Title: Learning Theory
Author: McConnell, James V.
Language: English
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*** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "Learning Theory" ***


                            LEARNING THEORY

                          BY JAMES MC CONNELL

                 _Destiny's tricks can be pretty weird
                sometimes. And this was one to be proud
                of. A cosmic joke, a  witch that could
                     make a nightmare seem tame!_

           [Transcriber's Note: This etext was produced from
             Worlds of If Science Fiction, December 1957.
         Extensive research did not uncover any evidence that
         the U.S. copyright on this publication was renewed.]


I am writing this because I presume He wants me to. Otherwise He would
not have left paper and pencil handy for me to use. And I put the
word "He" in capitals because it seems the only thing to do. If I am
dead and in hell, then this is only proper. However, if I am merely a
captive somewhere, then surely a little flattery won't hurt matters.

As I sit here in this small room and think about it, I am impressed
most of all by the suddenness of the whole thing. At one moment I was
out walking in the woods near my suburban home. The next thing I knew,
here I was in a small, featureless room, naked as a jaybird, with only
my powers of rationalization to stand between me and insanity. When
the "change" was made (whatever the change was), I was not conscious
of so much as a momentary flicker between walking in the woods and
being here in this room. Whoever is responsible for all of this is to
be complimented--either He has developed an instantaneous anesthetic
or He has solved the problem of instantaneous transportation of matter.
I would prefer to think it the former, for the latter leads to too much
anxiety.

As I recall, I was immersed in the problem of how to teach my class
in beginning psychology some of the more abstruse points of Learning
Theory when the transition came. How far away life at the University
seems at the moment: I must be forgiven if now I am much more concerned
about where I am and how to get out of here than about how freshmen can
be cajoled into understanding Hull or Tolman.

Problem #1: Where am I? For an answer, I can only describe this room.
It is about twenty feet square, some twelve feet high, with no windows,
but with what might be a door in the middle of one of the walls.
Everything is of a uniform gray color, and the walls and ceiling emit
a fairly pleasant achromatic light. The walls themselves are of some
hard material which might be metal since it feels slightly cool to
the touch. The floor is of a softer, rubbery material that yields a
little when I walk on it. Also, it has a rather "tingly" feel to it,
suggesting that it may be in constant vibration. It is somewhat warmer
than the walls, which is all to the good since it appears I must sleep
on the floor.

The only furniture in the room consists of what might be a table and
what passes for a chair. They are not quite that, but they can be made
to serve this purpose. On the table I found the paper and the pencil.
No, let me correct myself. What I call paper is a good deal rougher and
thicker than I am used to, and what I call a pencil is nothing more
than a thin round stick of graphite which I have sharpened by rubbing
one end of it on the table.

And that is the sum of my surroundings. I wish I knew what He has
done with my clothes. The suit was an old one, but I am worried about
the walking boots. I was very fond of those boots--they were quite
expensive and I would hate to lose them.

The problem still remains to be answered, however, as to just where in
the hell I am--if not in hell itself!

Problem #2 is a knottier one--Why am I here? Were I subject to
paranoid tendencies, I would doubtless come to the conclusion that
my enemies had kidnapped me. Or perhaps that the Russians had taken
such an interest in my research that they had spirited me away to some
Siberian hideout and would soon appear to demand either cooperation or
death. Sadly enough, I am too reality oriented. My research was highly
interesting to me, and perhaps to a few other psychologists who like
to dabble in esoteric problems of animal learning, but it was scarcely
startling enough to warrant such attention as kidnapping.

So I am left as baffled as before. Where am I, and why?

And who is He?

       *       *       *       *       *

I have decided to forego all attempts at keeping this diary according
to "days" or "hours." Such units of time have no meaning in my present
circumstances, for the light remains constant all the time I am awake.
The human organism is not possessed of as neat an internal clock as
some of the lower species. Far too many studies have shown that a human
being who is isolated from all external stimulation soon loses his
sense of time. So I will merely indicate breaks in the narrative and
hope that He will understand that if He wasn't bright enough to leave
me with my wristwatch, He couldn't expect me to keep an accurate record.

Nothing much has happened. I have slept, been fed and watered, and have
emptied my bladder and bowels. The food was waiting on the table when I
awoke last time. I must say that He has little of the gourmet in Him.
Protein balls are not my idea of a feast royal. However, they will
serve to keep body and soul together (presuming, of course, that they
_are_ together at the moment). But I must object to my source of liquid
refreshment. The meal made me very thirsty, and I was in the process
of cursing Him and everybody else when I noticed a small nipple which
had appeared in the wall while I was asleep. At first I thought that
perhaps Freud was right after all, and that my libido had taken over
control of my imagery. Experimentation convinced me, however, that the
thing was real, and that it is my present source of water. If one sucks
on the thing, it delivers a slightly cool and somewhat sweetish flow of
liquid. But really, it's a most undignified procedure. It's bad enough
to have to sit around all day in my birthday suit. But for a full
professor to have to stand on his tip-toes and suck on an artificial
nipple in order to obtain water is asking a little too much. I'd
complain to the Management if only I knew to whom to complain!

Following eating and drinking, the call to nature became a little too
strong to ignore. Now, I was adequately toilet-trained with indoor
plumbing, and the absence of same is most annoying. However, there was
nothing much to do but choose a corner of the room and make the best
of a none too pleasant situation. (As a side-thought, I wonder if the
choosing of a corner was in any way instinctive?). However, the upshot
of the whole thing was my learning what is probably the purpose of the
vibration of the floor. For the excreted material disappeared through
the floor not too many minutes later. The process was a gradual one.
Now I will be faced with all kinds of uncomfortable thoughts concerning
what might possibly happen to me if I slept too long:

Perhaps this is to be expected, but I find myself becoming a little
paranoid after all. In attempting to solve my Problem #2, why I am
here, I have begun to wonder if perhaps some of my colleagues at the
University are not using me as a subject in some kind of experiment.
It would be just like McCleary to dream up some fantastic kind of
"human-in-isolation" experiment and use me as a pilot observer.
You would think that he'd have asked my permission first. However,
perhaps it's important that the subject not know what's happening
to him. If so, I have one happy thought to console me. If McCleary
_is_ responsible for this, he'll have to take over the teaching of my
classes for the time being. And how he hates teaching Learning Theory
to freshmen:

You know, this place seems dreadfully quiet to me.

       *       *       *       *       *

Suddenly I have solved two of my problems. I know both where I am and
who He is. And I bless the day that I got interested in the perception
of motion.

I should say to begin with that the air in this room seems to have
more than the usual concentration of dust particles. This didn't seem
particularly noteworthy until I noticed that most of them seemed to
pile up along the floor against one wall in particular. For a while I
was sure that this was due to the ventilation system--perhaps there was
an out-going airduct there where this particular wall was joined to the
floor. However, when I went over and put my hand to the floor there, I
could feel no breeze whatsoever. Yet even as I held my hand along the
dividing line between the wall and the floor, dust motes covered my
hand with a thin coating. I tried this same experiment everywhere else
in the room to no avail. This was the only spot where the phenomenon
occurred, and it occurred along the entire length of this one wall.

But if ventilation was not responsible for the phenomenon, what was?
All at once there popped into my mind some calculations I had made
when the rocket boys had first proposed a manned satellite station.
Engineers are notoriously naive when it comes to the performance of a
human being in most situations, and I remembered that the problem of
the perception of the satellite's rotation seemingly had been ignored
by the slip-stick crowd. They had planned to rotate the doughnut-shaped
satellite in order to substitute centrifugal force for the force of
gravity. Thus the outer shell of the doughnut would appear to be "down"
to anyone inside the thing. Apparently they had not realized that man
is at least as sensitive to angular rotation as he is to variations in
the pull of gravity. As I figured the problem then, if a man aboard the
doughnut moved his head as much as three or four feet outwards from
the center of the doughnut, he would have become fairly dizzy! Rather
annoying it would have been, too, to have been hit by a wave of nausea
every time one sat down in a chair. Also, as I pondered the problem, it
became apparent that dust particles and the like would probably show
a tendency to move in a direction opposite to the direction of the
rotation, and hence pile up against any wall or such that impeded their
flight.

Using the behavior of the dust particles as a clue, I then climbed
atop the table and leapt off. Sure enough, my head felt like a mule
had kicked it by the time I landed on the floor. My hypothesis was
confirmed.

So I am aboard a spaceship:

The thought is incredible, but in a strange way comforting. At least
now I can postpone worrying about heaven and hell--and somehow I find
the idea of being in a spaceship much more to the liking of a confirmed
agnostic. I suppose I owe McCleary an apology--I should have known he
would never have put himself in a position where he would have to teach
freshmen all about learning:

And, of course, I know who "He" is. Or rather, I know who He _isn't_,
which is something else again. Surely, though, I can no longer think of
Him as being human. Whether I should be consoled at this or not, I have
no way of telling.

I still have no notion of _why_ I am here, however, nor why this alien
chose to pick me of all people to pay a visit to His spaceship. What
possible use could I be? Surely if He were interested in making contact
with the human race, He would have spirited away a politician. After
all, that's what politicians are for! Since there has been no effort
made to communicate with me, however, I must reluctantly give up any
cherished hopes that His purpose is that of making contact with _genus
homo_.

Or perhaps He's a galactic scientist of some kind, a biologist of
sorts, out gathering specimens. Now, that's a particularly nasty
thought. What if He turned out to be a physiologist, interested in
cutting me open eventually, to see what makes me tick? Will my innards
be smeared over a glass slide for scores of youthful Hims to peer at
under a microscope? Brrrr! I don't mind giving my life to Science, but
I'd rather do it a little at a time.

If you don't mind, I think I'll go do a little repressing for a while.

       *       *       *       *       *

Good God! I should have known it! Destiny will play her little tricks,
and all jokes have their cosmic angles. He is a _psychologist_! Had I
given it due consideration, I would have realized that whenever you
come across a new species, you worry about behavior first, physiology
second. So I have received the ultimate insult--or the ultimate
compliment. I don't know which. I have become a specimen for an alien
psychologist!

This thought first occurred to me when I awoke after my latest sleep
(which was filled, I must admit, with most frightening dreams). It was
immediately obvious that something about the room had changed. Almost
at once I noticed that one of the walls now had a lever of some kind
protruding from it, and to one side of the lever, a small hole in the
wall with a container beneath the hole. I wandered over to the lever,
inspected it a few moments, then accidentally depressed the thing. At
once there came a loud clicking noise, and a protein ball popped out of
the hole and fell into the container.

For just a moment a frown crossed my brow. This seemed somehow so
strangely familiar. Then, all at once, I burst into wild laughter.
The room had been changed into a gigantic Skinner Box! For years I
had been studying animal learning by putting white rats in a Skinner
Box and following the changes in the rats' behavior. The rats had to
learn to press the lever in order to get a pellet of food, which was
delivered to them through just such an apparatus as is now affixed to
the wall of my cell. And now, after all of these years, and after all
of the learning studies I had done, to find myself trapped like a rat
in a Skinner Box! Perhaps this was hell after all, I told myself, and
the Lord High Executioner's admonition to "let the punishment fit the
crime" was being followed.

Frankly, this sudden turn of events has left me more than a little
shaken.

       *       *       *       *       *

I seem to be performing according to theory. It didn't take me long to
discover that pressing the lever would give me food some of the time,
while at other times all I got was the click and no protein ball. It
appears that approximately every twelve hours the thing delivers me
a random number of protein balls--the number has varied from five to
fifteen so far. I never know ahead of time how many pellets--I mean
protein balls--the apparatus will deliver, and it spews them out
intermittently. Sometimes I have to press the lever a dozen times or
so before it will give me anything, while at other times it gives me
one ball for each press. Since I don't have a watch on me, I am never
quite sure when the twelve hours have passed, so I stomp over to the
lever and press it every few minutes when I think it's getting close
to time to be fed. Just like my rats always did. And since the pellets
are small and I never get enough of them, occassionally I find myself
banging away on the lever with all the compulsion of a stupid animal.
But I missed the feeding time once and almost starved to death (so it
seemed) before the lever delivered food the next time. About the only
consolation to my wounded pride is that at this rate of starvation,
I'll lose my bay window in short order.

At least He doesn't seem to be fattening me up for the kill. Or maybe
he just likes lean meat!

       *       *       *       *       *

I have been promoted. Apparently He in His infinite alien wisdom
has decided that I'm intelligent enough to handle the Skinner-type
apparatus, so I've been promoted to solving a maze. Can you picture the
irony of the situation? All of the classic Learning Theory methodology
is practically being thrown in my face. If only I could communicate
with Him! I don't mind being subjected to tests nearly as much as I
mind being underestimated. Why, I can solve puzzles hundreds of times
more complex than what He's throwing at me. But how can I tell Him?

As it turns out, the maze is much like our standard T-mazes, and is
not too difficult to learn. It's a rather long one, true, with some
23 choice points along the way. I spent the better part of half an
hour wandering through the thing the first time I found myself in it.
Surprisingly enough, I didn't realize the first time out what I was in,
so I made no conscious attempt to memorize the correct turns. It wasn't
until I reached the final turn and found food waiting for me that I
recognized what I was expected to do. The next time through the maze my
performance was a good deal better, and I was able to turn in a perfect
performance in not too long a time. However, it does not do my ego any
good to realize that my own white rats could have learned the maze a
little sooner than I did.

My "home cage," so to speak, still has the Skinner apparatus in it, but
the lever delivers food only occasionally now. I still give it a whirl
now and again, but since I'm getting a fairly good supply of food at
the end of the maze each time, I don't pay the lever much attention.

Now that I am very sure of what is happening to me, quite naturally my
thoughts have turned to how I can get out of this situation. Mazes I
can solve without too much difficulty, but how to escape apparently is
beyond my intellectual capacity. But then, come to think of it, there
was precious little chance for my own experimental animals to get out
of my clutches. And assuming that I am unable to escape, what then?
After He has finished putting me through as many paces as He wishes,
where do we go from there? Will He treat me as I treated most of my
non-human subjects--that is, will I get tossed into a jar containing
chloroform? "Following the experiment, the animals were sacrificed," as
we so euphemistically report in the scientific literature. This doesn't
appeal to me much, as you can imagine. Or maybe if I seem particularly
bright to Him, He may use me for breeding purposes, to establish a
colony of His own. Now, that might have possibilities....

Oh, damn Freud anyhow!

       *       *       *       *       *

And damn Him too! I had just gotten the maze well learned when He upped
and changed things on me. I stumbled about like a bat in the sunlight
for quite some time before I finally got to the goal box. I'm afraid my
performance was pretty poor. What He did was just to reverse the whole
maze so that it was a mirror image of what it used to be. Took me only
two trials to discover the solution. Let Him figure that one out if
He's so smart!

       *       *       *       *       *

My performance on the maze reversal must have pleased Him, because
now He's added a new complication. And again I suppose I could have
predicted the next step if I had been thinking along the right
direction. I woke up a few hours ago to find myself in a totally
different room. There was nothing whatsoever in the room, but opposite
me were two doors in the wall--one door a pure white, the other jet
black. Between me and the doors was a deep pit, filled with water. I
didn't like the looks of the situation, for it occured to me right away
that He had devised a kind of jumping stand for me. I had to choose
which of the doors was open and led to food. The other door would be
locked. If I jumped at the wrong door, and found it locked, I'd fall
in the water. I needed a bath, that was for sure, but I didn't relish
getting it in this fashion.

While I stood there watching, I got the shock of my life. I meant it
quite literally. The bastard had thought of everything. When I used
to run rats on jumping stands, to overcome their reluctance to jump, I
used to shock them. He's following exactly the same pattern. The floor
in this room is wired but good. I howled and jumped about and showed
all the usual anxiety behavior. It took me less than two seconds to
come to my senses and make a flying leap at the white door, however.

You know something? That water is ice-cold!

       *       *       *       *       *

I have now, by my own calculations, solved no fewer than 87 different
problems on the jumping stand, and I'm getting sick and tired of it.
Once I got angry and just pointed at the correct door--and got shocked
for not going ahead and jumping. I shouted bloody murder, cursing Him
at the top of my voice, telling Him if He didn't like my performance,
He could damn well lump it. All He did, of course, was to increase the
shock.

Frankly, I don't know how much longer I can put up with this. It's
not that the work is difficult. If He were giving me half a chance to
show my capabilities, I wouldn't mind it. I suppose I've contemplated
a thousand different means of escaping, but none of them is worth
mentioning. But if I don't get out of here soon, I shall go stark
raving mad!

       *       *       *       *       *

For almost an hour after it happened, I sat in this room and just wept.
I realize that it is not the style in our culture for a grown man
to weep, but there are times when cultural taboos must be forgotten.
Again, had I thought much about the sort of experiments He must have
had in mind, I most probably could have predicted the next step. Even
so, I most likely would have repressed the knowledge.

One of the standard problems which any learning psychologist is
interested in is this one--will an animal learn something if you fail
to reward him for his performance? There are many theorists, such
as Hull and Spence, who believe that reward (or "reinforcement," as
they call it) is absolutely necessary for learning to occur. This
is mere stuff and nonsense, as anyone with a grain of sense knows,
but nonetheless the "reinforcement" theory has been dominant in the
field for years now. We fought a hard battle with Spence and Hull,
and actually had them with their backs to the wall at one point, when
suddenly they came up with the concept of "secondary reinforcement."
That is, anything associated with a reward takes on the ability to act
as a reward itself. For example, the mere sight of food would become a
reward in and of itself--almost as much a reward, in fact, as is the
eating of the food. The _sight_ of food, indeed! But nonetheless, it
saved their theories for the moment.

For the past five years now, I have been trying to design an experiment
that would show beyond a shadow of a doubt that the _sight_ of a reward
was not sufficient for learning to take place. And now look at what has
happened to me!

I'm sure that He must lean towards Hull and Spence in His theorizing,
for earlier today, when I found myself in the jumping stand room,
instead of being rewarded with my usual protein balls when I made
the correct jump, I--I'm sorry, but it is difficult to write about
even now. For when I made the correct jump and the door opened and I
started towards the food trough, I found it had been replaced with a
photograph. A calendar photograph. You know the one. Her name, I think,
is Monroe.

I sat on the floor and cried. For five whole years I have been
attacking the validity of the secondary reinforcement theory, and now
I find myself giving Him evidence that the theory is correct! For I
cannot help "learning" which of the doors is the correct one to jump
through. I refuse to stand on the apparatus and have the life shocked
out of me, and I refuse to pick the wrong door all the time and get
an icy bath time after time. It isn't fair! For He will doubtless put
it all down to the fact that the mere _sight_ of the photograph is
functioning as a reward, and that I am learning the problems merely to
be able to see Miss What's-her-name in her bare skin!

I can just see Him now, sitting somewhere else in this spaceship,
gathering in all the data I am giving Him, plotting all kinds of
learning curves, chortling to Himself because I am confirming all of
His pet theories. I just wish....

       *       *       *       *       *

Almost an hour has gone by since I wrote the above section. It seems
longer than that, but surely it's been only an hour. And I have spent
the time deep in thought. For I have discovered a way out of this
place, I think. The question is, dare I do it?

I was in the midst of writing that paragraph about His sitting and
chortling and confirming His theories, when it suddenly struck me that
theories are born of the equipment that one uses. This has probably
been true throughout the history of all science, but perhaps most
true of all in psychology. If Skinner had never invented his blasted
box, if the maze and the jumping stand had not been developed, we
probably would have entirely different theories of learning today than
we now have. For if nothing else, the type of equipment that one uses
drastically reduces the type of behavior that one's subjects can show,
and one's theories have to account only for the type of behavior that
appears in the laboratories.

It follows from this also that any two cultures that devise the same
sort of experimental procedures will come up with almost identical
theories.

Keeping all of this in mind, it's not hard for me to believe that He
is an iron-clad reinforcement theorist, for He uses all of the various
paraphernalia that they use, and uses it in exactly the same way.

My means of escape is therefore obvious. He expects from me
confirmation of all His pet theories. Well, he won't get it any more! I
know all of His theories backwards and forwards, and this means I know
how to give Him results that will tear His theories right smack in
half!

I can almost predict the results. What does any learning theorist do
with an animal that won't behave properly, that refuses to give the
results that are predicted? One gets rid of the beast, quite naturally.
For one wishes to use only healthy, normal animals in one's work, and
any animal that gives "unusual" results is removed from the study but
quickly. After all, if it doesn't perform as expected, it must be sick,
abnormal, or aberrant in one way or another....

There is no guarantee, of course, what method He will employ to dispose
of my now annoying presence. Will He "sacrifice" me? Or will He just
return me to the "permanent colony"? I cannot say. I know only that I
will be free from what is now an intolerable situation.

Just wait until He looks at His results from now on!

       *       *       *       *       *

FROM: Experimenter-in-Chief, Interstellar Labship PSYCH-145

TO: Director, Bureau of Science

Thlan, my friend, this will be an informal missive. I will send the
official report along later, but I wanted to give you my subjective
impressions first.

The work with the newly discovered species is, for the moment, at a
standstill. Things went exceedingly well at first. We picked what
seemed to be a normal, healthy animal and smattered it into our
standard test apparatus. I may have told you that this new species
seemed quite identical to our usual laboratory animals, so we included
a couple of the "toys" that our home animals seem so fond of--thin
pieces of material made from wood-pulp and a tiny stick of graphite.
Imagine our surprise, and our pleasure, when this new specimen made
exactly the same use of the materials as have all of our home colony
specimens. Could it be that there are certain innate behavior patterns
to be found throughout the universe in the lower species?

Well, I merely pose the question. The answer is of little importance
to a Learning Theorist. Your friend Verpk keeps insisting that the use
of these "toys" may have some deeper meaning to it, and that perhaps
we should investigate further. At his insistence, then, I include with
this informal missive the materials used by our first subject. In my
opinion, Verpk is guilty of gross anthropomorphism, and I wish to have
nothing further to do with the question. However, this behavior did
give us hope that our newly discovered colony would yield subjects
whose performances would be exactly in accordance with standard theory.

And, in truth, this is exactly what seemed to be the case. The animal
solved the Bfian Box problem in short order, yielding as beautiful
data has I have ever seen. We then shifted it to maze, maze-reversal
and jumping stand problems, and the results could not have confirmed
our theories better had we rigged the data. However, when we switched
the animal to secondary reinforcement problems, it seemed to undergo
a strange sort of change. No longer was its performance up to par.
In fact, at times it seemed to go quite berserk. For part of the
experiment, it would perform superbly. But then, just as it seemed to
be solving whatever problem we set it to, its behavior would subtly
change into patterns that obviously could not come from a normal
specimen. It got worse and worse, until its behavior departed radically
from that which our theories predicted. Naturally, we knew then that
something had happened to the animal, for our theories are based upon
thousands of experiments with similar subjects, and hence our theories
must be right. But our theories hold only for normal subjects, and for
normal species, so it soon became apparent to us that we had stumbled
upon some abnormal type of animal.

Upon due consideration, we returned the subject to its home colony.
However, we also voted almost unanimously to request from you
permission to take steps to destroy the complete colony. It is
obviously of little scientific use to us, and stands as a potential
danger that we must take adequate steps against. Since all colonies are
under your protection, we therefore request permission to destroy it.

I must report, by the way, that Verpk's vote was the only one which was
cast against this procedure. He has some silly notion that one should
study behavior as one finds it. Frankly, I cannot understand why you
have seen fit to saddle me with him on this expedition, but perhaps you
have your reasons.

Verpk's vote notwithstanding, however, the rest of us are of the
considered opinion that this whole new colony must be destroyed, and
quickly. For it is obviously diseased or some such--as reference to our
theories has proven. And should it by some chance come in contact with
our other colonies, and infect our other animals with whatever disease
or aberration it has, we would never be able to predict their behavior
again. I need not carry the argument further, I think.

May we have your permission to destroy the colony as soon as possible,
then, so that we may search out yet other colonies and test our
theories against other healthy animals? For it is only in this fashion
that science progresses.

Respectfully yours,

Iowyy





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