Question

What is the connectionist viewpoint of transfer of training, as exemplified in Thorndike and Woodworth's work? Specifically, what view was the "identical elements" approach meant to contradict? Also specify how practice, habit, and the formation of connections worked in this view.

Answer 1

E.L.Thorndike has introduced the concept of Connectionism in his theory of Laws of Learning. He defined Intelligence in terms of Communality in the acts of the people to perform the task intelligently. According to him,intelligence was more like a series of skills and talents that calls for the same kind of abilty. people differ in their abilty to perfrom any task depends upon the difficulty level they can manage.

Robert S. Woodworth has done his major work on Learning in the area of Dynamic psychology . He strongly believed that Behaviour and Specific Stimulus are interconnected in learning which can be achieve through the Trial and error method.

Thorndike and woodworth both have studied the concept of Transference of Learning . Their view was that Training in one area cannot be transfered to another area.The idea is that learning in one area cannot make easy to perform another area untill there is some key common task present between the two. The improvement can be found only in the common element between the two exercises but it will not enhance the overall learning ability of an individual.