ordeal telling her, "For tomorrow I want you to copy the rules for accentuation in the back of the book fifty times."
As Darwin's theories spread, an interest in animal psychology grew. Experimenters such as Thorndike and Watson studied the actions and reactions of animals in the psychological laboratories in order to determine how they learned. Naturally, observation of mental processes was impossible; therefore, this was not a factor in the scientific study of learning. Scientists had to limit their descriptions to the overt actions of the animals, i.e., to behavior.
The school of psychology that developed from these psychological studies based on experiments with animal behavior was called behaviorism. At first, behaviorism was more a method than an actual set of learning theories. The trend was away from introspection toward precise descriptions of observable behavior. These early experimenters wanted psychology to be as scientific as physics or chemistry. Therefore, they concerned themselves only with the behavior of the animals. However, the method became a theory of learning when Pavlov conditioned dogs to salivate at the sound of a bell. In the words of Broudy and Freel (1956, p. 86):
This conditioned reflex gave behaviorism another powerful string to its bow. It provided a theory with which to account for learning.
In later developments the conditioning method of Pavlov came to be known as classical conditioning. Conditioning is also used to describe other types of learning:
1. A rat runs to the left and finds food (positive reinforcement); runs right and gets an electric shock (negative reinforcement).
2. A rat runs left and gets food. When he runs to the right and nothing happens, the rat comes to regard the right turn as equivalent to the shock or disappointment.
Soon behaviorists concluded that all learning consisted of some form of conditioning. The organism was conditioned to respond in a specific way to a selected stimulus. Complex activities were nothing more than a complex collection of conditioned responses. Since all learning is conditioned and since human learning is similar to learning in animals, the next step was to conclude that human learning could be, and is, conditioned in the same way. The belief was that humans are reinforced by their environment in much the same way as the rat in a maze.
Behavioristic, mechanistic theories have occupied an important place in attempts to explain learning. Of course, experiments with learning in animals have continued, and results from these studies have continued to be the basis for much of the explanation of learning in humans. In discussing verbal behavior, Skinner (1957, p. 3) expresses this extrapolation in the following fashion:
It would be foolish to underestimate the difficulty of this subject matter, but recent advances in the analysis of behavior permit us to approach it with a certain optimism. New experimental techniques and
106 Part One: Theory
fresh formulations have revealed a new level of order and precision. The basic processes and relations which give verbal behavior its special characteristics are now fairly well understood. Much of the experimental work responsible for this advance has been carried out on other species, but the results have proved to be surprisingly free of species restrictions. Recent work has shown that the methods can be extended to human behavior without serious modification.
The most recent behavioristic school is termed stimulus-response (S-R) psychology. The best known proponent of S-R psychology is B. F. Skinner. Based on his research in the animal laboratory, he uses the term operant conditioning to describe learning. As he teaches pigeons, he begins with some action that they are performing, an operant. For example, he may want the pigeon to turn a complete circle in a clockwise direction. Watching carefully, he reinforces the slightest move in the desired direction with some food. The next time the pigeon must turn a little more in order to be rewarded. This process continues until the pigeon learns to make a complete turn in order to receive food. This whole learning sequence takes only a short while, and complex variations can be added. In the film Learning and Behavior , 2 examples of conditioned learning include pigeons that respond only to certain lights or combinations and sequences of lights. Two even play ping-pong. 3
Basically, operant conditioning is a mechanistic approach to learning. External forces select stimuli and reinforce responses until desired behavior is conditioned to occur. Learning is the result of external factors operating on and shaping the organism's behavior. Given the proper reinforcement, behavior will change. In simple terms, the theory says that learning occurs in the following manner: The learner, be it human or animal, responds to a stimulus. The response must be active. The connection between the stimulus and the response is conditioned by reinforcement. In the whole process the steps taken are extremely small in order to promote a satisfactory response.