In the last section, we examined
how Thorndike believed that learning was a gradual process and that it
occurred incrementally. In this section, we begin a discussion of Guthrie’s
model of what we call One Trial Contiguity Theory. In general, Guthrie in
contrast to Thorndike, rejected the idea that rewards strengthen the bond
between some kind of stimulus and the response. Instead he argued it was the
contiguity that established the particular stimulus - response association.
Thus, if some kind of response occurred to a stimulus, that the stimulus and
the response in essence would be associated automatically.
Generally, Guthrie believed that learning was a very
simple process and this process was governed entirely by the contiguity
principle. He also believed that where reward has an effect on the response,
reward did not strength the SR association. So Guthrie, in essence, argued
that although the reward does have effects, he doesn’t believe that reward
strengthens S-R associations.
For Guthrie, learning occurred in a single trial and that
goes back to the title of this material, one trial contiguity theory.
Basically he argues that the strength of the stimulus response association
reaches its maximum value following a single pairing of a stimulus and a
response. Now he doesn’t deny that behavior improves with experience, but he
rejects the idea that the strength of the stimulus response slowly increases
with practice. So how does performance increase for Guthrie. Well let’s take
a look at that on slide five. In essence, Guthrie believed performance
improved for three reasons. The first of these is shown on slide six.
The organisms generally tend only to particular stimuli,
says Guthrie. As we start learning, there’s lots of stimuli present during
the initial conditioning process. However, of all these stimuli that are out
there, the organism only attends to a few particular stimuli. All the others
are ignored. In addition to that, the stimuli also change from trial to
trial, thus for a stimulus basically attended to a particular trial to
produce a response, the stimulus also needs to be present from previous
responses. That is, they must be there both times.
Now the second thing is that different stimulus can also
produce a response. Guthrie, argues that many stimuli are able to produce a
response at different times and the more stimuli that you are able to
produce, that causes a response, the strength of the particular response
will increase. Now again, note, the strength is not caused by the stronger
S-R associations, but by the number of different stimuli.
The third reason that performance increases, says Guthrie,
is that complex behaviors consist of many separate responses. Thus, for a
behavior to be efficient, basically each response must be conditioned to
some particular stimulus. And as each element is conditioned to the
stimulus, the behavior improves. So the more complex the behavior, the
greater the number of stimuli and/or responses you need to produce it.
So we’ve talked a little bit about Guthrie’s model. How
valid is Guthrie’s model. And as we show in slide nine, Guthrie’s model was
not accepted by most psychologists at his time. However, later studies
validate some aspects of his theory. For example, he was wrong about how
organisms learn. You must have rewards or the response isn’t conditioned.
However, he was very correct about other aspects of the learning process,
especially in relation to punishment. That is, the contiguity of the
punishing stimulus is extremely, extremely important. We will talk about
that in more detail as we talk about punishment principles and operant
conditioning.
So in general, Guthrie argues that we have one trial
learning, and it is primarily related by contiguity, that is the
relationship between two variables. But next time we begin by talking about
a new model and theorist. This is relates to what we call Neobehaviorism and
the theories of Clark Hull. So until then, I hope you have a great day.
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