Constraints on Learning

This chapter discusses on analyzing the kinds of constraints on learning that have appeared with increasing frequency in recent studies of animal learning by psychologists, and proposes many suggestions for future investigation of the constraints.

Abstract

This chapter discusses on analyzing the kinds of constraints on learning that have appeared with increasing frequency in recent studies of animal learning by psychologists. The constraints of learning that are considered are: motivational or associative factors peculiar to certain stimuli, responses, or reinforcers or arising out of the relationship of any two, or even three of them. The main constraints on learning proposed in the chapter are: (1) The relative salience or effectiveness of external stimuli may vary with the animal's motivational state, (2) the effects of variations in parameters of reinforcement may depend on the reinforce and different reinforcers may act in different ways, (3) some responses may be performed as operants only if at the same time their own normal causal factors are present, (4) the ease with which a response can be brought under the control of reinforcement contingencies may depend on how tightly it is linked to its own normal causal factors and the relationship of these factors to the internal state necessary for the reinforcer to be effective, (5) some external stimuli may acquire control of certain responses especially readily, while they do not control other equally conditionable responses at all, (6) some external stimuli may be especially easily associated with certain unconditioned stimuli, while they are not associated with others at all, and (7) the ways in which learning occurs may reflect the causal relationships among environmental events in the natural situation where the learning occurs. The chapter concludes by sharing many suggestions for future investigation of the constraints on learning.