11. Mateer's Study of the Conditioned Reflex in Children [MATEER, Florence, Child Behavior: A Critical and Experimental Study of Young Children by the Method of Conditional Reflexes, pp. 97, 148-149, Boston, Badger, 1917.]

Dr. Florence Mateer made an extensive and thoroughgoing application of the method of the conditioned reflex with children. She found that many children were disquieted by the bandage over the eyes and crying interfered with the experiment, so she used the bandage itself to give the conditioned stimulus. She describes her method as follows:

This method was the one used in all experiments reported in this study. The bandage was applied by gently sliding it down over the child's eyes from above, with a slight but firm pressure of one finger over each eye, thus inducing the most certain exclusion of light and then the bandage was kept in place 20 seconds. In the 11th second the child was fed a bit of sweet chocolate and the bandage was removed at the end of the 20th second. Then the child was allowed to sit up and kept busy with other tests for the interval that must elapse before the process was repeated. The lying down was itself kept from becoming the conditioning stimulus by frequently laying the child down in the intervals between experiments. The 3-minute interval was used. That is, it was 3 minutes from the initiation of any one stimulation until the beginning of the next stimulation.

Dr. Mateer studied both normal and feeble-minded children, her object being to test the value of the conditioned reflex method. Her study demonstrated the practicality and value of the conditioned reflex as an objective method of studying the child. She finds the child's ability to form. associations increases with increasing age.

She sums up her results as follows:

It is clearly to be seen that up until the age of five the number of trials necessary for the formation of the conditioned association decreases rather regularly as the chronological age of the child increases. Above this the curve is not only less regular but the range of trials necessary for any one age is also greater than for the ages just preceding. This can hardly be due to any great difference in the ability of the older children as a group, for they were in most instances (in 15 out of 20) the older brothers and sisters of the younger children used. It

may be possible that we have here a symptom of an innate difference of different periods of development. The older child may see or imagine, because of his greater experience, and consequent greater potentiality of association, possibilities of variation in the procedure to which the younger child is oblivious, being absolutely sure after he has been fed candy under a given condition once or twice that it will appear again under like conditions. Genetically viewed, this difference may be as significant as a mark of old stages of development as are the differences recognized to-day between the adolescent and the pre-adolescent.

The ease and facility with which children form the associations were found to differ greatly with different children. Mateer says:

It may be interesting to note that no child over 2 years of age needed more than eight trials, while none under that age used less than seven, none under three years needed less than six, while the minimum number, three, was all that were required by a child in the fourth year. Out of the fifty children, regardless of age, ten needed only three trials, eleven needed four trials, eleven used five trials while only seven needed six; five needed seven, four needed eight, and two nine, trials.

QUESTIONS AND PROBLEMS

1. Define the terms situation and response.

a stimulus and a situation.

Distinguish between

2. Why should students of education think of human life in terms of a series of responses to a series of situations?

3. Can you think of any conduct that cannot be described in terms of S-R bonds?

4. What is readiness? Purpose or mind-set-to-an-end? Can a neurone crave for activity?

5. What is a multiple response?

6. What is a drive as the term is used in psychology? What are the natural drives?

7. What does Woodworth mean by his statement that all mental acts are motor?

8. Would the prevention or inhibition of a movement be considered a response? Why or why not?

9. What objections may be raised to the theory of S-R bonds? Is there anything about the human self that the symbol S-R does not cover?

10. Can you think of any phases of psychology that would be

more difficult to explain in terms of S-R bonds than in terms of purposive psychology?

11. Does a belief in the S-R bond theory commit one to a mechanistic interpretation of conduct? Why?

12. Read Kilpatrick's Foundation of Method. How is this work related to S-R bond psychology?

13. What biology and physiology does one need to know in order to understand and appreciate human behavior? Is physiology the final explanation?

14. Are all drives instinctive? Give an illustration that will support your answer.

15. What are secondary neurone connections?

16. Does Nature always behave regularly?

answer.

Illustrate your

17. What is a simple reflex? A conditioned reflex? Purposive striving?

18. Is a behavioristic interpretation of behavior in terms of S-R bonds likely to result in a false attitude toward life on the part of the student? Why or why not?

REFERENCES

BURT, Cyril, The Young Delinquent (New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1925).

GATES, A. I., Psychology for Students of Education (New York, Macmillan Co., 1923), pp. 23-27; 31-33; 46-62; 222-236. KILPATRICK, W. H., Foundations of Method (New York, Macmillan Co., 1925), Chaps. ii, iii.

PECHSTEIN, L. A., and MCGREGOR, A. Laura, Psychology of the Junior High School Pupil (Boston, Houghton Mifflin Co., 1924), Chap. iv.

THORNDIKE, E. L., Education (New York, Macmillan Co., 1917), pp. 53-67, 95 ff.

Educational Psychology, Briefer Course (New York, Teachers College, Bureau of Publications, 1914), pp. 125–137.

WOODWORTH, R. S., Psychology (New York, Henry Holt & Co., 1921), Chaps. ii, xiii, xvi.

CHAPTER III

THE PHYSICAL BASIS OF BEHAVIOR

It has been observed for a long time that there is a close relation between man's behavior and his structure. Human behavior has a physical basis (1). The part played by the chromosomes and endocrines in man-making is discussed (4,5). The individual has sense organs with which to receive impressions from the outside world. He has muscles and glands with which to respond to the stimuli presented. He also possesses a very complex connecting and adjusting nervous system which enables him to respond when situations are presented. The sense organs are highly sensitive to particular kinds of stimuli. When a nerve impulse is initiated by the stimulation of the sense organ, or nerve, the impulse is conducted over the nerves to the brain. In some way or other the brain tissues are modified. It is believed by some that the resistance to neural impulses at the synapses, the junction point of two neurones, is reduced with use. Certain criticisms of the synaptic resistance theory of learning have been made by Lashley (6,7).

Experiments show that certain areas of the brain have motor functions, others possess sensory functions and still others seem to be association areas. It cannot be said, however, that an individual reacts with any one part of the brain. He may be said to react with his whole brain (8).

Feeling and emotions give the individual his values. They make possible his happiness, and contribute to his health. The affective and emotional experiences involve the activity of both the central and the autonomic systems (9,10).

The recent studies made in the fields of nutrition, internal secretions, and health have increased our belief in the basic importance of the structure and function of the body. The physiological age may be regarded as the basic age (3).

1. Behavior Dependent upon Bodily Structure [SMITH, Stevenson, and GUTHRIE, Edwin R., General Psychology in Terms of Behavior, pp. 3–5. New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1924.]

The difference between the behavior of animals and the behavior of inanimate objects depends upon the fact that animals possess specialized structures. The most important of these structures are the sense organs (receptors), the muscles and glands (effectors), and. the nervous system. The sense organs are placed in parts of the body where they are exposed to the action of physical forces. The physical forces that arouse the sense organs to action are called stimuli. Because the various kinds of sense organs differ from each other in structure, some are provoked by one kind of physical force, and some by another.

The stimulus that commonly arouses the sense organ to its characteristic function is called an adequate stimulus. Light has an effect upon the eye that it does not have upon the ear or upon the skin. Gases emanating from a flower act only upon the olfactory sense organs. In addition to their more frequently received stimuli, many sense organs may be stimulated by pres sure or by electric current.

...

Sense organs are connected with distant muscles and glands by nerve structures. Along these nerve structures pass nervous impulses which result from the stimulation of the sense organs and which, on reaching muscles and glands, may cause muscular contraction or glandular secretion. It follows that any response to a stimulus can occur only when there is a conduction pathway established between the sense organ receiving the stimulus and the muscles concerned in the response. Such a pathway is called a neural arc.

The nervous system contains millions of nerve cells called neurones. They are microscopic in cross-section, but are occasionally as much as two feet or more in length. Each neurone consists of a cell body from which extend branching processes which may lie adjacent to other cells. The points of contact so established offer varying resistance to the passage of nervous impulses from one cell to another. Such a connection between two neurones that permit the passage of a nervous impulse is called a synapse. The repeated passage of an impulse through a synapse is supposed to increase the conductivity of the synapse. Some synapses are present at birth, some occur in the maturation of the nervous system, whereas others are formed in the course of learning.