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Part V. Learning to do — Learning to know
Adv.
Printed
Be/m.
Rex
in Great
Ther.
Britain.
Vol. 4. pp. 20’9-21 I All rights reserved.
PART V. LEARNING
TO DO -
LEARNING
TO KNOW
H. D. Kimmel University
of South
Florida’
Learning theorists have a long tradition of disagreement regarding even the most fundamental assumptions underlying their work. The answer to so seemingly simple a question as, “What is learned?” is likely to vary widely among different individuals. It is thus, not surprising that more complex questions evoke even greater disagreement. If consensus does not exist regarding so fundamental a matter as NJ,?&is learned in a learning experiment, it is obvious that questions regarding how it is learned may be answered in many different, often quite incompatible ways. One of the reasons why agreement regarding what is learned has eluded attainment by learning theorists is that the term “learning” is applied to so wide a range of different phenomena, even by laymen. A person is said to “learn to swim”, “learn a poem”, “learn history”, etc. Someone who has learned “to swim” will not drown when thrown into deep water; one who has learned “a poem” may recite it when asked to do so (if motivated to comply); someone who has learned “history” may explain why the Roman Empire finally collapsed (if motivated to do so). Learning to swim enables swimming behavior to be performed when necessary or desirable. Learning a poem enables behavior to be performed also, but the behavior may transcend mere rote repetition of sounds, since the sounds are symbols that have meaning. Learning history implies even more comprehension and less memorization of pat verbal responses. In general, there are things that people learn fo do and there are things that people learn ubout. Sometimes these are difficult to distinguish. Hull’s rats learned to make responses to stimuli, for example, ?o go down a runway, turn left, and enter a goal-box. The fact that a similar sequence of behavior previously was followed by the consumption of food in the goal-box was assumed to provide the associatigenic force for this S-R connection. Tolman’s rats, on the other hand, learned zh& the food was to be found in the left goal-box; the role of the food being there previously was to emphasize this S-S relationship. But Hull’s rats and Tolman’s rats must actually have learned the same thing, rather than two seemingly different things, since what they did was identical. The difference in question, obviously, was not between what Hull’s and Tolman’s rats learned, but between Hull’s and Tolman’s interpretation of their learning. Hull found it useful to assume that the rat learned to make responses; Tolman preferred to believe that the rat learned knowledge. The rat of course, simply learned. Levey and Martin have proposed that humans (either as subjects in conditioning experiments or clients in behavior therapy) also learn in two basically different ways. They learn “evaluations” 6f isolated stimuli in the environment, simply as a result of temporal contiguity between these stimuli and their positive or negative evaluative consequences. They use the term “consequence” solely in the temporal sense, implying nothing causal between the stimulus and its evaluative consequence. Evaluation learning is called “conditioning”, and it is in no way cognitive. The behavior it fosters is to some extent hardwired, since things that are positively evaluated usually are approached and in some fashion engaged, while those that are negatively evaluated are avoided or rejected. In addition to this kind of learning, humans also acquire cognitive summaries regarding sequences of events in the environment. This kind of learning is more complex and both phylo- and ontogenetically higher than consequence learning, although it may have evolved out of it. The cognitive summary permits highly adaptive predictions of future events. It enables short-circuiting of complex routes, both spatial and conceptual. It makes it possible for problems to be solved 1 rhc author has recently West Germany.
been (until
July
1982) Gastprofessor
in Clinical
Psychology
at the University
of Giessen,
210
H. D. Kimmei
quickly and efficiently. Indeed, it is the basis of all cognitive (including verbal) representation of the world around us. Conditioning, as characterized by Levey and Martin, is highly reminiscent of 0. H. Mowrer’s learning of hope and fear, although he preferred to view these as emotions. Martin and Levey draw an exaggerated distinction between the evaluative responses to unconditioned stimuli, those which become transferred to previously neutral stimuli via conditioning, and the unconditioned stimulus’ ability to provoke strong autonomic reactions. But their studied use of weaker and stronger terminology to achieve this distinction fails to make it more than semantic. What are their “likes” and “dislikes” if not affective? They urge that we accept the evaluation as noncognitive - okay. But, if it is noncognitive and nonemotional, as well as unobservable, can it be very different from Hull’s rG or Mowrer’s rE? Furthermore, Guthrie’s famous observation that Tolman’s rats (having learned cognitive expectancies) would be “lost in thought in the maze”, since they hadn’t learned to behave, and Amsel’s analogous comment regarding Mowrer’s emoting subjects, cannot be so easily skirted by assuming that sometimes innate behaviors will be driven by evaluations or, worse, by suggesting that sometimes “overt behavioral responses are susceptible to change and learning through interaction with environmental events as individuals learn varieties of complex alternative strategies”. How many layers of learning will be needed? The point of the foregoing criticism is that it may not be much of an improvement, either for the subject lost in thought, emotion, or evaluation or for the scientist seeking comprehension, unless something more substantial is offered by means of which the gap between what is learned by conditioning and what remains to be learned (how?) may be navigated. It might have been assumed that the psychology of learning had come to understand this problem a long time ago. But Levey and Martin appear to have rejected or forgotten this lesson. Even if we are in full agreement with their basic proposition that some kind of valence is attached to events by association with previously valenced events, and that this does not require the cognitive engagement of the subject, we are still obliged to explicate the connection between these valences and what the subject actually does. If he makes a GSR to the stimulus, and does nothing more, we might be content to say that the GSR is a more or less direct reflection of the acquired valence. But what do we say when the subject ceases to make GSRs to the stimulus even though it continues to be followed by something the subject (still) doesn’t like? And what do we say when the mere administration of a weak extraneous stimulus restores the GSR to the stimulus? What is the purpose of a theory? If the assumption that an evaluation has been conditioned does not enable us to predict the subject’s behavior, are we better off by assuming that it has? Are we simply trying to make ourselves feel better about the whole thing? Suppose, for example, that we know nothing about the subject’s prior conditioning. We present a stimulus and observe that the subject withdraws from it or rejects it. May we assume that the stimulus had previously acquired a negative evaluation? Suppose that the subject swiftly embraces, consumes, or otherwise engages positively with the stimulus. May we assume that it previously acquired a positive evaluation? When we invent an unobservable, mediating (albeit noncognitive) mechanism, it will be useful only to the extent that operations are available by means of which its presence or absence may be established independent of the observations we were trying to explain in the first place. Levey and Martin propose that a hypothetical organism may cease to eat a bad-tasting furry orange caterpillar because it has acquired a negative evaluation of it. How do we know this? Because it doesn’t eat furry orange caterpillars anymore! I would urge that they look again at Garner, Erickson, and Hake’s discussion of operationism and the concept of perception. All I know about the caterpillar matter is that the organism no longer eats them. Perhaps the caterpillar has a way to hypnotize organisms that attempt to eat them. Perhaps one bite of caterpillar causes future caterpillars to look to the biter like mountain lions. Perhaps they taste so good that no Christian organism would ever again engage in such self-indulgence, having once discovered the ecstasy that results, The last point, of course, is most important, since it shows that positive and negative evaluations may bar/r lead to either approach or avoidance behaviors, depending upon other factors about which the theory says almost nothing. Levey
Cognitions,
Evaluations
and Conditioning
211
and Martin state that one major purpose of their effort to distinguish between conditioning and cognitive sequence learning is to provide a basis for behavior therapists to determine in particular cases whether counter-conditioning or cognitive restructuring is the treatment of choice. If an acquired evaluation is outdated or otherwise inappropriate, counterconditioning is recommended. If a cognitive summary is inaccurate, on the other hand, restructuring might be more appropriate. Their motivation is beyond criticism; it would indeed be useful to have a basis in theory for selecting therapeutic methods in individual cases, in contrast to the present strategy of each therapist using his own pet procedure come what may. Alas, however, how will the therapist of the future determine whether it is the evaluation or the summary that is inaccurate? Perhaps they may both be? Is it possible that both could be correct but incompatible nevertheless? Setting aside one’s concerns regarding the epistemological inadequacies of the basic theory as given, one may still wonder whether they have provided a usable format for making these difticult therapeutic decisions. Until they provide a more unambiguous set of criteria, the present proposal must be judged more wishful than practical. Perhaps so harsh a criticism will have the beneficial effect of goading them in this direction.
Printed
Be/m.
Rex
in Great
Ther.
Britain.
Vol. 4. pp. 20’9-21 I All rights reserved.
PART V. LEARNING
TO DO -
LEARNING
TO KNOW
H. D. Kimmel University
of South
Florida’
Learning theorists have a long tradition of disagreement regarding even the most fundamental assumptions underlying their work. The answer to so seemingly simple a question as, “What is learned?” is likely to vary widely among different individuals. It is thus, not surprising that more complex questions evoke even greater disagreement. If consensus does not exist regarding so fundamental a matter as NJ,?&is learned in a learning experiment, it is obvious that questions regarding how it is learned may be answered in many different, often quite incompatible ways. One of the reasons why agreement regarding what is learned has eluded attainment by learning theorists is that the term “learning” is applied to so wide a range of different phenomena, even by laymen. A person is said to “learn to swim”, “learn a poem”, “learn history”, etc. Someone who has learned “to swim” will not drown when thrown into deep water; one who has learned “a poem” may recite it when asked to do so (if motivated to comply); someone who has learned “history” may explain why the Roman Empire finally collapsed (if motivated to do so). Learning to swim enables swimming behavior to be performed when necessary or desirable. Learning a poem enables behavior to be performed also, but the behavior may transcend mere rote repetition of sounds, since the sounds are symbols that have meaning. Learning history implies even more comprehension and less memorization of pat verbal responses. In general, there are things that people learn fo do and there are things that people learn ubout. Sometimes these are difficult to distinguish. Hull’s rats learned to make responses to stimuli, for example, ?o go down a runway, turn left, and enter a goal-box. The fact that a similar sequence of behavior previously was followed by the consumption of food in the goal-box was assumed to provide the associatigenic force for this S-R connection. Tolman’s rats, on the other hand, learned zh& the food was to be found in the left goal-box; the role of the food being there previously was to emphasize this S-S relationship. But Hull’s rats and Tolman’s rats must actually have learned the same thing, rather than two seemingly different things, since what they did was identical. The difference in question, obviously, was not between what Hull’s and Tolman’s rats learned, but between Hull’s and Tolman’s interpretation of their learning. Hull found it useful to assume that the rat learned to make responses; Tolman preferred to believe that the rat learned knowledge. The rat of course, simply learned. Levey and Martin have proposed that humans (either as subjects in conditioning experiments or clients in behavior therapy) also learn in two basically different ways. They learn “evaluations” 6f isolated stimuli in the environment, simply as a result of temporal contiguity between these stimuli and their positive or negative evaluative consequences. They use the term “consequence” solely in the temporal sense, implying nothing causal between the stimulus and its evaluative consequence. Evaluation learning is called “conditioning”, and it is in no way cognitive. The behavior it fosters is to some extent hardwired, since things that are positively evaluated usually are approached and in some fashion engaged, while those that are negatively evaluated are avoided or rejected. In addition to this kind of learning, humans also acquire cognitive summaries regarding sequences of events in the environment. This kind of learning is more complex and both phylo- and ontogenetically higher than consequence learning, although it may have evolved out of it. The cognitive summary permits highly adaptive predictions of future events. It enables short-circuiting of complex routes, both spatial and conceptual. It makes it possible for problems to be solved 1 rhc author has recently West Germany.
been (until
July
1982) Gastprofessor
in Clinical
Psychology
at the University
of Giessen,
210
H. D. Kimmei
quickly and efficiently. Indeed, it is the basis of all cognitive (including verbal) representation of the world around us. Conditioning, as characterized by Levey and Martin, is highly reminiscent of 0. H. Mowrer’s learning of hope and fear, although he preferred to view these as emotions. Martin and Levey draw an exaggerated distinction between the evaluative responses to unconditioned stimuli, those which become transferred to previously neutral stimuli via conditioning, and the unconditioned stimulus’ ability to provoke strong autonomic reactions. But their studied use of weaker and stronger terminology to achieve this distinction fails to make it more than semantic. What are their “likes” and “dislikes” if not affective? They urge that we accept the evaluation as noncognitive - okay. But, if it is noncognitive and nonemotional, as well as unobservable, can it be very different from Hull’s rG or Mowrer’s rE? Furthermore, Guthrie’s famous observation that Tolman’s rats (having learned cognitive expectancies) would be “lost in thought in the maze”, since they hadn’t learned to behave, and Amsel’s analogous comment regarding Mowrer’s emoting subjects, cannot be so easily skirted by assuming that sometimes innate behaviors will be driven by evaluations or, worse, by suggesting that sometimes “overt behavioral responses are susceptible to change and learning through interaction with environmental events as individuals learn varieties of complex alternative strategies”. How many layers of learning will be needed? The point of the foregoing criticism is that it may not be much of an improvement, either for the subject lost in thought, emotion, or evaluation or for the scientist seeking comprehension, unless something more substantial is offered by means of which the gap between what is learned by conditioning and what remains to be learned (how?) may be navigated. It might have been assumed that the psychology of learning had come to understand this problem a long time ago. But Levey and Martin appear to have rejected or forgotten this lesson. Even if we are in full agreement with their basic proposition that some kind of valence is attached to events by association with previously valenced events, and that this does not require the cognitive engagement of the subject, we are still obliged to explicate the connection between these valences and what the subject actually does. If he makes a GSR to the stimulus, and does nothing more, we might be content to say that the GSR is a more or less direct reflection of the acquired valence. But what do we say when the subject ceases to make GSRs to the stimulus even though it continues to be followed by something the subject (still) doesn’t like? And what do we say when the mere administration of a weak extraneous stimulus restores the GSR to the stimulus? What is the purpose of a theory? If the assumption that an evaluation has been conditioned does not enable us to predict the subject’s behavior, are we better off by assuming that it has? Are we simply trying to make ourselves feel better about the whole thing? Suppose, for example, that we know nothing about the subject’s prior conditioning. We present a stimulus and observe that the subject withdraws from it or rejects it. May we assume that the stimulus had previously acquired a negative evaluation? Suppose that the subject swiftly embraces, consumes, or otherwise engages positively with the stimulus. May we assume that it previously acquired a positive evaluation? When we invent an unobservable, mediating (albeit noncognitive) mechanism, it will be useful only to the extent that operations are available by means of which its presence or absence may be established independent of the observations we were trying to explain in the first place. Levey and Martin propose that a hypothetical organism may cease to eat a bad-tasting furry orange caterpillar because it has acquired a negative evaluation of it. How do we know this? Because it doesn’t eat furry orange caterpillars anymore! I would urge that they look again at Garner, Erickson, and Hake’s discussion of operationism and the concept of perception. All I know about the caterpillar matter is that the organism no longer eats them. Perhaps the caterpillar has a way to hypnotize organisms that attempt to eat them. Perhaps one bite of caterpillar causes future caterpillars to look to the biter like mountain lions. Perhaps they taste so good that no Christian organism would ever again engage in such self-indulgence, having once discovered the ecstasy that results, The last point, of course, is most important, since it shows that positive and negative evaluations may bar/r lead to either approach or avoidance behaviors, depending upon other factors about which the theory says almost nothing. Levey
Cognitions,
Evaluations
and Conditioning
211
and Martin state that one major purpose of their effort to distinguish between conditioning and cognitive sequence learning is to provide a basis for behavior therapists to determine in particular cases whether counter-conditioning or cognitive restructuring is the treatment of choice. If an acquired evaluation is outdated or otherwise inappropriate, counterconditioning is recommended. If a cognitive summary is inaccurate, on the other hand, restructuring might be more appropriate. Their motivation is beyond criticism; it would indeed be useful to have a basis in theory for selecting therapeutic methods in individual cases, in contrast to the present strategy of each therapist using his own pet procedure come what may. Alas, however, how will the therapist of the future determine whether it is the evaluation or the summary that is inaccurate? Perhaps they may both be? Is it possible that both could be correct but incompatible nevertheless? Setting aside one’s concerns regarding the epistemological inadequacies of the basic theory as given, one may still wonder whether they have provided a usable format for making these difticult therapeutic decisions. Until they provide a more unambiguous set of criteria, the present proposal must be judged more wishful than practical. Perhaps so harsh a criticism will have the beneficial effect of goading them in this direction.