Psychology, Robert S. Woodworth [android based ebook reader .txt] 📗

  AVERAGE NUMBER OF ERRORS MADE, IN EACH TRIAL IN
  LEARNING A MAZE, BY RATS, CHILDREN AND ADULT MEN

  (From Hicks and Carr)


  Trial
  No.   Rats  Children  Adults

   1     53      35       10
   2     45       9       15
   3     30      18        5
   4     22      11        2
   5     11       9        6
   6      8      13        4
   7      9       6        2
   8      4       6        2
   9      9       5        1
  10      3       5        1
  11      4       1        0
  12      5       0        1
  13      4       1        1
  14      4       0        1
  15      4       1        1
  16      2       0        1
  17      1       0        1


  The table reads that, on the first trial in the maze, the
  rats averaged 53 errors, the children 35 errors, and the
  adults 10 errors, and so on. An "error" consisted in
  entering a blind alley or in turning back on {315} the
  course. The subjects tested consisted of 23 rats, five
  children varying in age from 8 to 18 years, and four
  graduate students of psychology. The human maze was much
  larger than those used for the rats, but roughly about the
  same in complexity. Since rats are known to make little
  use of their eyes in learning a maze, the human subjects
  were blindfolded. The rats were rewarded by food, the
  others simply by the satisfaction of success.

The puzzle boxes used in experiments on animal learning are too simple for human adults, but mechanical puzzles present problems of sufficient difficulty. The experimenter hands the subject a totally unfamiliar puzzle, and notes the time required by the subject to take it apart; and this is repeated in a series of trials till mastery is complete. In addition to taking the time, the experimenter observes the subject's way of reacting, and the subject endeavors at the end of each trial to record what he has himself observed of the course of events.

The human subject's behavior in his first trial with a puzzle is often quite of the trial and error sort. He manipulates impulsively; seeing a possible opening he responds to it, and meeting a check he backs off and tries something else. Often he tries the same line of attack time and time again, always failing; and his final success, in the first trial, is often accidental and mystifying to himself.

On the second trial, he may still be at a loss, and proceed as before; but usually he has noticed one or two facts that help him. He is most likely to have noticed where he was in the puzzle when his accidental success occurred; for it appears that locations are about the easiest facts to learn for men as well as animals. In the course of a few trials, also, the human subject notices that some lines of attack are useless, and therefore eliminates them. After a time he may "see into" the puzzle more or less clearly, though sometimes he gets a practical mastery of the handling of the puzzle, while still obliged to confess that he does not understand it at all.

{316}

Insight, when it does occur, is of great value. Insight into the general principle of the puzzle leads to a better general plan of attack, and insight into the detailed difficulties of manipulation leads to smoother and defter handling. The human "learning curve" (see Figure 50) often shows a prolonged stretch of no improvement, followed by an abrupt change to quicker work; and the subject's introspections show that 76 per cent, or more of these sudden improvements followed immediately after some fresh insight into the puzzle.

Fig. 50.--(From Ruger.) Curve for human learning of a mechanical puzzle. Distance above the base line represents the time occupied in each trial, the successive trials being arranged in order from left to right. A drop in the curve denotes a decrease in time, and thus an improvement. At X, the subject saw something about the puzzle that he had not noticed before and studied it out with some care, so increasing his time for this one trial, but bringing the time down thereafter to a new and steady level.

The value of insight appears in another way when the subject, after mastering one puzzle, is handed another involving the same principle in a changed form. If he has seen the principle of the first puzzle, he is likely to carry over this knowledge to the second, and master this readily; {317} but if he has simply acquired motor skill with the first puzzle, without any insight into its principle, he may have as hard a time with the second as if he had never seen the first.

Learning by Observation

"We learn by doing" is a true proverb, in the sense that we acquire a reaction by making just that reaction. We must make a reaction in order to get it really in hand, so that the proverb might be strengthened to read, "To learn, we must do". But we should make it false if we strengthened it still further and said "We learn only by doing". For human beings, at least, learn also by observing.

The "insight" just spoken of consists in observing some fact--often some relationship--and the value of insight in hastening the process of learning is a proof that we learn by observation as well as by actual manipulation. To be sure, observation needs to be followed by manipulation in order to give practical mastery of a thing, but manipulation without observation means slow learning and often yields nothing that can be carried over to a different situation.

Learning by observation is typically human. The adult's superiority in tackling a maze may be summed up by saying that he observes more than the child--much more than the animal--and governs his behavior by his observations. The enormous human superiority in learning a simple puzzle, of the sort used in experiments on animals, arises from seeing at once the key to the situation.

A chimpanzee--one of the most intelligent of animals--was tested with a simple puzzle box, to be opened from outside by turning a button that prevented the door from opening. The device was so simple that you would expect the animal to see into it at once. A banana was put into the box and the door fastened with the button. The {318} chimpanzee quickly found the door, and quickly found the button, which he proceeded to pull about with one hand while pulling the door with the other. Without much delay, he had the button turned and the door open. After about three trials, he had a practical mastery of the puzzle, showing thus considerable superiority over the cat, who would more likely have required twelve or fifteen trials to learn the trick. But now a second button was put on a few inches from the first, both being just alike and operating in the same way. The chimpanzee paid no attention to this second button, but turned the first one as before, and when the door failed to open, kept on turning the first button, opening it and closing it and always tugging at the door. After a time, he did shift to the second button, but as he had left the first one closed, his manipulation of the second was futile. It was a long, hard job for him to learn to operate both buttons correctly; and the experiment proved that he did not observe how the button kept the door from opening, but only that the button was the thing to work with in opening the door. At one time, indeed, in order to force him to deal with the second button, the first one was removed, but he still went to the place where it had been and fingered about there. What he had observed was chiefly the place to work at in order to open the door. We must grant that animals observe locations, but most of their learning is by doing and not by observing.

Here is another experiment designed to test the ability of animals to learn by observation. The experimenter takes two cats, one having mastered a certain puzzle box, the other not, and places the untrained cat where it can watch the trained one do its trick. The trained cat performs repeatedly for the other's benefit, and is then taken away and the untrained cat put into the puzzle box. But he has derived no benefit from what has gone on before his eyes, and must learn by trial {319} and error, the same as any other cat; he does not even learn any more quickly than he otherwise would have done.

The same negative results are obtained even with monkeys, but the chimpanzee shows some signs of learning by observation. One chimpanzee having learned to extract a banana from a long tube by pushing it out of the further end with a stick which the experimenter had kindly left close by, another chimpanzee was placed where he could watch the first one's performance and did watch it closely. Then the first animal was taken away and the second given a chance. He promptly took the stick and got the banana, without, however, imitating the action of the first animal exactly, but pulling the banana towards him till he could reach it. This has been called learning by imitation, but might better be described as learning by observation.

Such behavior, quite rare among animals, is common in human children, who are very observant of what older people do, and imitate them on the first opportunity, though often this comes after an interval. The first time a child speaks a new word is usually not right after he has heard it. When, on previous occasions, he has heard this word, he has not