Psychological Review

Hull, C. L.

doi: 10.1037/h0058294pmid: N/A

Because of the seemingly unique nature of adaptive behavior, it is customary to attribute it to the action of a special agent or substance called mind. This position has been both affirmed and denied by recent scientists, but on theoretical, not factual grounds. The author points to the need of applying to the solution a scientific methodology, the essential characteristics of which are: (1) the formulation of a set of explicitly stated postulates in operationally defined terms, and (2) a series of interlocking theorems, deduced from the postulates, which cover the major concrete phenomena in the field and which agree with the observed facts. By way of illustration, such a scientific theoretical system has been formulated for the problem of adaptive behavior. The postulates turn out to be based on physical, not psychical, phenomena, and thus demonstrate that the problem can be solved without recourse to consciousness or mind. The traditional assumption of logical priority for these concepts must therefore be a medieval survival.

Holt, E. B.

doi: 10.1037/h0056613pmid: N/A

The common philosophical assumption that one's own mental life is the one certainty upon which all knowledge must be based has led to a false epistemology. The so-called "immediate awareness by an internal sense" cannot be used by psychology as a criterion of the psychic, because most ideas, sensations, and processes which fulfill the criterion of being mental are not introspectively perceived. Introspection is merely verbalization which displaces the state of awareness which it inadequately discribes. Awareness is created by motor responses, and these motor responses are the genuine criterion of the psychic. Mental activity can be studied not by introspection, but by observing "the sensori-motor activities of a living organism in a concrete situation." This is an ultra-materialistic view, but modern materialism is nothing more than the recognition of an extra-mental reality by which the neuro-muscular apparatus of cognition is guided.

Cason, H.

doi: 10.1037/h0054480pmid: N/A

Definitions of learning have been based on experimental procedures involving too limited selection of subjects and forms of learning. An acceptable definition should describe the process in a general way and distinguish it from all other psychological and non-psychological processes. Learning is here defined as "the establishment or strengthening of neural connections between stimulating processes and responding processes as a result of accompanying or immediately preceding psychological activities." The term processes is used to indicate the fact that both stimulus and response are often highly complex patterns. The definition purposely identifies learning with the concept of neural connections in recognition of its organic basis. Definitions are also offered for the closely related processes of retention, forgetting and reproduction. The terms recall and recognition are reserved for revival of conscious verbal activities.

Bellows, R. M.

doi: 10.1037/h0058669pmid: N/A

An interpretation of the phenomenon of vanishing flicker in terms of the known function of peripheral nerve elements during rhythmic stimulation. Flicker is probably correlated, on the neurological side, with the elicitation of more than one impulse per stimulation, and vanished flicker with a one-to-one relation between frequency of stimulation and discharge frequency in afferent fibers. The data fit a quantitative pattern theory of cutaneous stimulation rather than a peripheral specificity theory. The phenomenon of vibratory sensitivity is due to asymmetrical discharges in afferent nerve fibers.

Higginson, G. D.

doi: 10.1037/h0063513pmid: N/A

The experimental evidence originally reported by Stratton (concerning the effect of inversion of the retinal field with lenses) is reexamined in the light of the alleged confusion existing in the accounts of the matter appearing in current psychological texts and the resulting theoretical misconceptions. It is concluded that Stratton's results fail to support the usual inference that continued wearing of the lenses resulted in a complete restoration of the appearance of "uprightness" of the visual field, but that they support, instead, the conclusion of Ewert from his recent experiment, viz., that fourteen days of continuous wearing of lenses brought no change in the basic perceptual properties of the visual field.

Krechevsky, I.

doi: 10.1037/h0061460pmid: N/A

A reply to criticisms contained in a recent discussion by Spence of the theoretical mechanisms involved in solving a discrimination problem, based largely on Krechevsky's data. Spence's objections to the terms "purposive," "docile," etc., as lacking objectivity and his replacement of them by conditioned-reflex terms, are considered superfluous, in view of the fact that the terms objected to were given a purely operational definition and were employed at this level of description.