Learning Theory1

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learning theory
Encyclopædia Britannica Article
any of the proposals put forth to explain changes in behaviour

produced by practice, as opposed to other factors, e.g.,
physiological development.
A common goal in defining any psychological concept is a statement

that corresponds to common usage. Acceptance of that aim,
however, entails some peril. It implicitly assumes that common
language categorizes in scientifically meaningful ways; that the word
learning, for example, corresponds to a definite psychological
process. However, there appears to be good reason to doubt the
validity of this assumption. The phenomena of learning are so varied
and diverse that their inclusion in a single category may not be
warranted.
Recognizing this danger (and the corollary that no definition of

learning is likely to be totally satisfactory) a definition proposed in
1961 by G.A. Kimble may be considered representative: Learning is a
relatively permanent change in a behavioral potentiality that occurs
as a result of reinforced practice. Although the definition is useful, it
still leaves problems.
The definition may be helpful by indicating that the change need not
be an improvement; addictions and prejudices are learned as well as
high-level skills and useful knowledge.
The phrase relatively permanent serves to exclude temporary

behavioral changes that may depend on such factors as fatigue, the
effects of drugs, or alterations in motives.
The word potentiality covers effects that do not appear at once; one
might learn about tourniquets by reading a first-aid manual and put
the information to use later.
To say that learning occurs as a result of practice excludes the

effects of physiological development, aging, and brain damage.
The stipulation that practice must be reinforced serves to distinguish

learning from the opposed loss of unreinforced habits.
Reinforcement objectively refers to any condition—often reward or
punishment—that may promote learning.
However, the definition raises difficulties. How permanent is

relatively permanent? Suppose one looks up an address, writes it on
an envelope, but five minutes later has to look it up again to be sure
http://www.britannica.com/eb/print?eu=114758 3/25/2004
it is correct. Does this qualify as relatively permanent? While

commonly accepted as learning, it seems to violate the definition.
What exactly is the result that occurs with practice? Is it a change in

the nervous system? Is it a matter of providing stimuli that can evoke
responses they previously would not? Does it mean developing
associations, gaining insights, or gaining new perspective?
Such questions serve to distinguish Kimble's descriptive definition

from theoretical attempts to define learning by identifying the
nature of its underlying process. These may be neurophysiological,
perceptual, or associationistic; they begin to delineate theoretical
issues and to identify the bases for and manifestations of learning.
(The processes of perceptual learning are treated in the article
perception: Perceptual learning.)
The range of phenomena called learning
Even the simplest animals display such primitive forms of adaptive

activity as habituation, the elimination of practiced responses. For
example, a paramecium can learn to escape from a narrow glass
tube to get to food. Learning in this case consists of the elimination
(habituation) of unnecessary movements. Habituation also has been
demonstrated for mammals in which control normally exercised by
higher (brain) centres has been impaired by severing the spinal cord.
For example, repeated application of electric shock to the paw of a
cat so treated leads to habituation of the reflex withdrawal
reaction. Whether single-celled animals or cats that function only
through the spinal cord are capable of higher forms of learning is a
matter of controversy. Sporadic reports that conditioned responses
may be possible among such animals have been sharply debated.
At higher evolutionary levels the range of phenomena called learning

is more extensive. Many mammalian species display the following
varieties of learning.
Classical conditioning
This is the form of learning studied by Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849–

1936). Some neutral stimulus, such as a bell, is presented just before
delivery of some effective stimulus (say, food or acid placed in the
mouth of a dog). A response such as salivation, originally evoked only
by the effective stimulus, eventually appears when the initially
neutral stimulus is presented. The response is said to have become
conditioned. Classical conditioning seems easiest to establish for
involuntary reactions mediated by the autonomic nervous system.
Instrumental conditioning
This indicates learning to obtain reward or to avoid punishment.

Laboratory examples of such conditioning among small mammals or
birds are common. Rats or pigeons may be taught to press levers for
food; they also learn to avoid or terminate electric shock.
Chaining
In the form of learning called chaining the subject is required to

make a series of responses in a definite order. For example, a
sequence of correct turns in a maze is to be mastered, or a list of
words is to be learned in specific sequence.
Acquisition of skill
Within limits, laboratory animals can be taught to regulate the force

with which they press a lever or to control the speed at which they
run down an alley. Such skills are learned when a reward is made
contingent on quantitatively constrained performance. Among
human learners complex, precise skills (e.g., tying shoelaces) are
routine.
Discrimination learning
In discrimination learning the subject is reinforced to respond only

to selected sensory characteristics of stimuli. Discriminations that
can be established in this way may be quite subtle. Pigeons, for
example, can learn to discriminate differences in colours that are
indistinguishable to human beings without the use of special devices.
Concept formation
An organism is said to have learned a concept when it responds

uniquely to all objects or events in a given logical class as distinct
from other classes. Even geese can master such concepts as
roundness and triangularity; after training, they can respond
appropriately to round or triangular figures they have never seen
before.
Principle learning
A subject may be shown sets of three figures (say, two round and
one triangular; next, two square and one round, and so on). With
proper rewards, the subject may learn to distinguish any “odd”
member of any set from those that are similar. Animals as low in the
evolutionary scale as the pigeon can master the principle of this so-
called oddity problem.
Problem solving
Examples of human problem solving are familiar: finding the roots of
a quadratic equation, solving a mechanical puzzle, and navigating by

the stars. Among other animals, chimpanzees have been observed to
solve problems requiring toolmaking.
This list only samples from the remarkable array of animal activities
categorized as learning. Beginning with habituation, they range from
the simple adjustments of single-celled animals up to the highest
intellectual accomplishments of mankind. It would be wonderful
indeed if a single theory of learning were enough to account for all
this diversity. So far, however, no theory of learning adequately
covers more than a small fraction of these phenomena.
The state of learning theories
Yet, at the start of the 20th century, vast psychological systems,

such as behaviourism and Gestalt psychology, indeed were offered as
explanations of learning (and of much wider ranges of behaviour as
well). And as late as the 1940s, comprehensive theories of learning
were still believed to be reasonably near at hand. But during the
next three decades it grew clear that such theories are tenable only
for very limited sets of data. By the late 20th century learning
theory seemed to consist of a set of hypotheses of limited
applicability.
Important earlier theorists
Beginning in the 1930s a number of general theories were advanced

in attempts to organize most or all of the psychology of learning.
The most influential of the contributing theorists are noted below.
E.R. Guthrie (1886–1959) wrote that learning requires only that a

response be made in a changing situation. Any response was held to
be linked specifically to the situation in which it was learned.
Guthrie argued that learning is complete in one trial, that the most
recent response in a situation is the one that is learned, and that
responses (rather than perceptions or psychological states) provide
the raw materials for the learning process.
For E.C. Tolman (1886–1959) the essence of learning was the

acquisition by the organism of a set of what he called Sign-Gestalt-
Expectations. These referred to propositions said to be made by the
learner that his own specific response to given signs (or stimuli)
would result in such and such circumstances later on. Tolman
seemed to be saying that what the learner acquires is a specific
knowledge of “what leads to what.” In brief, his theory was that the
learner develops expectations based on experience and that learning
depends entirely on successions of events. Although less vocal on the
point than others, Tolman implied that learning was a gradual
process.
The theory offered by Clark L. Hull (1884–1952), over the period

between 1929 and his death, was the most detailed and complex of
the great theories of learning. The basic concept for Hull was “habit
strength,” which was said to develop as a function of practice.
Habits were depicted as stimulus-response connections based on
reward. According to Hull, responses (rather than perceptions or
expectancies) participate in habit formation, the process is gradual,
and reward is an essential condition.
Comparison of these theories yields major questions for empirical

investigation. Is learning continuous or discontinuous; is it a gradual
or sudden (one-trial) process? Is learning a matter of establishing
stimulus–response (S–R) connections or does it depend on the
learner's understanding of perceptual relationships? Is reward
necessary for learning?
Are theories of learning necessary?
Such major investigators of learning as B.F. Skinner and J.A.

McGeoch maintained in the 1930s and 1940s that preoccupation with
theory was misguided. For them the approach simply was to discover
the conditions that produce and control learned behaviour. Beyond
this, their interests diverged. Skinner studied instrumental
conditioning (operant conditioning, as he called it) among rats;
McGeoch specialized in human rote memory. Although study of rote
verbal learning had become heavily theoretical by the 1970s, Skinner
and his associates stuck to their empirical guns, guiding a variety of
programs for the practical control of behaviour. Teaching machines
and computer-aided instruction, behaviour modification (e.g., the
use of tokens to reward desired behaviour among psychiatric
patients), and planned utopian societies (Walden II) all found
scientific origins in Skinner's rejection of theory in favour of direct
efforts to produce results.
Intervening variables and hypothetical constructs
Learning is a concept and not a thing, and the activity called

learning is inferred only through behavioral symptoms. The
distinction implicit here between behaviour and inferred process is
one of Tolman's major contributions and serves to reconcile
influential views that might seem completely at odds. Classical
behaviourism, as developed by John B. Watson (1878–1958), rejected
every mentalistic account and sought to limit analysis to such
physiological mechanisms as reflexes. Watson argued that these are
objective in a way that so-called thoughts, hopes, expectancies, and
images cannot be. The opposing view holds that experiential
(introspective) activity (exactly what Watson sought to dismiss) does
require discussion.
Tolman called himself a behaviourist and ostensibly was bound by

Watson's insistence on objectivity. But he also was interested in
thinking, expectancy, and consciousness. Tolman found his solution
to this problem of incompatible theories after his association with
the Vienna Circle of Logical Positivists, whose deterministic
teachings he brought to the attention of U.S. psychologists about
1920. He maintained that learning is inexorably produced
(determined) by such independent (directly manipulable) variables
as the organism's previous training and physiological condition and by
the response the environment requires. According to Tolman, the
development of learning is revealed through the changing probability
that given behaviour (the dependent variable) will result. He held
that learning itself is not directly observable; it is an intervening
variable, one that is inferred as a connecting process between
antecedent (independent) variables and consequent (dependent)
behaviour.
An attractive possibility is that intervening variables may have

discoverable physiological bases. Psychologists Paul E. Meehl and
Kenneth MacCorquodale proposed a distinction between the
abstractions advocated by some and the physiological mechanisms
sought by others. Meehl and MacCorquodale recommended using the
term intervening variable for the abstraction and hypothetical
construct for the physiological foundation. To illustrate: Hull treated
habit strength as an intervening variable, defining it as an abstract
mathematical function of the number of times a given response is
rewarded. By contrast, Edward L. Thorndike (1874–1949) handled
learning as a hypothetical construct, positing a physiological
mechanism: improved conduction of nerve impulses.
Intervening variables and hypothetical constructs need not be

incompatible; Thorndike's hypothetical neural process could
empirically be found to be the mechanism through which Hull's
abstraction operates.
Miniature theories
With growing realization of the complexity of learning, the grand

theories of Guthrie, Hull, and Tolman generally have been
abandoned except as historic landmarks. Hope for any impending,
comprehensive theory was almost dead in the 1970s. More modest
miniature theories remain, many likely to be of temporary value. An
account of their major themes and issues, however, should have
more enduring interest.
Major themes and issues
Association
A dominant ancient theme in theories of learning has been that of

association. Although the concept was accepted by Aristotle, it was
brought into the developing psychology of learning by British
empiricist philosophers (Locke, Berkeley, Hume, the Mills, and
Hartley) during the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries. Popular
acceptability of the notion of association was related to progress in
the physical sciences. The physical universe had been shown to
consist of a limited number of chemical elements that can combine
in innumerable ways. By analogy, a science of “mental chemistry”
seemed appealing. The theorized elements in this new “science”
were called ideas, said to be based on what were named sensations.
The synthesizing principles by which these posited ideas combined in
conscious experience were expressed as so-called laws of
association. It was suggested that such conditions as temporal and
spatial contiguity, repetition, similarity, and vividness favoured the
formation of associations, and each was called a law of association.
Thus, there were “laws” of repetition, of similarity, and so on.
At the end of the 19th century the notion of association was widely
accepted among psychologists. German psychologist Wilhelm Wundt
(1832–1920) took a position nearly identical with that of the British
empiricist philosophers. Also in Germany, Hermann Ebbinghaus
(1850–1909) began to study rote learning of lists of nonsense verbal
items (e.g., XOQ, ZUN, ZIB). He maintained that the association of
each word with every succeeding word was the primary mechanism
in learning these lists. Pavlov in Russia offered temporary associative
connections in the nervous system as a hypothetical basis for
conditioned reflexes.
These European influences coalesced in North America. Wundt's

notions were introduced there when a student of his from England,
Edward Bradford Titchener (1867–1927), came to teach at Cornell
University in Ithaca, New York. Ebbinghaus' method and theory
became standard in Canadian and U.S. studies of verbal learning;
Watson and other behaviourists applied Pavlov's conceptions to their
learning experiments. Experimental psychology in the Western
Hemisphere came to be dominated by what seemed to be a search
for laws of association.
What is associated?
Investigators asked whether associations are formed between

observable stimuli and responses (S–R) or between subjective sensory
impressions (S–S). One group that included Hull, Guthrie, and
Thorndike took the relatively objective S–R position, while Tolman
and others favoured the more introspective, perceptual S–S
approach. For a time S–R theorists held popularity; behavioral
responses are readily observable evidence of learning, and many
included them in the associative process itself.
But the reduction of learning to mere external stimuli and overt

responses raised discordant theoretical objections that the inner
activities of the organism were being ignored. S–R theories failed to
account for a host of learned phenomena. For example, people could
be trained to say they heard sounds even when such auditory stimuli
were absent. They said they dreamed about what they had learned,
too; yet there need be no immediate external stimulus, nor does the
dreamer always make the responses he dreams about.
Physiological psychologists and biologists found ways of delivering

electrical stimulation directly to the brain; this eliminated the
sensory stimuli and vocal or motor responses on which S–R theories
hinge. Direct neural stimulation was found to be an adequate signal
and the electrical response of the brain itself proved susceptible to
conditioning. At this level of the nervous system, distinctions
between stimulus and response mean less than at the periphery, and
the S–S versus S–R controversy is no longer such a burning issue.
Direction of association
Classical conditioning dependably has been shown to proceed only

forward in time. Bell must precede food if a conditioned reaction is
to be established. If it had any effect, the reverse procedure (food
before bell) would be called backward conditioning; but at most it
only inhibits other reactions. There seems to be a relatively brief
optimal interval in classical conditioning at which associations are
most easily made. For quick reflexes such as the eyeblink, this
interval is about one-half second; longer or shorter intervals are less
effective. For slower reactions such as salivation the interval is
longer, perhaps two seconds or so.
In learning verbal associations the situation appears to be quite

different. When one learns the Russian–English forward association
da–“yes,” he also learns the English–Russian backward association
“yes”–da. Moreover, timing is much less critical than in classical
conditioning. Verbal pairs are learned with almost equal ease
whether presented simultaneously or separated by several seconds.
In what is called context association, the general environment may

begin to elicit a response that is being conditioned to a specific
stimulus. Thus, a dog may salivate simply on being brought into the
experimental room—before any bell rings. Verbal associations also
can be weakened by changes in the general situation.
Repetition
A major theoretical issue concerns whether associations grow in

strength with exercise or whether they are fully established all at
once. Evidence is that learning usually proceeds gradually; even
when a problem is solved insightfully, practice with similar tasks

tends to improve performance. Some (perhaps most) learning
theorists have concluded that repetition gradually enhances some
underlying process in learning.
The view that associations develop at full strength in a single trial

leads to a typical question. How can the gradual nature of most
learning be explained if all-or-nothing is the rule? One possible
answer suggested by Guthrie has led to so-called stimulus-sampling
theory. The theory assumes that associations indeed are made in just
one trial. However, learning seems slow, it is said, because the
environment (context) in which it occurs is complex and constantly
changing. Given a changing environment, the sample of stimuli will
differ from trial to trial. Thus, it is reasoned, it should take many
trials before a response is associated with a relatively complete set
of all possible stimuli.
In this light, the strength (or probability) of a response should

increase with practice even if the elementary associative process
occurs in a single trial.
These stimulus-sampling notions translate easily into mathematical

form; they are an example of statistical learning theory, a more
general development in the quantitative treatment of learning.
Reinforcement
Repetition alone does not ensure learning; eventually it produces

fatigue and suppresses responses. An additional process called
reinforcement has been invoked to account for learning, and heated
disputes have centred on its theoretical mechanism.
Objectively reinforcement refers to the use of stimuli that have

been found to facilitate learning. Under appropriate conditions,
these include praise, food, water, opportunity to explore, sexual
stimuli, money, electric shock, and direct brain stimulation.
More theoretically, the term reinforcement expresses various

theoretical hunches about some specialized subjective quality all
such stimuli might share. Food for a hungry animal is a well-
established reinforcer, conceivably through its distinctive
appearance and odour. It tends to elicit a set of responses:
approaching, chewing, tasting, swallowing; these may produce
additional perceptual activities that reduce the drive or desire for
food (e.g., by halting stomach contractions that are experienced as
hunger pangs). But no single subjective quality imagined by theorists
seems invariably effective in reinforcement studies. Perhaps some
combination of introspective influences is critical, or it may be that
perceptual processes apply differently from one learning situation to
another.
Anti-associationistic positions
Not all psychologists have accepted the general validity of

association theories; many have suggested that considerations other
than association are crucial to learning.
Organization
Major critics of association theory included such Gestalt

psychologists as Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967), who held that learning
often entails a perceptual restructuring of environmental
relationships. Köhler cited his own studies of insightful learning by a
chimpanzee. The animal learned to join two sticks (akin to a jointed
fishing pole) as a tool to pull in a banana that was out of arm's reach
and of either short stick alone. The ape was described as sitting
quietly (as if in thought), and then suddenly fitting the sticks
together to rake in the fruit. It was argued that the ability to
perceive new ways of relating the sticks to the banana was essential
in solving the problem.
Similar organizational processes in perceiving can be demonstrated

in serial verbal learning. Memorizing the list thick, wall, it, tea, of,
myrrh, seize, knots, trained should demand some rehearsal. Yet,
notice the phonetic resemblance to Shakespeare's famous line from
The Merchant of Venice: “The quality of mercy is not strained. . . .”
With that kind of perceptual organization, learning can become
quick and easy.
A powerful argument also was made by psycholinguists who criticized

what they took to be the associationistic account of language
learning. Even assuming one-trial acquisition, it was held that such
individually learned associations could not account for all
combinations of words people use; there are simply too many. They
suggested that learning a language requires some general organizing
structure on which words are hung. Some proponents of this position
hold that this structure does not depend on learning, being
transmitted genetically from parent to child.
Inhibition
Gestalt interpretations often reject the associationistic hypothesis

wholesale. Other theorists endorse the notion of association, but
hold it to be less important than is a process of inhibition through
which errors in learning are eliminated. Such theorists find support
in evidence for the development of learning sets (what is called
learning to learn).
For example, a monkey may learn a long series of discriminations;

e.g., red versus green, black versus white, round versus square,
large versus small, triangle versus ellipse. After solving several
hundred such problems, some monkeys learn to master each new
one in a single trial, as if insightfully. The animal is said to have
learned to learn such discriminations.
Evidence clearly shows that the monkey gradually abandons

erroneous tendencies as learning proceeds. At first it might be prone
to choose stimuli that are red, black, round, large, or triangular.
Correct choices do not always correspond to the animal's initial
biases, and their suppression (inhibition, extinction) eventually
permits single-trial learning. Theoretically, organisms learn to learn
by inhibiting erroneous behaviour; thus, Harry F. Harlow, a
proponent of this view, called it an error-factor theory.
Motivation in learning
Motivation popularly is thought to be essential to learning. Yet many

theorists suggest that motives make little or no direct contribution—
that they simply tend to promote practice.
Motivation and performance
Learning was defined above as a change in a behavioral potentiality.

Realization of such potential seems to be related to the learner's
level of motivation. A pupil who has learned the names of all
members of the British Commonwealth of Nations would be expected
to recite them with particular energy under some sort of incentive
(reward or punishment). The incentive is said to raise his level of
motivation.
Incentives do seem to invigorate performance up to a point;

however, when motivation seems particularly intense, some studies
show performance to deteriorate. From such data some theorists
conclude that the effect of drive intensity on performance follows a
U-shaped course, first helping and later hindering.
Greatly increased motivation also may change performance

qualitatively by introducing new inefficient modes of behaviour. A
student may be so tautly driven to do well on an examination that
his tension, fear of failure, and his visceral and muscular discomfort
interfere with performance.
Motivation and learning
To show that motivation affects performance of what has been

learned is not the same as demonstrating its effect on the process of
learning itself. This would require that individuals learn under
various levels of motivation and be tested under the same incentive

levels. (This is to control for the effects of motivation on
performance alone.) And, indeed, the best-controlled experiments
of this design indicate learning effects to be the same under
different levels of motivation.
Varieties of learning
It is debated whether all forms of learning represent the same

process. This question applies even to relatively primitive
phenomena such as classical and instrumental conditioning.
In instrumental conditioning reinforcement is contingent on the

learner's response; a rat receives food only if it presses the lever. In
classical conditioning there is no such contingency; a dog is fed
whether or not it salivates. But this is a distinction in experimental
procedure. Whether the underlying process of learning is the same
for both is quite another question.
Classical conditioning usually has been reported for glandular,

autonomically mediated, involuntary responses (e.g., salivation,
heart rate). By contrast, voluntary movements of skeletal muscles
more typically have been found to be conditionable instrumentally.
However, to theorize that classical conditioning is exclusively
effective for one class of responses while instrumental conditioning
is uniquely applicable to others seems to be a mistake.
Evidence that seems to demolish such theorizing comes from a series

of experiments directed by Neal E. Miller at the Rockefeller
University in New York City. Rats were immobilized with curare; this
drug blocks the junction between muscle and nerve to paralyze the
skeletal muscles. However, a curarized individual still can show
autonomic, involuntary signs of emotional activity such as a rapidly
beating heart.
Electrical stimulation of selected parts of the brain seems to be

rewarding; animals behave as if they seek such stimulation and will
learn to press a switch for it (voluntary muscle function). Using
curarized animals, Miller and others made the rewarding stimulation
contingent on such typically involuntary responses as changes in
heart rate, blood pressure, contractions of the bowel, and
salivation. Their research has shown such instrumental conditioning
to be effective for all these responses. The evidence appears to
destroy the once-popular hypothesis that involuntary autonomic
reactions are subject only to classical conditioning. In this sense the
two primitive forms of learning seem to be the same.
Stages of learning
Should the basic process prove to be the same for all varieties of
learning, there would still be reason to believe that it operates
differently from one stage of practice to another. For example, in
coping with painful stimuli (e.g., electric shocks) laboratory animals
seem to learn in two successive, distinguishable phases. Apparently
they first learn to fear the situation, then to avoid it.
For example, when an animal learns to avoid painful shock (by

turning a paddle wheel or by running away), a warning signal can be
given; e.g., with a flash of light or a buzzer. The two stages of
learning then can be studied separately. The animal first is
subjected to pairings of signal and unavoidable shock to establish (by
classical conditioning) signs of fear in response to the signal. In the
second stage it is allowed to stop the frightening signal by making an
appropriate response. Preconditioned members of the many animal
species have learned to avoid the signal itself, even though shock
never was presented again.
Theoretically, the classically conditioned signs of fright in response

to the initially neutral signal have a motivating function.
Termination of that stimulus is seen as instrumental—that is, as
rewarding the animal by reducing learned experiences of fear.
Classical conditioning
A two-stage process has been suggested even for classical

conditioning. One theory is that in the first stage the subject learns
that a neutral stimulus (a ringing bell) is to be presented along with
another stimulus (food) whether or not it exhibits a reaction
(salivation). Conditioning of any reaction is held to constitute the
second stage of learning. The skimpy supporting evidence points to
the first stage as a prerequisite, suggesting that responses can only
be conditioned after the sensory conditions are recognized.
Verbal learning
Theories that interpret verbal learning as a process that develops in

stages also have been worked out. In one variety of rote learning the
subject is to respond with a specific word whenever another word
with which it has been paired is presented. In learning lists that
include such paired-associates as house–girl, table–happy, and
parcel–chair, the correct responses would be girl (for house), happy
(for table), and chair (for parcel). By convention the first word in
each pair is called the stimulus term and the second the response
term. Paired-associate learning is theorized to require subprocesses:
one to discriminate among stimulus terms, another to select the
second terms as the set of responses, and a third to associate or link
each response term with its stimulus term. Although these posited
phases seem to overlap, there is evidence indicating that the first
two (stimulus discrimination and response selection) precede the

associative stage.
Remembering and forgetting
Learning, remembering, and forgetting often have been considered

separate processes. Yet these distinctions seem to blur in the face of
contemporary research and theory.
Transient and enduring memory
Evidence for stages of learning comes from observations of learners

over relatively extended series of trials (or comparatively long
periods). The empirical data suggest that several alterations in
memory function occur even during a single trial. The process that
commits information to memory also seems to have several stages.
Most theorists attribute at least three stages to memory function:

immediate, short-term, and long-term. Immediate memory seems to
last little more than a second or so. For example, subjects may be
asked to remember where specific objects are located within a
complex array they have just seen. Their performance shows that
considerable information is retained only briefly, rapidly fading
unless it is given special attention.
Short-term memory lasts about 15–30 seconds, as after looking up a

telephone number. One makes the call, discovers he has forgotten
the number (perhaps in the midst of dialing), and has to look it up
again. Nevertheless, such short-term retention does make
information available long enough to be rehearsed; if the learner
repeats it to himself, the number can be transferred to some sort of
longer term storage.
Thus, rehearsal seems to facilitate transfer of data from short-term

to long-term memory. Once committed to long-term memory, the
results of learning tend to endure but can be abruptly abolished
when specific parts of the brain are injured or removed; they also
are vulnerable to interference from other learning. Nevertheless,
conditioned responses may undergo little or no forgetting over
periods of months or years. And electrical stimulation of the
surgically exposed brain while a person is awake can make him
remember experiences long thought forgotten. Recall is reported to
be similarly enhanced during hypnosis.
Retrieval
The amount of information one readily can retrieve from what is

stored in memory is prodigious. In locating an item in memory, he
apparently activates a system that stores a set of related data; then
he searches for the item within that system. For example, a person
is shown a long, randomly mixed list of words that belong to
different categories (e.g., names of animals, plants, professions,
tools). When asked to remember as many words as he can, he
spontaneously will tend to group them by category; this is called
clustering of recall. Thus, names of animals (spread throughout the
original list) are likely to be remembered one after the other.
Studies of the familiar tip-of-the-tongue experience yield analogous

results. College students who heard definitions (of this sort: a small,
open Chinese boat) were asked to supply the right word (in this case
it would be sampan). Those who said they might have it somewhere
on the tip of the tongue were significantly accurate in guessing the
first letter and the number of syllables. Their tendency also to recall
words that sounded the same or that had similar meanings is
reminiscent of clustering.
Considerable evidence of this kind supports the theory that the

process of retrieval first locates stored data in some sort of
associative network and then selects an item with specific
characteristics.
Forgetting
Whether immediate and short-term data simply decay or are lost

through interference is a matter of controversy. However, evidence
is clearer that interference affects retention of information in long-
term storage. Retention of the word happy (learned as a paired
associate of table) seems to be subject to the interference of a
strong tendency to associate table with chair. Thus, the paired
associate table–happy becomes more readily forgotten when
followed by parcel–chair as the very next item in a list; this seems to
help chair reassert its old tendency to be associated with table. In
general, it is found that associations tend to interfere with or to
inhibit one another. Interference deriving from earlier (and later)
associations is called proactive inhibition (and retroactive
inhibition). These two forms of inhibition commonly are accepted as
major processes in forgetting, proactive inhibition being assigned
greater importance.
Contemporary trends in learning theory
In the early 1930s the distinction between learned and inherited

behaviour seemed clearer than it does now. The view that any bit of
behaviour either was learned or simply developed without learning
seemed straightforward. Studies based on these expectations led
investigators to conclude that rat-killing behaviour among cats is
learned rather than instinctive, that human fears are all acquired, or
that intelligence is completely the result of experience. Learning
theorists were saying then that most behaviour is learned and that
biological factors are of little or no importance.
Forty years later this position seemed grossly untenable. The once-
implied sharp distinction between learned and inherited behaviour
had become badly blurred. For example, it has been found that the
young of many animal species automatically will learn to follow the
first large, moving, noisy object presented (as if it were their
mother). This special form of learning is called imprinting and seems
to occur only during a critical early stage of life. Among mallard
ducklings imprinting is most feasible about 15 hours after hatching.
During this period a duckling will imprint as easily on an old man or
on a rubber ball as it will on a mother duck. Is this instinctive or
learned behaviour? Manifestly it is both. The instinctive tendency to
be imprinted is part of the duckling's biological heritage; while the
object on which it is imprinted is a matter of experience. What is
significant for learning theory is that the contribution of biology
cannot be ignored.
Learning theorists once ruled a number of concepts out of court on

the ground that they seemed objectively unclean. Image, cognition,
awareness, and volition, all are concepts that were denied
acceptance on this basis. They sounded mentalistic, subjective,
introspective, and unverifiable. Yet, in the late 20th century these
were being given more serious scientific consideration.
For example, the concept of image in learning has begun to show

real viability. It has long been reported that the more meaningful a
list of words is, the easier it will be to learn. Degree of
meaningfulness for a word may be defined by the objectively
observed probability that people quickly can give another word in
response. Using such empirical scales of meaningfulness, a reliable
and substantial relationship has been found between meaningfulness
and ease of learning. However, meaningful words also may evoke
vivid images that subjects can describe when asked. When they do
evoke such imagery, they seem to be learned and remembered even
more easily. Thus, learning theory seems to be enriched when
introspective data are used.
A final fault in much learning theory stems from earlier tendencies

to use the laws of physics as a model. Theorists once sought general
laws of wide applicability that tended to obscure differences among
individuals. For example, so complete was Hull's faith in universal
“laws” of animal behaviour, that he based his hypothesis about the
optimal interval for classical conditioning in humans, other
mammals, and birds on the pattern of nerve conduction in the optic
nerve of the horseshoe crab. There was little concern even for
species differences. Within the same species, individual differences
were viewed as a mere nuisance; it was believed that, by studying

many subjects and by computing averages, basic laws of learning
could be found. However, so-called laws were developed in this way
that failed to represent even one individual whose behaviour
contributed to the average. More than any other consideration, this
has led learning theorists to take a belated look at the importance of
individual differences and species differences in learning.
Gregory A. Kimble
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Encyclopædia Britannica Page 1 of 17

any of the proposals put forth to explain changes in behaviour

A common goal in defining any psychological concept is a statement

Recognizing this danger (and the corollary that no definition of

The phrase relatively permanent serves to exclude temporary

To say that learning occurs as a result of practice excludes the

The stipulation that practice must be reinforced serves to distinguish

However, the definition raises difficulties. How permanent is

it is correct. Does this qualify as relatively permanent? While

What exactly is the result that occurs with practice? Is it a change in

Such questions serve to distinguish Kimble's descriptive definition

The range of phenomena called learning

Even the simplest animals display such primitive forms of adaptive

At higher evolutionary levels the range of phenomena called learning

This is the form of learning studied by Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849–

This indicates learning to obtain reward or to avoid punishment.

In the form of learning called chaining the subject is required to

Within limits, laboratory animals can be taught to regulate the force

In discrimination learning the subject is reinforced to respond only

An organism is said to have learned a concept when it responds

Examples of human problem solving are familiar: finding the roots of

a quadratic equation, solving a mechanical puzzle, and navigating by

The state of learning theories

Yet, at the start of the 20th century, vast psychological systems,

Important earlier theorists

Beginning in the 1930s a number of general theories were advanced

E.R. Guthrie (1886–1959) wrote that learning requires only that a

For E.C. Tolman (1886–1959) the essence of learning was the

The theory offered by Clark L. Hull (1884–1952), over the period

Comparison of these theories yields major questions for empirical

Are theories of learning necessary?

Such major investigators of learning as B.F. Skinner and J.A.

Intervening variables and hypothetical constructs

Learning is a concept and not a thing, and the activity called

Tolman called himself a behaviourist and ostensibly was bound by

An attractive possibility is that intervening variables may have

Intervening variables and hypothetical constructs need not be

With growing realization of the complexity of learning, the grand

Major themes and issues

A dominant ancient theme in theories of learning has been that of

These European influences coalesced in North America. Wundt's

Investigators asked whether associations are formed between

But the reduction of learning to mere external stimuli and overt

Physiological psychologists and biologists found ways of delivering

Classical conditioning dependably has been shown to proceed only

In learning verbal associations the situation appears to be quite

In what is called context association, the general environment may

A major theoretical issue concerns whether associations grow in

when a problem is solved insightfully, practice with similar tasks

The view that associations develop at full strength in a single trial

In this light, the strength (or probability) of a response should

These stimulus-sampling notions translate easily into mathematical

Repetition alone does not ensure learning; eventually it produces

Objectively reinforcement refers to the use of stimuli that have

More theoretically, the term reinforcement expresses various

Not all psychologists have accepted the general validity of

Major critics of association theory included such Gestalt

Similar organizational processes in perceiving can be demonstrated

A powerful argument also was made by psycholinguists who criticized

Gestalt interpretations often reject the associationistic hypothesis

For example, a monkey may learn a long series of discriminations;

Evidence clearly shows that the monkey gradually abandons

Motivation popularly is thought to be essential to learning. Yet many

Motivation and performance