CONNECTIONISM THEORY REVIEWER

Edward Lee Thorndike

 American psychologist whose work on animal behaviour and the learning process led to the theory of
connectionism
 studied animal behaviour with William James at Harvard University
 first proposed his two behavioral laws, the law of effect and the law of exercise, in his doctoral
dissertation, which was published in 1911 as “Animal Intelligence”
 early work is regarded as the first laboratory study of animal learning

Connectionism Theory
Behavioral responses to specific stimuli are established through a process of trial and error that affects neural
connections between the stimuli and the most satisfying responses.

1. Law of Readiness - The law of readiness was intended to account for the motivational aspects of
learning and was tightly coupled to the language of the science of neurology. It was defined in terms of
the conduction unit, which term Thorndike used to refer to “the neuron, neurons, synapse, synapses, part
of a neuron, part of a synapse, parts of neurons or parts of synapses whatever makes up the path which
is ready for conduction” In its most concise form, the law of readiness was stated as follows, “for a
conduction unit ready to conduct to do so is satisfying, and for it not to do so is annoying”
- example: A person sees that he/she is going to be late for class, so they get ready to act hurriedly;
mostly has to do with a person’s thinking or readiness to act or not

2. Law of Exercise - The law of exercise had two parts: (a) the law of use and (b) the law of disuse. This
law stated that connections grow stronger when used where strength is defined as “vigor and duration
as well as the frequency of its making” and grow weaker when not used.
- example: A person makes use of a cellphone, then is given a brand new one. He/she stops making
use of the old phone (law of disuse) and proceeds with using the new unit (law of use); the connection
to the old phone is weakened as it strengthens on the new phone

3. Law of Effect - The law of effect added to the law of exercise the notion that connections are
strengthened only when the making of the connection results in a satisfying state of affairs and that they
are weakened when the result is an annoying state of affairs.
- example: A person doesn’t study for an exam, therefore he/she gets a low grade (dissatisfying result).
Next time he studies so that he can get a high score (satisfying result); The person is most likely to
act in order to achieve satisfying results

Thorndike’s Puzzle Box Experiment

 He placed a cat in the puzzle box, which was encourage to escape to reach a scrap of fish placed outside.
 Thorndike would put a cat into the box and time how long it took to escape. The cats experimented with
different ways to escape the puzzle box and reach the fish.
 Eventually they would stumble upon the lever which opened the cage. When it had escaped it was put
in again, and once more the time it took to escape was noted.
 In successive trials the cats would learn that pressing the lever would have favorable consequences and
they would adopt this behavior, becoming increasingly quick at pressing the lever.
 Edward Thorndike put forward a “Law of effect” which stated that any behavior that is followed by
pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, and any behavior followed by unpleasant consequences
is likely to be stopped.