Learning as a General Process with an Emphasis on Data from Feeding Experiments

  • Sam Revusky
Chapter

Abstract

General process approaches to learning presuppose that there are learning processes governed by principles general enough to apply to many species in wide varieties of learning situations. A parade example of a general process approach in action is B. F. Skinner’s teaching-machine method. This is a technology of teaching verbal materials to humans largely based on principles derived from conditioning repetitive feeding behaviors in rats and pigeons. Two leaps of faith are implicit: (1) that one can validly extrapolate from pigeons and rats to humans; (2) that one can validly extrapolate from teaching repetitive feeding behaviors to teaching verbal materials. Although Skinner’s approach is an extreme example, most experimental psychologists during the last century have considered learning to be the study of general processes which underlie a great diversity of phenomena.

Keywords

Conditioned Stimulus Physiological Psychology Conditioned Inhibitor Conditioned Taste Aversion Saccharin Solution 
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Copyright information

© Springer Science+Business Media New York 1977

Authors and Affiliations

  • Sam Revusky
    • 1
  1. 1.Memorial University of NewfoundlandSt. John’s, NewfoundlandCanada

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