association; where there is practically no organization association
does not occur until some organization is created intentionally.
Also, after being associated, the members of a series have definite
properties which depend upon their position in the surrounding whole,
as tones do in an organized melody. And finally, if in a series we
determine those sequences which are the _solid_ groups in the total
series, and if, then, we also determine where association is strongest
we shall find that both coincide.
After these preliminaries we can discuss the nature of that particular
bond which is said to originate between the traces of two processes
when these processes are associated. The prevailing opinion is that
during learning the nerve fibers uniting the place of one process with
that of the other acquire an increased conductivity, because with each
repetition some particular current of nervous energy is assumed to pass
from one to the other. In consequence of this change of conductivity,
whenever the process corresponding to the first trace activates this
trace the current spreads along those fibers to the second trace, and
reactivates it also. With this hypothesis one may understand, perhaps,
why after some repetitions the current should flow in that particular
direction and thereby increase its conductivity; but we do not at all
see why it should flow in just that direction on the _first_ occasion.
And this is a serious difficulty, particularly in those cases where
after one single experience we find the association well established.
One can scarcely avoid the inference that in this case the processes
underlying the experience _as such_ contain all that is implied in the
concept of association, at once and originally, no special bond being
necessary for it.
We do not know what happens in reproduction. The only thing we seem
compelled to assume is some physiological communication between the
traces of two processes, A and B, so that an event activated in A will
spread to B and not to other traces, with the processes of which it had
nothing whatever to do in the past. Now, two hypotheses are possible:
If we believe A and B to be two processes indifferent to each other,
which accidentally occur near to each other in space and time, then
some special bond, some change of conductivity in fibers between them
may be needed as a basis of the association. In full contrast to this
older view, however, we may make quite a different assumption: Whenever
we “associate” A and B we experience them, not as two indifferent
things, but as members of one organized group. This certainly may be
taken for granted, after the foregoing analysis. In this case the
process underlying the experience cannot consist of two indifferent
parts, one belonging to A and one to B. It must be one functional
whole in which A and B possess only a _relative_ independence. If that
be so, there will not be two separate traces left behind after the
process itself has faded, but _one_ trace of the functional whole,
with the after-effects of A and B in it as local regions of that
single trace. In this way A and B, or their after-effects, would be
as well connected in the single trace of the whole organized process
as they might ever be by means of the special bond which united them,
according to the older point of view. If such a bond determined “the
spreading of nervous activity” from A to B, the segregated trace of one
process-in-extension might well do precisely the same. Unfortunately,
in neither case do we know as yet what are the functional properties
of that “spreading” and what sort of nervous communication would
be capable of determining its course in the observed manner of
reproduction.
It will be convenient to give our assumption a somewhat radical
formulation so that it will be easier to distinguish it from the
usual one. From our viewpoint, association is given up as a special
and independent theoretical concept. It is not more than a name for
the fact that organized processes leave a trace picturing their
organization and that in consequence of it reproductions are possible.
I do not deny that repetition will make the association stronger, but
as long as the process remains the same, repetition does not involve
a change in a special bond; it means that the whole trace of the
organized process becomes more enduring and stable. Nor shall I deny
that sometimes, as in the case of nonsense material, some special
attitude is needed for producing an association. But, as we have seen
before, such an attitude consists in favoring definite organizations.
When these are experienced, the processes corresponding to them will
also be organized, and so will their traces. The only problem which
is new in such a case is that of “intentional” organization. But this
problem shall be treated quite apart from association.
* * * * *
Some psychologists will be inclined to say that it does not matter very
much whether we accept one theory of association or the other, since
we are not able to look into the brain to decide which one is right.
This indicates a complete misunderstanding, however, of the value of a
hypothesis. If there is anything concrete in a hypothesis, it must be
possible to deduce concrete consequences from it, and to examine them
in further experimentation. It is easy enough to do that in this case.
In the old rule about association nothing was said about the properties
of the A and B which are associated because, in principle, association
was believed to be an indifferent bond between processes indifferent
to each other and to the bond. Organization, however, is not at all
an aggregation of indifferent material. On the contrary, in sensory
experience we have found organization to depend most decidedly upon
“the relative properties” of stimulation. Therefore, if association
is a consequence of organization, it must also depend upon the
mutually relative properties of what is or shall be associated. In
some degree this is verified by what we have reported above. But much
more has to be done in the way of varying the nature of the material
according to the principles of _gestalt_ theory, so that we may see
more definitely whether, other circumstances remaining the same, an
association will be the stronger, the better organized is the group
or the whole, according to those principles. As yet we do not seem to
have any experiments planned specially and deliberately in order to
answer this question. As we know a great deal about the conditions
upon which sensory organization depends, the path is laid and it will
be the more interesting to follow in this direction since we should
be able to deduce from all the rules known in the field of sensory
organization, corresponding rules for association. Of course, we
cannot hope to find all the properties of association in this manner,
because the rules of sensory experience are in no way instructive with
respect to the formation of _traces_ as such; nor can we from those
rules deduce the career of a trace in the course of time, and under the
influence of other processes and traces which develop after it in the
same region of the nervous system. On the other hand, when once the
identification of association with the traces of functional wholes is
verified sufficiently, further discoveries with regard to association
may give us hints about properties of organization itself which, for
some reason, we may fail to detect directly in sensory experience.
A second consequence of our hypothesis, which ought to be examined
experimentally for the sake of that hypothesis, may have practical
value as well. This consequence belongs to animal psychology. We have
seen that nonsense syllables do not usually associate spontaneously
because they do not form well-organized groups unless we combine
them. In some cases series of them have been read passively hundreds
of times without an appreciable effect in learning. But, as we have
seen, the same subjects “have a good memory” in everyday life and
can reproduce thousands of events which they have never intended to
commit to their memories. This reminds one of a strange contrast
which all animal psychologists have observed between animal learning,
as it occurs during experimentation in the laboratory, and habit
formation as it develops in the same animals outside the laboratory.
I do not think that the concrete reason for this difference is
contained in the reference to the “natural” circumstances present
in the latter situation but not in the former. What does the term
“natural” mean here? I suggest that it may mean “favorable” with
respect to association in a very particular way, i.e., with respect to
organization.
Indeed, it would seem in this connection that a great many experiments,
most of all those on sensory discrimination, proceed in the wrong
way, because, blinded by that old concept of association as a binding
together of two indifferent things largely by many repetitions, we do
not take account of organization at all when we are constructing the
experimental situation. For instance, on the rear walls of two alleys
we fix two objects which we wish the animal to learn to discriminate.
On the floor, in no connection whatever with those objects, we put
the wires for punishment in the case of a wrong choice, in such a way
that an electric shock applied at this point will be more foreign to
the wrong object even, perhaps, than one syllable is to the next in
experimentation on human association. On the other hand, the animal
will be fed after a right choice somewhere behind the scene, i.e., in
a situation just as separate from the right object as the shock is
from the wrong one. A young behaviorist once asked me whether, apart
from vague concepts, _gestalt_ theory had anything new and concrete
to offer science upon which it might work. It seems to me that if we
had nothing to give behaviorism except our criticism of this method and
some suggestions toward a better one, it would be quite sufficient. In
man learning seems to depend upon organization. It is highly improbable
that the same rule should not apply to habit formation in animals.
Therefore, when we investigate sensory discrimination in animals,
instead of separating those “stimuli” from each other, the coöperation
of which most probably determines learning, we ought to make that
coöperation as easy as we can. Some years ago I proposed the following
procedure: If the wrong object made a sudden movement against the
animal, whenever the latter made the wrong choice, we should certainly
have a situation much more similar to the animal’s learning in common
life, and a more efficient one, because then the negative stimulus
would immediately imbue itself with “negativity.”[58] It is quite
possible that a variation of procedure in this direction would save the
experimenter much time. In addition to this practical reason, however,
it seems to me a sound law of experimentation that conditions should be
varied in _all_ respects. If behaviorists are interested in finding the
conditions and the nature of learning, they may have great success some
day if they vary the conditions of habit formation according to the
principles of organization.
These remarks apply to the formation of so-called conditioned reflexes
in the same way that they do to older methods used to study learning.
From the viewpoint of machine theory it sounds a little nicer if we
talk about conditioned reflexes instead of associations. I do not
find, however, that the first concept is clearer than the second. One
might even say that what we call a conditioned reflex now is just one
special case of a certain type of association, because it is evident
that the “stimulus,” which is to be artificially connected with a
reflex, cannot be made to produce that reflex except by first becoming
“connected” with an _adequate_ “stimulus” which naturally produces that
reflex. This means an association of two sensory processes however.
The association may become so strong that _via_ the mere trace of
the adequate sensory process the new one will eventually arouse the
reflex. But since that association is the thing to be “learned,”
before a conditioned reflex can occur, and since the association
of two processes is a direct effect of their organization into one
whole, the same consequences have to be deduced here as in human
association and in the old form of animal discrimination experiments.
As yet no one seems to have examined the question whether a change
in the presentation of the “artificial stimulus,” in its relation
to the natural one, exerts an influence upon the building up of the
conditioned reflex. A bell rings and food is shown or given, but
no attention is paid to those experimental conditions upon which
organization would depend. That is not at all astonishing since the
old concept of “connecting two separate processes by learning” still
prevails. On the other hand, animal psychology has an opportunity here
to test the value of two assumptions at the same time, namely, that
conditioning is practically the same thing as associating two sensory
processes, and that associating depends upon organization.
When seen from the viewpoint we have reached in this chapter, certain
earlier discussions will assume a somewhat surprising aspect. Our
conclusion is that association depends upon organization because
association is just an after-effect of an organized process. Now, when
we first introduced the concept of organization, we were hampered at
every step by those empiristic hypotheses which sought to explain
by the influence of meaning or other affiliated factors whatever
experiences did not fit into the scheme of mosaic or machine theory.
In many of those cases I hope that I have shown that, fundamentally,
the experiences in question cannot be derived from previous learning
in any form; and that, therefore, organization has to be accepted
as an original aspect of our experiences. Now we may go further and
make the statement that, on the contrary, wherever the influences of
past experience can really be discovered in actual experience, this
secondary effect itself is a consequence of past organization, because,
generally, meaning will accompany an actual experience or be contained
in it by a process of reproduction, and this reproduction will be based
upon the trace of a larger organized whole. Consequently, if we try
to reduce organization in principle to associated meanings, we must
explain actual organization by the traces of previous organization
in a larger area. If our theory is right, the whole procedure would
mean a vicious circle, for organization would be the more fundamental
functional concept, and association or meaning would be ideas
depending upon it. So much concerning the question of principle. I
repeat, however, that very often our actual experiences _are_ really
and thoroughly imbued with meaning. In these cases it should be
acknowledged as a fact that the after-effects of previous organization
determine the properties of actual experience. We may talk about an
association under these circumstances if we keep in mind that even here
it is the concept of organization which remains decisive functionally.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
M. Bentley: _The Field of Psychology_. 1924.
K. Koffka: _The Growth of the Mind_. 1924.
Michotte and van der Veldt: _L’Apprentissage du mouvement et
l’automatisme_. 1928.
R. M. Ogden: _Psychology and Education_. 1926.
O. Selz: _Die Gesetze des geordneten Denkverlaufs_. 1913.
IX
_Reproduction_
PSYCHOLOGY knows three main topics which are to be investigated in
the field of memory and habit: (1) learning and those processes the
traces of which make reproduction and recognition possible, (2) the
career of these traces in the time between their formation and recall,
and (3) the processes of reproduction and recognition themselves.
In some degree reproduction or recognition will be needed in the
investigation of _all_ these problems, to give us evidence of either
the laws of learning, or those of retention, or those of recall itself.
Nevertheless, in the first case we can keep conditions constant with
respect to retention, and also with respect to the circumstances of
reproduction, while the conditions of learning are varied; in the
second case, the conditions of learning and those of reproduction will
remain constant, those of the interval between learning and recall
being varied; and in the last case, we vary only the circumstances of
reproduction or recognition. So we are able practically to separate
the three classes of problems. In this chapter our attention will be
directed mainly to questions of retention and recall, though we shall
also have to treat one highly important feature which may as well be
regarded as belonging to the topic of learning and the formation of
traces.
In the sixth chapter I mentioned certain experiments in which, after
learning to choose one side of a pair, for instance the darker of two
grays, animals had to react to a new pair, consisting of the “right”
object of the learning period and a new object, which had more or less
the same relation to the “right” object as this had had to the “wrong”
object during learning. The result was that in the majority of the
trials the animals chose that side which, in the new pair, played the
same rôle which the right object had played during learning. This means
that they chose the _new_ object which, in our example, was now “the
dark side of the pair.”
This result is not quite general, however. It depends upon what
interval of time elapses between the training with the old pair and
the first trials with the new one. Occasionally, after the learning
period, a chick was given the new pair in between choices on the old
one; and this procedure was repeated until the single trials with the
new pair, each of them distributed between trials with the old one,
could be regarded as numerous enough. It was found that, under these
circumstances, the animal chose the “right” object of the learning
period quite as often as the new object, which would now be the right
side _in the pair_. Obviously, this must be explained in the following
manner: When the chick reacts to the group before him, the chick
sees[59] it as a pair in which either gray plays a definite rôle as
the dark or the bright side of it; but at the same time the first is
seen as a more or less definite dark gray and the second as a bright
one. Both ways of seeing them are altogether compatible with each other
as long as the pair is not “transposed.” If during learning the chick
reacts to the right object as one side of the pair and also as a more
or less definite gray, there must be two products of training which
will become opposed to each other as soon as we introduce the new pair,
because now the first product of learning will favor the choice of one
object, and the second the choice of the other. Let us suppose, now,
that these different effects of learning do not fade equally fast with
time; an increase of the interval between trials with the old pair
and trials with the new one will favor those reactions which depend
upon the more enduring product of training. From our experiment it
follows, then, that the habit depending upon the pair as a whole is
more enduring than the habit depending upon the nuance _as such_, since
the pair as a whole is relatively less decisive when the animal reacts
to the new pair immediately after some trials with the old one. But the
two habits are alike with the exception only that one of them depends
upon the _organization_ of a trace whereas the other depends upon the
trace of a certain nuance of brightness. Hence, in the course of time,
the traces of organization remain much more stable than do the traces
of a more or less definite gray. This may be a more general fact. It
has been remarked by several psychologists that we are frequently able
to remember the general structure of something at a time when we cannot
get the more particular content of it at all. It would be worth while
to test this statement by appropriate experimentation, particularly
since we might get some insight thereby into the nature of so-called
“concepts.” In the case of the chick it was very easy to examine the
hypothesis by having the same animal react to the new pair once more,
after some minutes had elapsed since his last trials with the old one.
The result was that the “relative” reactions predominated.