Edward Thorndike

Edward Lee Thorndike (August 31st 1874 - August 9th 1949) is a American psychologist, precursor of the Béhaviorisme. It is in particular known for its research on the animal Intelligence and in Psychologie of education.

Biography

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Born in Williamsburg (Massachusetts), Edward Thorndike studies initially in Wesleyan University before going to follow the courses of William James to Harvard in 1895. The year according to it leaves to the Columbia university to New York to write its thesis of doctorate (finished in 1898) under the direction of James McKeen Cattell. After one year with the College for Women off Box Western Reserve with Cleveland, it returns to Columbia where it will remain until 1940, initially in the capacity of assistant then as from 1904 as a professor and finally as 1922 to 1940 as director of the department of psychology of Institute off Educational Research. He was president of the American Psychological Association in 1912 and of the American Association for the Advancement off Science in 1934.

Animal intelligence

The most known work of Thorndike concerns the training in the animal then at the man. He called into question the dominant designs at the time concerning the intelligence of the dogs and the cats by suggesting that their capacity of resolution of problem (to open a door to reach food for example) is largely due randomly.

Its thesis, entitled Animal Intelligence: Experimental year Associative Study off the Processes in Animals , is based on a series of experiments in which cats locked up must discover the mechanism which enables them to be released and to reach food. The cats move in the cage without strategy or without goal apparent then discover by chance the action which brings the solution to them. After several tests they know how to obtain food and leave the cage more and more quickly.

These results were highly criticized as being an artefact of the experimental situation which does not leave with the animal of another choice only proceed randomly. The most serious objection comes however from the observation of an immediate training, without progressive reinforcement, in certain mammals by the sociologist Leonard Hobhouse and especially by Wolfgang Köhler during his work on the Insight in the chimpanzees.

Laws of the training

Thorndike developed many similar experiments on the human being, while requiring for example on its subjects to say a figure between 1 and 5 each time he pronounces a mot. the reward or the punishment (what is called now the Renforcement) are generally of verbal nature, i.e. it is about a simple approval or disapproval by the experimenter. Under these conditions the subjects learn, in a largely unconscious way, to carry out the desired behavior (for example to answer “5” the word “potato”).

These experiments make it possible Thorndike to formulate great laws of the training of which two more known are:

the Law of the effect: a behavior followed by a reward will be associated with the situation which started it.
the Law of the exercise (inspired by Ebbinghaus): the more one subject behaves in a certain way in a given situation, the more association between this situation and this behavior will be reinforced.

Thorndike was also interested in the transfer of the training of a situation to another according to their similarity. Other results of its research - partially called into question thereafter - relate to the effect of the reward. According to Thorndike the importance of this reward has only little influence on the effectiveness of the training and the existence of a punishment in the event of bad answer does not have any of it.

A theory connexionist of the spirit

By using a modern terminolgie, one can describe his great laws of the training like principles controlling association between stimulus and answer. This type of training per test-error and progressive association between an action and its result is at the base of the Béhaviorisme and the operative Conditionnement of Skinner.

This theory of the training was baptized at the time “theory connexionist” of the spirit. Contrary to the modern Connexionnisme, Thorndike was not interested in detail in connections between neurons but especially in associations between percepts and behaviors. The relationship with the neuronal connexionism however clearly appears in the explanations that it gives phenomena like the diffusion of a reinforcement to preceding and following associations in the course of the experiment. Thorndike also considered the intelligence as the reflection of the number of neuronal connections a person had.

Other work of Thorndike

If it is primarily known in the field of psychology for its laws of the training and its influence on the behaviorism, the scientific work of Thorndike was not limited to this field. Teaching all its life in an institute of what one would call today the Sciences of education, it devoted many efforts to the applied research.

Preaching a strictly quantitative approach of psychology, Thorndike undertook many research to the measure of the intelligence. Opposed to the factor G of Spearman, he considered that the intelligence was multidimensional and distinguished between intelligences abstracted, mechanical ( mechanical ) and social. Its work gave place to the creation of several tests of entry at the universities or selection for the army and off leads to the publication into 1926 of The Measurement Intelligence .

Another center of interest of Thorndike is pedagogy. He is the author of a dictionary for child and undertook to count the most current words of the English language to base the teaching of the vocabulary on this list. He also worked on a book of problems of arithmetic, based on the idea that these problems were above all to be plausible problems and not abstract examples whose comprehension posed as many difficulties as the resolution itself.

See too

References

Joncich, G. (1968). The sane positivist: With biography off Edward L. Thorndike . Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Near.
Thorndike, R. (1991). Edward L. Thorndike: In Professional and Personal Appreciation in G. Kimble, Mr. Wertheimer and C. White (to dir.), Portraits off Pioneers in Psychology, Hilsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Work of Thorndike

Edward Thorndike published during its career more than 50 books and more than 500 articles. This list shows only some books among most known or most influential.

Thorndike, E. (1898). Animal Intelligence: Experimental year Associative Study off the Processes in Animals . Columbia University, thesis of doctorat.
the thesis of doctorate in which Thorndike presents its famous research on the cat and introduced the law of the effect.
Thorndike, E. (1904). Introduction to the theory off mental measurement . New York: Science Close (Cattell' S).
One of the first treaties of Psychometry .
Thorndike, E. (1913). Educational Psychology: The Psychology off Learning . New York: Teachers College Near.
Thorndike, E. (1921). The Teacher' S Word Book . New York: Teachers College.
the list of the 20.000 most current words of the English language, together with their frequency of use.
Thorndike, E. (1922). The Psychology off Arithmetic . New York: Macmillan.
Thorndike, E. (1931). Human Learning . New York: Appelton-Century-Crofts.
a small treaty on the theory of connexionist the training .
Thorndike, E. (1932). The Fundamentals off Learning . New York: Teachers College Near.
a more complete talk of the theory connexionist of the training .
Thorndike, E., Bergman, E., Cobb, Mr. & Woodyard, E. (1926). The Measurement off Intelligence . New York: Teachers College Near.
the most known book of Thorndike to the individual differences and the measure of the intelligence .

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