THEORIES OF LEARNING: Page 49

Logically then, Guthrie would understand that sleep-learners would well be able to recall what they have learned while asleep. Guthrie felt that forgetting is the inhibition of a response by a competing one, that habit-formation is linked to successful acts and that motivation affects the process since the last response modifies the situation and makes learning possible. This coincides with the rote-learning-plus-motivational approach of the sleep-study school. Clark L. Hull (1943) formulated a system of behavior highlighted by the principles of habit-formation. He stated that the value of habits is dependent on their usefulness to the individual. In Hull's system, feeling and consciousness are not of great importance. He makes no distinction between emotional and other forms of behavior. In his careful mathematical description of human functioning, everything is behavior. In his later work, Hull stated that "learning is a process by means of which the vertebrate individual survives in a world characterized by needs." The keynote to his explanation of learning is reinforcement and his theory is founded on order and arrangement. Learning is the means by which the organism comes to perceive its world, through the stimuli to its neurological structure. Thus, in Hull's view of habit-formation, learning is conditioning-planning for proper responses, and need is the one for action. Drive gives direction to the response, satisfaction of need leads to reinforcement of stimulus-response connections.