why we learn

“Functional fixedness” is defined as the inability to view the familiar in novel ways. That is, as we become more familiar, we inevitably loose (at least some of) our ability to perceive situations and events out of that established context¹, see Wikipedia’s entry here. I’ve often wondered about whether or not consuming literature related to a field of interest is actually beneficial for this reason. Once read and assimilated, the contentions of existing research will have shaped a researcher’s understanding of the idea. That individual’s thoughts about the topic and possible solutions will be viewed through this manufactured prism, which might obstruct their ability to pursue solutions and/or modification in procedures outside the context of what has been done in the past, or at least the studies that they’ve read. I find it interesting that grounded theory, as described by Goulding (1998) proscribes the following approach.

Comparable works are not consulted in order to avoid internalising the perspectives and hypotheses of scholars in the immediate field of study. However, once the theory is developed, such related work is analysed in order to draw comparisons, build on, or offer an alternative perspective (p. 53).

Read more

The black box represents the human mind. It is, according to the behaviorist philosophy, impenetrable to our analyses and is thus discarded as immaterial or irrelevant. Is this concession a matter of convenience, or even necessity. That is to say, up until fairly recently, the “black box” metaphor was accurate. We were unable to “see” inside. It’s ironic that, for the behaviorist, the human mind and it’s internal processes serve as confounders in the study of human learning.

Could the advent of mental imagery technology have lent credence to the cognitivist approach? How does the behaviorist explain results which indicate that brain activity specific to unique regions of the brain? I suppose that their response might indicate that “stuff is happening” but that this “stuff” doesn’t qualify as “conscious processing”. It seems to me that the most depressing facet of behaviorism is its failure to acknowledge “self” or the ability of the individual to monitor and make changes to the way in which he or she interprets their world. It is as if we are sitting in a movie theater as our life passes before our eyes, and the only thing we can do is react unconsciously to the presented scenes.

It seems to me that in order to asses changes in mental structures (schemata) and events, one needs to first acknowledge their existence. This, I think, is significant. After, the two experimental designs (employing the behaviorist or cognitivist perspectives) are probably not much different. Could there be a greater degree of abstraction when deductions are made in the cognitivist process, evident by more reasoning and less cause-effect type rationale? Maybe, dependent on the complexity of the subject.

It is the exclusive adoption of the behaviorist perspective, not the philosophy itself, that I dislike. There is, I think, a inverse relationship of sorts between the utility of this philosophy and the complexity of the behavior being assessed. That is to say that behaviorism is best suited for the analysis of relatively simply phenomena, and cognitivism, which I perceive as building upon behaviorist principles, is better equipped to deal with the more complex.

—
andrew