作 者：Kenneth Wartenbee Spence 出 版：Literary Licensing, LLC
书 号：9781258267810
原 价：￥400.90元
Behavior Theory and Learning: Selected Papers
作 者：Kenneth Wartenbee Spence
Preface
The following collection of papers, while mostly theoretical in nature, includes a number of experimental articles that have served as vehicles for elaborating the behavior theory approach of the writer. Consisting of twenty previously published articles and two new papers, the volume offers a kind of behavior or activity sample of a psychologist who has not only been concerned with attempting to bring the kind of order into psychological phenomena that theories provide, but has also had an abiding interest in the nature and role of theory per se in this scientific endeavor.
This latter interest is reflected especially in the papers that have been grouped into Part I of the book. Primarily concerned with philosophical and methodological problems of psychology, i.e., its philosophy of science, these articles discuss both empirical questions relating to the requirements that scientific concepts must fulfill in order to be both testable and significant and the nature and role of theoretical structures in providing for scientific explanation in psychology. For the most part, the first three articles provide an exposition and analysis of the views of learning theorists as to the function of the theoretical constructs in their formulations. For example, in the first article, Hull's theorizing of the late thirties was revealed as not being of the type that began with the introduction of an axiomatic system which was later coordinated to empirical concepts as he thought, but as being essentially similar in nature to Tolman's intervening variable approach. Following the appearance of this article Hull acknowledged that his theory was of this type and he explicitly employed intervening variables in his Principles of Behavior.
As far as the concept of intervening variables is concerned these three earlier articles were primarily expository in nature, attempting merely to present the views of Hull and Tolman as to the nature and function of this type of theoretical concept. The writer's own interpretation of the function that the intervening variables serve in present day psychology is presented in the two final papers of Part I, particularly in the third section of the last paper. Acknowledged as being primarily abstractive in nature, intervening variables--when used in conjunction with the laws interrelating them and the so-called composition rules (laws)--are nevertheless regarded as having "surplus meaning" in the sense that they permit the derivation of laws concerning phenomena quite different from those in which they originated. Abstracted from investigations of simple classical and instrumental conditioning, the intervening variables of behavior theory, in conjunction with composition laws, provide for derivations concerning more complex behavior, such as is involved in selective (discrimination) learning, paired associate learning, etc. The final article in Part I also presents the author's conception (methodological behaviorism) of the empirical basis of a scientific psychology and contrasts it with the diametrically opposed empathic approach of Allport.
Part II contains a heterogeneous collection of papers concerned both with the basic theoretical structure of learning phenomena developed by the author from simple conditioning studies and with extrapolations of this theory to more complex types of behavior such as are involved in simple T-maze, complex serial mazes, and paired associates learning in humans. The first previously unpublished paper (No. 6) contrasts the development of Hull's and the author's views on reinforcement and then extends the theoretical model presented in the writer's Silliman Lectures ( Behavior Theory and Conditioning) to some of the phenomena resulting from non-reinforcement and partial reinforcement. Several papers (Nos. 8-12) representative of the writer's theoretical and experimental studies of the role of drive (D) in determining performance level in simple (eyelid conditioning) and more complex learning tasks (paired associates) are also included.
One feature of this latter theory is the manner in which it goes beyond the intervening variable type of theorizing and attempts to offer a speculative theory as to the processes underlying the intervening variable, in this instance the hypothetical emotional response (re) as the basis for general drive level, D. The extent to which the writer has engaged in this dual type of theorizing has not always been recognized. For example, in addition to this hypothesis concerning D, the writer has also introduced the hypothetical concepts of the fractional anticipatory goal response (rg) as the basis of the incentive motivational variable K, and the fractional anticipatory frustration response (rf) as playing an important motivational and directing role in the phenomena of extinction and partial reinforcement.
The final paper in Part II is one in which the author attempted to compare cognition and S-R theories of learning. In addition to pointing out the few genuine differences of principle between the two viewpoints and the many differences that are merely a matter of emphasis or interest, the article attempts to show in a schematic fashion how one S-R theorist would deal with perception.
In Part III of the volume, three early theoretical articles on discrimination learning, the phenomenon of transposition, and the continuity-noncontinuity issue are followed by representative empirical studies concerned with testing of the theoretical schema. The final two articles represent more recent theoretical developments in this area. One (No. 21) deals briefly and in a preliminary fashion with the more complex types of discrimination behavior involving various kinds of patterning. The other (No. 22) is a new, previously unpublished paper which, after surveying the different theories of discrimination learning, describes two different conceptual models of selective behavior that have been used by Hull and the writer in the past. A third, new model which includes some features of Tolman's sowbug and which provides for predictions concerning vicarious trial and error (VTE) behavior at the choice point as well as per cent correct choices is also described briefly.
A number of the papers were written in collaboration with colleagues and former students. I wish to thank all of them for permitting me to include these joint pieces. Aside from minor editorial changes the papers are reprinted as they originally appeared.
In the case of the two new papers, I am indebted to Leonard E. Ross for the preparation of the graphs and to my secretary, Helen G. Stone, for the typing of the manuscripts. Mrs. Stone also aided in the editorial changes made in the reprinted articles.
Kenneth W. Spence
Autumn, 1960
Table of contents
Title Page i
Preface iii
Table of Contents vii
Acknowledgments xi
Part I - Methodological Basis of Psychology 1
2 - The Nature of Theory Construction in Contempory Psychology 17
3 - The Postulates and Methods of "Behaviorism" 39
4 - Mathematical Formulations of Learning Phenomena 57
5 - The Empirical Basis and Theoretical Structure of Psychology 71
Part II - Behavior Theory 89
7 - The Relation of Response Latency and Speed to the Intervening Variables and N in S-R Theory 113
8 - A Theory of Emotionally Based Drive (d) and Its Relation to Performance in Simple Learning Situations 125
9 - Learning and Performance in Eyelid Conditioning as a Function of Intensity of the Ucs 148
10 - Ucs Intensity and the Associative (habit) Strength of the Eyelid Cr, 161
11 - Performance in Eyelid Conditioning Related to Changes in Muscular Tension and Physiological Measures of Emotionality 175
12 - The Relation of Anxiety (drive) Level to Performance in Competitional and Non- Competitional Paired-Associates Learning , 185
13 - A Study of Simple Learning under Irrelevant Motivational-Reward Conditions] 202
14 - The Order of Eliminating Blinds in Maze Learning by the Rat 225
15 - Cognitive versus Stimulus-Response Theories of Leaming 245
Part III - Discrimination Learning 267
17 - The Differential Response in Animals to Stimuli Varying within a Single Dimension 292
18 - Continuous versus Non-Continuous Interpretations of Discrimination Learning 308
19 - Gradual versus Sudden Solution of Discrimination Problems by Chimpanzees 326
20 - The Basis of Solution by Chimpanzees of the Intermediate Size Problem 339
21 - The Nature of the Response in Discrimination Learning 359
22 - Conceptual Models of Spatial and Non-Spatial Selective Learning 366
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