During the romantic period (late ei

During the romantic period (late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries) many philosophers and literary figures believed that mind that mind permeated the entire universe, including all living things. Furthermore, this universal mind substance was believed to be unitary everywhere the same. People possessed more of it than did lower animals, but the difference between the human and animal minds was considered one of degree rather than of kind. Of course, not all scholars accepted this view. The psychologist Wundt, for example, was convinced that consciousness a product of mind was unique to human beings. It was the work of Darwin and other evolutionists of the nineteenth century that most definitely gave human kind a place in the animal kingdom. Darwin noticed particularly yhe close similarity of the bodily structure and functions of persons and the lower animals. In his Descent of Man he also presented much evidence of the existence of psychological, as well as physical, continuity throughout the animal kingdom. Hence, he wrote, “There is no fundamental difference between man and the higher animals in their mental faculties.” But in a later section he qualified this opinion by writing, “There can be no doubt that the difference between the mind of the lowest man and that of the highest animal is immense.” However, despite this qualification, Darwin appears to have maintained consistently that in their fundamental aspect people and the lower animal exhibit a commonality of both physical and the mental characteristics.
Antagonist of the theory of evolution defied Darwin to explain why, if there is a continuity between people and lower animals, human beings can reason, whereas lower animals seem to be governed by instinct rather than by reason. Darwin countered with be explanation that much human action, too, is to be interpreted as instinctive in origin and that animals, on their level, also exhibit a capacity for reason.
Durring the latter part of the nineteenth century the idea that there is a continuity among animal species and that behavioral tendencies, including learning, are broadly similar throuhoutn the animal world rapidly gained in popularity among biologist and psychologists. As we note in Chapter 3, Pierre Flourens proposed in the nineteenth century that conclusions drawn from animal experimentation should be equally applicable to human beings. Pavlov also made this assumption, as did his American contemporaries, Thorndike and Watson.
In addition to the advantage of economy and convenience in using lower animals rather than humans in s psychological laboratory, obviously experiment that our mores would prevent being tried on people can be performed on animals. Furthermore, many persons have thought that it is easier to isolate simple units of behavior on lower animals than in human beings; although in humans yhe units may be subtantially the same, they are often combined in a manner too complex for ready study. Thus, it has been thought that one might learn more about types of behavior that are fundamental to the animal kingdom by studying the lower animals rather than by studying people. Consequently, animal experimentation has be come extremely popular among psychologist. Now, if people and lower animals do learn alike, do people learn like lower animals or do lower animals learn like people?

Do People Learn Like Lower Animal?
Use of result of animals experimentation by behaviorists has been governed by the assumptions that the learning process is essentially the same throughout the animal kingdom and that what we discover about learning in lower animals is transferable to human situations. Behaviorist generally have thought that human behavior, including learning, is a purposeless, mechanical, chancelike process. In their mechanical trial-and-error processes, people learn like the lower animals do. So, learning in both lower animals and human beings is a matter of forming mechanical relationships between an organism and its environment through either chance or design.
Since psychological laws of learning, as well as of other behavior, are subsumed under, and agree with, physiochemical laws concerning living organisms, there is no place in behavioristic theory for insight whwn it is defined as a perception of relationships.
Behaviorists also sometimes use the term insight, at which time they mean something quite different from what gestalt-field theorist do. Whwn used by behaviorists, the term describes a special and rare kind of learning. To use Woodworth’s definition, insight is “some penetration into the [absolutely] true nature of things.” But to Woodworth and other behaviorists, the ordinary form that learning takes is S-R conditioning. In fact, the most systematic of the behaviorists deny that there can be two entirely different kinds of learning; therefore they prefer to describe all learning as conditioning. Since insight obviously implies something very different from conditioning, many behaviorists do not use the term at all. To them it connotes something intuitive and mystical that cannot be described operationally. In contrast, Gestald-field psychologist do not like to use the term conditioning; they regard development of insight as the most descriptive phrase available to describe the manner in which learning actually takes place.
In Chapter 3, pages 52-53 we descibe briefly the general nature of the animal experimentation undertaken by behaviorists. These psychologist have hoped to formulate laws of human learning by observing overt behavior of laboratory animals placed in various kinds of situations such as puzzle boxes and maxes. By the early 1920s the manner in which behaviorists conducted their experiments came under the fire of Gestaltists. The nature of the Gestalt-field criticism is developed in the following section
Do Lower Animals Learn Like People?
Whereas behaviorists have assumed that people learn like lower animals, and more specifically like their own experimental animals in their own type of experiments, Gestalt-field psychologists have given the question a reverse twist: Do lower animals learn like people? Of course, if there is a continuity between humans and the lower animals, both ideas should make equal sense and both should be answerable in the affirmative. But Gestalt-field psychologist had something else in mind. Although not denying the likelihood of a fundamental similarity in the behavior of people and lower animals, Gestalt field theorists have been interested in raising question about the whole approach of the behaviorists.
One of the sharpest criticisms that a Gestalt-field theorist can make of the behavioristic conception of learning is directed against the tendency of the latter to deny purpose a central role in learning. Accordingly, Gestalt-field psychologist note that behaviorists usually placed their animals in situations entirely foreign to them and often allowed them only a bare minimum of freedom. Consequently, there was no place for their animals to begin a solution and little opportunity for them really to try various alternatives. Since the locks, levers, and mechanical devices that were used were above the animals level of comprehension, for them to achieve the correct procedure it was necessary that they stumble upon the key by chance. Because lower animals are less discerning of the kind of relationships that seem important to people than are human beings, animals appear, in a humanly contrived “problem,” to make completely random movements. Thus, on the surface, the nature of the discovery of the relationship between the release mechanism and an animal’s escaping from a puzzle box appeared to be completely mechanical. Having set the stage against animals displaying genuinely purposive, problem-solving activity, even if they are capable of such, behaviorists have concluded that learning is a mechanical triad-and error process.
To Gestalt-field psychologists the tension that motivates an animal to learn is tension toward a goal. Thus, to some degree learning always involves purpose. Furthermore, purposiveness in learning is not restricted to humanity. Abundant experimental evidence indicates taht learning is purposive, even among animals quite low on the phylogenetic scale.
An animal behaving purposively does not make random motions—even though on the surface it may appear to do so. Instead, it tries everything at its command, but if the problem is too difficult, its trial moves will appear to be an observer as random. If one eye of a slug or a honeybee is blinded, the animal at first place appears to go through meaningless motions. However, more careful observation reveals that it is demonstrating something other than mere random responses. It assumes a posture that orients its body toward the light source; thus, it flexes its legs on one side and extends them on the other as if it wanted to move in relationship to the light.