THEORIES OF LEARNING: Page 47

The Law of Associative Shifting derives from study of the conditioned response. Thorndike later offered an altered Law of Exercise which stated that mere repetition was not enough to insure learning, but that the degree of satisfaction involved must be given much importance. He also changed the Law of Effect to state that reward strengthens the connection, but punishment weakens it very little. Further, as an argument against the Gestaltist, who declared that patterns are the basis of the learning process, Thorndike described the "spread or scatter" phenomenon. Each connection, he said, affects all the other connections, past or future, according to satisfaction. He based this explanation on biological foundations. Another law had to do with Transfer of Learning and stated that a successful response could be gained to a new stimulus, if this new stimulus was similar to a past one. Since learning is transference, adjustments are possible and further learning can take place. Recent research tends to discount Thorndike's theory of neural bonds, but much of what we accept today about learning still rests on his theoretical structures. There is little argument with his pronouncement that: It is the first principle of education to utilize any individual's original nature as a means of changing him for the better. . . . All schemes of improving human life must take account of man's original nature, most of all when their aim is to reverse or counteract it.