Thorndike Experiment

1. Analysis of
Thorndike’s
Experiment
Dr. Pratibha Sagar
Department of Education
MJP Rohilkhand University
Bareilly

2. Analysis of Experiment

3. Analysis of Experiment
Thorndike observed that the
escape from the box acted as a
reinforcement for the
behaviour that led to the
escape.

4. Analysis of Experiment
He concluded that the
animal was ‘learning’ by trial
& error and was repeating the
process to escape.
Thorndike explained this
type of learning of cat as “trial
& error” learning.

5. Analysis of Experiment
According to him the learning is
the result of connection formation
between a stimulus & response
during the trial & error.
In the trial and error movements
there is a successful movement
which results into learning of right
things.

6. Analysis of Experiment
The connections made through
the successful movements result
into strengthening of the learning.

7. Analysis of Experiment
It was also observed during the
experiment if the S - R connection
was accompanied by failures, it was
weakened.
The set of responses leading to
desired effect out of number of
responses, made as trials was
explained by Thorndike as a theory
of learning.

8. Analysis of Experiment
He emphasized that behaviour is
something different from the
mechanism of the nervous system.
Learning is the result of S – R
connections formed in the brain and
reinforced by some reward which
acts as a motivator for repeating the
same action.

9. Analysis of Experiment
He called this idea the ‘law of
effect’ because the more
desirable the effect, the more the
animal would perform the
behaviour to achieve it.
Thorndike’s law of effect formed
the conceptual starting point for
Skinner’s work in operant
conditioning.

10. Thorndike’s
Learning Curve

11. Experiments show, the time that a
cat needs to escape from a puzzle
box gradually grows shorter, but in
an irregular manner.

12. He concluded that the cat did not
at any point “suddenly get the
idea.” Instead, reinforcement
gradually increased the probability
of the successful behaviour.

13. Learning Curve
The curve of learning for the cat
indicated a slow, gradual and
consistent progress towards the
solution.

14. Learning Curve
He noted that cat would learn to
escape from puzzle boxes more
quickly if the response selected
produced an immediate escape.

15. Learning Curve
The cat would try a repertoire of
behaviors to open the box, and
gradually learn to more quickly
select the one that produced
escape.

16. Learning Curve
The cat was not “understanding”
the connections between the
solution and the escape. There was
no sudden increase in the learning
curve to support that assumption.