Concept Learning and The Short-Term Memory - A Contribution to Theory

Simple stimulus-response association should rightly be regarded as a special case of concept learning-not vice versa. Learning theory is primarily concerned with the simple case and attempts to extend it so as to cover the behaviour of advanced (human) organisms cannot be considered satisfactory. It is suggested here that the theory is essentially a theory of organisms lacking a short-term memory and evidence is presented that attempts to bring human behaviour within the scope of the theory have succeeded only where the experimental situation effectively denied the subject the advantage be should otherwise have gained from having a short-term memory. Development of a short-term memory may be regarded as the essential pre-requisite for development of two capacities possessed by advanced (human) organisms but not by primitive organisms-language and the ability to learn from negative instances.