Psychology by Robert S. Woodworth (top rated ebook readers .TXT) 📕

attempted to copy it, but now he brings it out of himself. He has not acquired the word by direct imitation, evidently, but by what has been called "delayed imitation", which consists in observation at the time followed later by attempts to do what has been observed. Observation does not altogether relieve the child of the necessity of learning by trial and error, for often his first imitations are pretty poor attempts; but observation gives him a good start and hastens the learning process considerably. "Learning by imitation", then, is, more properly, "learning by observation followed by trial and error" and the reason so little of it appears in animals is their lack of observation.

Learning by thinking depends on observation, since in {320} thought we make use of facts previously observed. Seldom, unless in the chimpanzee and other manlike apes, do we see an animal that appears to be thinking. The animal is always doing, or waiting, or sleeping. He seems too impulsive to stop and think. But a man may observe something in the present problem that calls previous observations to mind, and by mentally combining observations made at different times may figure out the solution before beginning motor manipulation. Usually, however, some manipulation of the trial and error sort is needed before the thought-out solution will work perfectly.

Sometimes mental rehearsal of a performance assists in learning it, as we see in the beginner at automobile driving, who, while lying in bed after his first day's experience, mentally goes through the motions of starting the engine and then the car, and finds that this "absent treatment" makes the car easier to manage the next day.

In summing up the points of superiority of human over animal learning, we may note that--

1. Man is perhaps a quicker learner, anyway, without regard to his better methods of learning. This, however, is open to doubt, in view of the very rapid learning by animals of such reactions as the avoidance of a place where they have been hurt.

2. Man is a better observer, and this is the great secret of his quick learning. He is especially strong in observing relationships, or "principles" as we often call them.

3. He has more control over his impulses, and so finds time and energy for observing and thinking.

4. He is able to work mentally with things that are not present; he remembers things he has seen, puts together facts observed at different times, thinks over problems that are not actually confronting him at the moment, and maps out plans of action.

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The Learning of Complex Practical Performances

A great deal of light has been thrown on the learning process by psychological studies of the course of improvement in mastering such trades as telegraphy and typewriting.

A student of telegraphy was tested once a week to see how rapidly he could send a message, and also how rapidly he could "receive a message off the wire", by listening to the clicking of the sounder. The number of letters sent or received per minute was taken as the measure of his proficiency. This number increased rapidly in the first few weeks, and then more and more slowly, giving a typical learning curve, or "practice curve", as it is also called.

Fig. 51.--(From Bryan and Harter.) Practice curve of student W. J. R. in learning telegraphy. The height of the curve indicates the number of letters sent or received per minute. Therefore a rise of the curve here indicates improvement.

The curve for sending, aside from minor irregularities, rose with a fairly smooth sweep, tapering off finally towards the "physiological limit", the limit of what the nerves and muscles of this individual could perform.

[Footnote: A good example of the physiological limit is seen in the hundred yard dash, since apparently no one, with the best of training, can lower the record much below ten seconds; and any given individual's limit may be considerably worse than this, according to his build, muscular strength and quickness of nerve centers. The simple reaction gives another good example; every one has his limit, beyond which no amount of training will lower his reaction time; the neuromuscular system simply will not work any faster.]

The receiving {322} curve rose more slowly than the sending curve, and flattened out after about four months of practice, showing little further improvement for the next two months. This was a discouraging time for the student, for it seemed as if he could never come up to the commercial standard. In fact, many learners drop out at this stage. But this student persisted, and, after the long period of little improvement, was gratified to find his curve going up rapidly again. It went up rapidly for several months, and when it once more tapered off into a level, he was well above the minimum standard for regular employment.

Such a flat stretch in a practice curve, followed by a second rise--such a period of little or no improvement, followed by rapid improvement--is called a "plateau". Sometimes due to mere discouragement, or to the inattention that naturally supervenes when an act becomes easy to perform, it often has a different cause. It may, in fact, represent a true physiological limit for the act as it is being performed, and the subsequent rise to a higher level may result from improved methods of work. That was probably the case with the telegrapher.

[Footnote: A plateau of this sort is present in the learning curve for mastery of a puzzle, given on p. 316.]

The telegrapher acquires skill by improving his methods, rather than by simply speeding up. He acquires methods that he didn't dream of at first. At the start, he must learn the alphabet of dots and dashes. This means, for purposes of sending, that he must learn the little rhythmical pattern of finger movements that stands for each letter; and, for purposes of receiving, that he must learn the rhythmical {323} pattern of clicks from the sounder that stands for a letter. When he has learned the alphabet, he is able to send and receive slowly. In sending, he spells out the words, writing each letter as a separate act. In receiving, at this early stage, he must pick out each separate letter from the continuous series of clicks that he hears from the sounder. By degrees, the letters become so familiar that he goes through this spelling process easily; and, doing now so much better than at the outset, he supposes he has learned the trade, in its elements, and needs only to put on more speed.

But not at all! He has acquired but a small part of the necessary stock-in-trade of the telegrapher. He has his "letter habits", but knows nothing as yet of "word habits". These gradually come to him as he continues his practice. He comes to know words as units, motor units for sending purposes, auditory units for receiving. The rhythmical pattern of the whole word becomes a familiar unit. Short, much used words are first dealt with as units, then more and more words, till he has a large vocabulary of word habits. A word that has become a habit need not be spelled out in sending, nor laboriously dug out letter by letter in receiving; you simply think the word "train", and your finger taps it out as a connected unit; or, in receiving, you recognize the characteristic pattern of this whole series of clicks. When the telegrapher has reached this word habit stage, he finds the new method far superior, in both speed and sureness, to the letter habit method which he formerly assumed to be the whole art of telegraphy. He does not even stop with word habits, but acquires a similar control over familiar phrases.

Higher Units and Overlapping

The acquisition of skill in telegraphy consists mostly in learning these higher units of reactions. It is the same in {324} learning to typewrite. First you must learn your alphabet of letter-striking movements; by degrees you reduce these finger movements to firm habits, and are then in the letter-habit stage, in which you spell out each word as you write it. After a time, you write a familiar word without spelling it, by a coördinated series of finger movements; you write by word units, and later, in part, by phrase units; and these higher units give you speed and accuracy.

Along with this increase in the size of the reaction-units employed goes another factor of skill that is really very remarkable. This is the "overlapping" of different reactions, a species of doing two or more things at once, only that the two or more reactions are really parts of the same total activity. The simplest sort of overlap can be illustrated at an early stage in learning to typewrite. The absolute beginner at the typewriter, in writing "and", pauses after each letter to get his bearings before starting on the next; but after a small amount of practice he will locate the second letter on the keyboard while his finger is still in the act of striking the first letter. Thus the sensory part of the reaction to the second letter commences before the motor part of reacting to the first letter is finished; and this overlap does away with pauses between letters and makes the writing smoother and more rapid.

With further practice in typewriting, when word habits and phrase habits are acquired, overlap goes to much greater lengths. One expert kept her eyes on the copy about four words ahead of her fingers on the keyboard, and thus was reacting to about four words at the same time: one word was just being read from the copy, one word was being written, and the two words between were being organized and prepared for actual writing. The human typewriting mechanism, consisting of eye, optic nerve, parts of the brain and cord, motor nerves and muscles, works somewhat like one of {325} those elaborate machines which receive raw material steadily at one end perform a series of operations upon it, and keep turning out finished product at the other end.

All this is very remarkable, but the same sort of overlapping and working with large units can be duplicated in many linguistic performances that every one makes. In reading aloud, the eyes keep well ahead of the voice, and seeing, understanding and pronouncing are all applied simultaneously to different words of the passage read. In talking, the ideas keep developing and the spoken words tag along behind.

Fig. 52.--(From Book.) Practice curve of a young man learning to typewrite. Each point on the "curve" represents a daily record in number of strokes per minute. With improvement, the curve rises.

In telegraphy and typewriting, it is almost inevitable that the learner should start with the alphabet and proceed to gradually larger units. But in learning to talk, or to read, the process goes the other way. The child understands spoken words and phrases before breaking them up into their elementary vocal sounds; and he can better be taught to read by beginning with whole words, or even with whole {326} sentences, than by first learning the alphabet and laboriously spelling out the words. In short, the learning process often takes its start with the higher units, and reaches the smaller elements only for the purpose of more precise control.

Moderate Skill Acquired in the Ordinary Day's Work

Merely repeating a performance many times does not give the high degree of skill that we see in the expert telegrapher or typist. Ordinarily, we practise much less assiduously, are much less zealous, and have no such perfect measure of the success of our work. For "practice to make perfect", it must be strongly motivated, and it must be sharply checked up by some index or measure of success or failure. If the success of a performance can be measured, and chalked up before the learner's eyes in the form of a practice curve, so that he