Theories of learning.Thorndike's Connectionism.
Abstract
For nearly half a century one learning theory has dominated all others in America, despite numerous attacks upon it and the rise of its many rivals. That influential one is the theory of Edward L. Thorndike, first announced in his Animal Intelligence (1898). The basis of learning accepted by Thorndike in his earliest writings is association between sense impressions and impulses to action. The association came to be known as a "bond" or a "connection." Because it is these bonds or connections which become strengthened or weakened in the making and breaking of habits, Thorndike's system has sometimes been called a "bond" psychology or simply "connectionism." (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2009 APA, all rights reserved)