In 1949, the late Herbert Langfeld gave a
lecture in Europe in which he described what
appeared to him to be the major trends in
American psychology. He also mentioned Gestalt
psychology; but he added that the main observations,
questions, and principles characteristic
of this school had become part of every American
psychologist's mental equipment. I was not
so optimistic. And, in fact, the very next
year attempts were made to explain the molar
units in perception by processes which gradually
connect neural elements.
Soon afterwards, a theory of conditioning
was developed, according to which more and
more components of a stimulus object are
gradually conditioned, and the course of
the whole process can be explained in this
fashion. Such theories may prove to be very
useful, but one can hardly say that, at the
time, their authors were greatly influenced
by Gestalt psychology. It is for this and
similar reasons that a new discussion of
old questions seems to me indicated. I should
like to begin with a few remarks about the
history of Gestalt psychology -- because
not all chapters of this history are generally
known. In the eighties of the past century,
psychologists in Europe were greatly disturbed
by von Ehrenfels' claim that thousands of
percepts have characteristics which cannot
be derived from the characteristics of their
ultimate components, the so-called sensations.
Chords and melodies in hearing, the shape
characteristics of visual objects, the roughness
or the smoothness of tactual impressions,
and so forth were used as examples.
All these "Gestalt qualities" have
one thing in common. When the physical stimuli
in question are considerably changed, while
their relations are kept constant, the Gestalt
qualities remain about the same. But, At
the time, it was generally assumed that the
sensations involved are individually determined
by their individual stimuli and must therefore
change when these are greatly changed. How,
then, could any characteristics of the perceptual
situation remain constant under these conditions?
Where did the Gestalt qualities come from?
Ehrenfels' qualities are not fancy ingredients
of this or that particular situation which
we might safely ignore. Both positive and
negative esthetic characteristics of the
world around us, not only of ornaments, paintings,
sculptures, tunes, and so forth, but also
of trees, landscapes, houses, cars -- and
other persons -- belong to this class. That
relations between the sexes largely depend
on specimens of the same class need hardly
be emphasized. It is, therefore, not safe
to deal with problems of psychology as though
there were no such qualities. And yet, beginning
with Ehrenfels himself, psychologists have
not been able to explain their nature.
This holds also for the men who were later
called Gestalt psychologists, including the
present speaker. Wertheimer's ideas and investigations
developed in a different direction. His thinking
was also more radical than that of Ehrenfels.
He did not ask: How are Gestalt qualities
possible when, basically, the perceptual
scene consists of separate elements? Rather,
he objected to this premise, the thesis that
the psychologist's thinking must begin with
a consideration of such elements. From a
subjective. point of view, he felt, it may
be tempting to assume that all perceptual
situations consist of independent, very small
components. For, on this assumption, we obtain
a maximally clear picture of what lies behind
the observed facts. But, how do we know that
a subjective clarity of this kind agrees
with the nature of what we have before us?
Perhaps we pay for the subjective clearness
of the customary picture by ignoring all
processes, all functional interrelations,
which may have operated before there is a
perceptual scene and which thus influence
the characteristics of this scene. Are we
allowed to impose on perception an extreme
simplicity which, objectively, it may not
possess?
Wertheimer, we remember, began to reason
in this fashion when experimenting not with
percep- [p. 728] tual situations which were
stationary, and therefore comparatively silent,
but with visual objects in motion when corresponding
stimuli did not move. Such "apparent
movements," we would now say, occur
when several visual objects appear or disappear
in certain temporal relations. Again in our
present language, under these circumstances
an interaction takes place which, for instance,
makes a second object appear too near, or
coincident with, a first object which is
just disappearing, so that only when the
first object, and therefore the interaction,
really fades, the second object can move
toward its normal position.
If this is interaction, it does not, as such,
occur on the perceptual scene. On this scene,
we merely observe a movement. That movements
of this kind do not correspond to real movements
of the stimulus objects and must therefore
be brought about by the sequence of the two
objects, we can discover only by examining
the physical situation. It follows that,
if the seen movement is the perceptual result
of an interaction, this interaction itself
takes place outside the perceptual field.
Thus, the apparent movement confirmed Wertheimer's
more general suspicion: we cannot assume
that the perceptual scene is an aggregate
of unrelated elements because underlying
processes are already functionally interrelated
when that scene emerges, and now exhibits
corresponding effects.
Wertheimer did not offer a more specific
physiological explanation. At the time, this
would have been impossible. He next turned
to the problem of whether the characteristics
of stationary perceptual fields are also
influenced by interactions. I need not repeat
how he investigated the formation of molar
perceptual units, and more particularly of
groups of such objects. Patterns which he
used for this purpose are now reproduced
in many textbooks. They clearly demonstrate
that it is relations among visual objects
which decide what objects become group members,
and what others do not, and where, therefore,
one group separates itself from another.
This fact strongly suggests that perceptual
groups are established by interactions; and,
since a naive observer is merely aware of
the result, the perceived groups, but not
of their dependence upon particular relations,
such interactions would again occur among
the underlying processes rather than within
the perceptual field.
Let me add a further remark about this early
stage of the development. Surely, in those
years, Gestalt psychologists were not satisfied
with a quiet consideration of available facts.
It seems that no major new trend in a science
ever is. We were excited by what we found,
and even more by the prospect of finding
further revealing facts. Moreover, it was
not only the stimulating newness of our enterprise
which inspired us. There was also a great
wave of relief -- as though we were escaping,
from a prison. The prison was psychology
as taught at the universities when we still
were students. At the time, we had been shocked
by the thesis that all psychological facts
(not only those in perception) consist of
unrelated inert atoms and that almost the
only factors which combine these atoms and
thus introduce action are associations formed
under the influence of mere contiguity. What
had disturbed us was the utter senselessness
of this picture, and the implication that
human life, apparently so colorful and so
intensely dynamic, is actually a frightful
bore. This was not true of our new picture,
and we felt that further discoveries were
bound to destroy, what was left of the old
picture.
Soon further investigations, not all of them
done by Gestalt psychologists, reinforced
the new trend. Rubin called attention to
the difference between figure and ground.
David Katz found ample evidence for the role
of Gestalt factors in the field of touch
as well as in color vision, and so forth.
Why so much interest just in perception?
Simply because in no other part of psychology
are facts so readily accessible to observation.
It was the hope of everybody that, once some
major functional principles had been revealed
in this part of psychology, similar principles
would prove to be relevant to other parts,
such as memory, learning, thinking, and motivation.
In fact, Wertheimer and I undertook our early
studies of intellectual processes precisely
from this point of view; somewhat later,
Kurt Lewin began his investigations of motivation
which, in part , followed the same line;
and we also applied the concept of Gestaltung
or ,organization to memory, to learning,
and to recall. With developments in America,
Wertheimer's further analysis of thinking,
Asch's and Heider's investigations in social
psychology, our work on figural aftereffects,
and eventually on currents Of the brain,
we are probably all familiar.
In the meantime, unexpected support had come
from natural science. To mention only one
Point: Parts of molar perceptual units often
have charac- [p. 729] teristics which they
do not exhibit when separated from those
units. Within a larger visual entity, a part
may, for instance, be a corner of this entity,
another part its contour or boundary, and
so on. It now seems obvious; but nobody in
psychology had seen it before: the same happens
in any physical system that is pervaded by
interactions. These interactions affect the
parts of the system until, eventually, in
a steady state, the characteristics of all
parts are such that remaining interactions
balance one another. Hence, if processes
in the central nervous system follow the
same rule, the dependence of local perceptual
facts on conditions in larger entities could
no longer be regarded as puzzling. Comparisons
of this kind greatly encouraged the Gestalt
psychologists.
In America, it may seem surprising that enthusiastic
people such as the Gestalt psychologists
were intensely interested in physics. Physics
is generally assumed to be a particularly
sober discipline. And yet, this happened
to us most naturally. To be sure, our reasoning
in physics involved no chan-es in the laws
of physics and no new assumptions in this
field. Nevertheless, when we compared our
psychological findings with the behavior
of certain physical systems, some parts of
natural science began to look different.
When reading the formulae of the physicist,
one may emphasize this or that aspect of
their content. The particular aspect of the
formulae in which the Gestalt psychologists
became interested had, for decades., been
given little attention. No mistake had ever
been made in applications of the formulae,
because what now fascinated us had all the
time been present in their mathematical form.
Hence, all calculations in physics had come
out right. But it does make a difference
whether you make explicit what a formula
implies or merely use it as a reliable tool.
We had, therefore, good reasons for being,
surprised by what we found; and we naturally
felt elated when the new reading of the formulae
told us that organization is as obvious in
some parts of physics as it is in psychology.
Incidentally, others were no less interested
in this "new reading" than we were.
These other people were eminent physicists.
Max Planck once told me that he expected
our approach to clarify a difficult issue
which had just arisen in quantum physics
if not the concept of the quantum itself.
Several Years later. Max Born, the great
physicist who gave quantum mechanics its
present form, made almost the same statement
in one of his papers. And, only a few weeks
ago, I read a paper in which Bridgman of
Harvard interprets Heisenberg's famous principle
in such terms that I am tempted to call him,
Bridgman, a Gestalt physicist.
We will now return to psychology. More particularly,
we will inspect the situation in which American
psychology finds itself today. The spirit
which we find here differs considerably from
the one which characterized young Gestalt
psychology. Let me try to formulate what
members of this audience may have been thinking
while I described that European enterprise.
"Enthusiasm?" they probably thought.
"Feelings of relief when certain assumptions
were found less dreary than those of earlier
psychologists in Europe? But this is an admission
that emotional factors and extrascientific
values played a part in Gestalt psychology.
We know about the often pernicious effects
of the emotions in ordinary life. How, then,
could emotions be permitted to influence
scientific judgments and thus to disturb
the objectivity of research? As we see it,
the true spirit of science is a critical
spirit. Our main obligation as scientists
is that of avoiding mistakes. Hence our emphasis
on strict method in experimentation and on
equally strict procedures in the evaluation
of results. The Gestalt psychologists seem
to have been guilty of wishful thinking.
Under the circumstances, were not some of
their findings unreliable and some of their
concepts vague?"
I will at once admit two facts. Almost from
its beginning, American psychology has given
more attention to questions of method and
strict proof than Gestalt psychology did
in those years. In this respect, American
psychology was clearly superior. Secondly,
sometimes the Gestalt psychologists did make
mistakes. Not in all cases was the reliability
of their findings up to American standards,
and some concepts which they used were not
immediately quite clear. I , myself once
used a certain concept in a somewhat misleading
fashion. I had better explain this.
What is insight? In its strict sense, the
term refers to the fact that, when we are
aware of a relation, of any relation, this
relation is not experienced as a fact by
itself, but rather as something that follows
from the characteristics of the objects under
consideration. Now, when primates try to
solve a problem, their behavior often shows
that they are aware of a certain important
relation. But when they now make use of this
"insight," and thus [p. 730] solve
their problem, should this achievement be
called a solution by insight? No -- it is
by no means clear that it was also insight
which made that particular relation emerge.
In a given situation, we or a monkey may
become aware of a great many relations. If,
at a certain moment, we or a monkey attend
to the right one, this may happen for several
reasons, some entirely unrelated to insight.
Consequently, it is misleading to call the
whole process a "solution by insight."
This will be particularly obvious when the
solution of the problem is arbitrarily chosen
by the experimenter. Take Harlow's excellent
experiments in which primates are expected
to choose the odd item in a group of objects.
"Oddity" is a particular relational
fact. Once a monkey attends to it, he will
perceive it with insight. But why should
he do so during his first trials? His first
choices will be determined by one factor
or another, until he happens to attend, once
or repeatedly, to the oddity relation just
when he chooses (or does not choose) the
right object. Gradually, he will now attend
to this particular relation in all trials;
and he may do so even when entirely new objects
are shown. Surely, such a process should
not simply be called "learning by insight."
If Harlow were to say that, under the circumstances,
it is learning of one kind or another which
gives the right relation and corresponding
insight their chance to operate, I should
at once agree. What, I believe, the monkeys
do not learn is insight into which object
in a given group is the odd one; but they
must learn to pay attention to the oddity
factor in the first place. I hope that this
will clarify matters. They have not always
been so clear to me.
When the solution of a problem is not arbitrarily
chosen by the experimenter, but more directly
related to the nature of the given situation,
insight may play a more important role. But,
even under these circumstances, it is not
insight alone which brings about the solution.
The mere fact that solutions often emerge
to the subjects' own surprise is clear proof
that it cannot be insight alone which is
responsible for their origin.
But I intended to discuss some trends in
American psychology. May I confess that I
do not fully approve of all these trends?
First, I doubt whether it is advisable to
regard caution and a critical spirit as the
virtues of a scientist, as though little
else counted. They are necessary in research,
just as the brakes in our cars must be kept
in order and their windshields clean. But
it is not because of the brakes or of the
windshields that we drive. Similarly, caution
and a critical spirit are like tools. They
ought to be kept ready during a scientific
enterprise; however, the main business of
a science is gaining more and more new knowledge.
I wonder why great men in physics do not
call caution and a critical spirit the most
important characteristics of their behavior.
They seem to regard the testing of brakes
and the cleaning of windshields as mere precautions,
but to look forward to the next trip as the
business for which they have cars. Why is
it only in psychology that we hear the slightly
discouraging, story of mere caution over
and over again? Why are just psychologists
so inclined to greet the announcement of
a new fact (or a new working hypothesis)
almost with scorn? This is caution that has
gone sour and has almost become negativism
-- which, of course, is no less an emotional
attitude than is enthusiasm. The enthusiasm
of the early Gestalt psychologists was a
virtue, because it led to new observations.
But virtues, it has been said, tend to breed
little accompanying vices. In their enthusiasm,
the Gestalt psychologists were not always
sufficiently careful.
In American psychology, it is rightly regarded
as a virtue if a man feels great respect
for method and for caution. But, if this
virtue becomes too strong, it may bring forth
a spirit of skepticism and thus prevent new
work. Too many young psychologists, it seems
to me, either work only against something
done by others or merely vary slightly what
others have done before; in other words,
preoccupation with method may tend to limit
the range of our research. We are, of course,
after clear evidence. But not in all parts
of psychology can evidence immediately be
clear. In some, we cannot yet use our most
exact methods. Where this happens, we hesitate
to proceed. Experimentalists in particular
tend to avoid work on new materials resistant
to approved methods and to the immediate
application of perfectly clear concepts.
But concepts in a new field can only be clarified
by work in this field. Should we limit our
studies to areas already familiar from previous
research? Obviously, would mean a kind of
conservatism in psychology. When I was his
student, Max Planck repeated this warning
over and over again in his lectures. [p.
731]
Our wish to use only perfect methods and
clear concepts has led to Methodological
Behaviorism. Human experience in the phenomenological
sense cannot yet be treated with our most
reliable methods; and, when dealing with
it, we may be forced to form new concepts
which, at first, will often be a bit vague.
Most experimentalists, therefore, refrain
from observing, or even from referring to,
the phenomenal scene. And yet, this is the
scene on which, so far as the actors are
concerned, the drama of ordinary human living
is being played all the time. If we never
study this scene, but insist on methods and
concepts developed in research "from
the outside," our results are likely
to look strange to those who intensely live
"'inside."
To be sure, in many respects, the graphs
and tables obtained "from the outside"
constitute a most satisfactory material;
and, in animal psychology, we have no other
material. But this material as such contains
no direct evidence as to the processes by
which it is brought about. In this respect
it is a slightly defective, I am tempted
to say, a meager, material. For it owes its
particular clearness to the fact that the
data from which the graphs and tables are
derived are severely selected data. When
subjects are told to say no more than "louder,"
"'softer," and perhaps "equal"
in certain experiments, or when we merely
count how many items they recall in others,
then we can surely apply it precise statistical
techniques to what they do. But, as a less
attractive consequence, we never hear under
these circumstances how they do the comparing
in the first case and what happens when they
try to recall in the second case.
Are such questions now to be ignored? After
all, not all phenomenal experiences are entirely
vague; this Scheerer has rightly emphasized.
And, if many are not yet accessible to quantitative
procedures, what of it? One of the most fascinating
disciplines, developmental physiology, the
science investigating the growth of an organism
from one cell, seldom uses quantitative techniques.
And yet, nobody can deny that its merely
qualitative description of morphogenesis
has extraordinary scientific value. In new
fields, not only quantitative data are relevant.
As to the initial vagueness of Concepts in
a new field, I should like to add an historical
remark. When the concept of energy was first
introduced in physics, it was far from king
a clear concept. For decades, its meaning
could not be sharply distinguished from that
of the term "force." And what did
the physicists do? They worked and worked
on it, until at last it did become perfectly
clear. There is no other way of dealing with
new, and therefore not yet perfect, concepts.
Hence, if we refuse to study the phenomenal
scene, because, here, few concepts are so
far entirely clear, we thereby decide that
this scene will never be investigated --
at least not by us, the psychologists.
Now, I had better return to Gestalt psychology.
Let me try to show you how Gestalt psychology
tends to work today by discussing, a more
specific issue, an issue on which scores
of American psychologists have worked for
years. We shall thus be enabled to compare
the way in which they approach this issue
with the Gestalt psychologists' approach.
The issue in question refers to the concepts
of conditioning and motivation. One school
seems to regard conditioning as almost the
process with which the psychologist has to
deal. In a famous book with the general title
Principles of Behavior, the late Clark Hull,
then the most influential member of the school,
actually dealt with little else -- although
he often used other terms. He felt that even
such facts as thinking, insight, intentions,
striving, and value would eventually be explained
by a consistent investigation of the various
forms of conditioning. We are all familiar
with the basic concepts of his theory. Hence
I will say only a few words about it. When
conditions in an animal's tissue deviate
from an optimal level, a state of need is
said to exist in this tissue. Such needs
produce, or simply are, drives -- which means
that they tend to cause actions in the nervous
system, some more or less prescribed by inherited
neural connections, others of a more random
nature. Drives are also called motivations.
None of these terms is to be understood in
a phenomenological sense. They always refer
to assumed states of the tissue. The main
point is that, for biological reasons, states
of need must, if possible, be reduced and
that this may be achieved by certain responses
of the organism to the given situation. In
case first responses are of a random character,
learning or conditioning will often select
such responses as do reduce the needs in
question. In a simple formulation, the well-known
rule which governs such developments is as
follows: when a response has repeatedly occurred
in temporal contiguity with the neural effects
of a certain stimulus, then this stimu- [p.
732] lus will tend to evoke the same response
in the future -- provided the response has
caused a reduction of the need. I will not
define such further concepts as habit strength,
reaction potential, afferent stimulus interaction,
reactive inhibition, and so forth, because
they will play no role in my discussion.
But one term seems to me particularly important.
Many recent, and important, investigations
are concerned with so-called "learned
drives," an expression which has, of
course, this meaning: if a neutral stimulus
is repeatedly followed by conditions which
cause a primary state of drive such as pain,
and the corresponding fear, then the fear
with its usual effects on behavior will gradually
become connected with that neutral stimulus,
so that the stimulus alone now evokes the
fear and its overt consequences. Certain
drives are therefore said to be "learnable"
in the sense that they can be attached to
facts which, as such, are not related to
the drive and hence would originally not
evoke corresponding responses.
Some experiments in the field of conditioning
in general are most interesting. I will only
discuss the concepts used in the interpretation
of this work and the conclusions which it
is said to justify.
To begin with these conclusions: They refer
to certain human experiences which, if the
conclusions were justified, would have to
be regarded as strange delusions. I mean
our cognitive experiences. Suppose somebody
discovers by accident that, every time he
subtracts the square of a given integer from
the square of the next integer in the series,
the result is an odd number. A more learned
friend now explains to him why this is a
necessary rule, undoubtedly valid beyond
any tests ever done by a person. The explanation
refers to simple relations and to relations
among relations -- all readily understandable
-- and the final outcome is convincing. Now,
is the understanding of the relations involved
to be explained in terms of conditioning?
Nothing in conditioning seems to give us
access to the psychological fact which I
just called understanding; and, since an
understanding of relations is essential to,
all cognitive achievements, the same applies
to the whole field.
Explanation of our intellectual life in terms
of conditioning would simply mean: its reduction
to the operations of an often most practical,
but intrinsically blind, connection of mere
facts. Promises that such an explanation
will nevertheless be achieved cause in the
present speaker a mild, incredulous horror.
It is not the business of science to destroy
evidence. Behaviorists would perhaps answer
that arguments which refer to human thinking
as an experience are irrelevant, because
science is only concerned with facts observable
from the outside, and therefore objective.
This answer would hardly be acceptable. The
Behaviorist's own objective observations
are invariably observation of facts in his
perceptual field. No other form of objective
observation has ever been discovered. Consequently,
the Behaviorist cannot, without giving more
particular reasons, reject reference to other
individual experiences merely because they
are such experiences.
Thus we are justified in considering a further
example of human experience. A need or drive,
we are sometimes told, is a motivation. I
do not entirely agree with this statement
for the following reasons. A need or drive,
we remember, is supposed to be a particular
state in the tissue. There is no indication
in Hull's writings that such a state "points
beyond itself" toward any objects --
although it may, of course, cause movements,
or actions of glands. Now it is true that
the same holds for certain needs as human
experiences; because, when a need is felt,
it does not always point toward an object,
attainment of which would satisfy the need.
At the time, no such object may be in sight:
in fact, no such object may yet be known.
But when the proper object appears, or becomes
known. then the situation changes. For, now
the subject feels attracted or (in certain
instances) repelled by this object. In other
words, an object may have characteristics
which establish a dynamic relation between
the subject and that object. According to
common experience, it is this dynamic relation
which makes the subject move toward, or away
from, the object. We ought to use different
terms for a mere need per se and the situation
in which a subject is attracted or repelled
by an object. Otherwise, the dynamic aspect
of the latter situation might easily be ignored.
I suggest that we reserve the term "motivation"
for this dynamic situation. Here we are,
of course, on familiar ground. Motivation
as just described was Kurt Lewin's main concern
in psychology. He clearly recognized the
part which certain characteristics of an
object play in establishing the dynamic relation
between this object and the subject. He called
such charac- [p. 733] teristics of objects
Aufforderungscharaktere, a term which then
became "valences" in English.
So far as I know, there are no valences in
objects no attractions and no repulsions
between objects and subjects in the Behaviorist's
vocabulary. I am afraid that, in this fashion,
he misses a point no only important in human
experience but also relevant to what he regards
as true science.
How would a Gestalt psychologist handle motivation
in the present sense? He would be-in with
the following psychological facts. I do not
know up to what point Lewin would have accepted
what I am now going to say. My facts are
these: (a) In human experience, motivation
is a dynamic vector, that is, a fact which
has a direction and tends to cause a displacement
in this direction. (b) Unless there are obstacles
in the way, this direction coincides with
an imaginary straight line drawn from the
object to the subject. (c) The ,direction
of the experienced vector is either that
toward the object or away from it. In the
first case, the vector tends to reduce the
distance in question; 1 the second, to increase
it. (d) The strength of both the need present
in the subject and of the valence exhibited
by the object can vary. Both in man and in
animals it has been observed that, when the
strength of the valence is low, this reduction
can be compensated for by an increase of
the need in the subject; and, conversely,
that, when the need is lowered, an increase
of the strength of the valence may compensate
for this change when considering these simple
statements, anybody familiar with the elements
of physics will be reminded of the behavior
of forces. (a) In physics, forces are dynamic
vectors which tend to change distance between
one thing (or event) and another. (b) Unless
there are obstacles in the way, force operates
along a straight line drawn from first object
(or event) to the other. (c) The action in
which a force operates is either that of
attraction or of a repulsion of a reduction
or of increase of the given distance. (d)
The formula which the intensity of a force
between two objects is given contains two
terms which refer to the sizes of a decisive
property (for instance, an electric charge)
in one object and in the other. It is always
the product of these two terms on which,
to the formula, the intensity of the force
depends. Consequently, a reduction of the
crucial term on one side can be compensated
for by an increase in the term on the other
side.
We have just seen that the behavior of vectors
motivational situations is the same as the
behavior of forces in nature. Gestalt psychologists
are, therefore, inclined to interpret motivation
in terms of such forces or, rather, of forces
which operate be between certain perceptual
processes and processes another part of the
brain, where a need may be physiologically
represented. We have no time to discuss the
question how cortical fields or forces would
cause overt movements of the organism in
the direction of these forces.
Now, not everybody likes the term "force."
Its meaning, it has been said, has anthropomorphic
connotations. But, in human psychology, we
simply must use terms which -- if I may use
this expressions -- "sound human."
If we refused to do so, we would not do justice
to our subject matter which (to a high degree)
is human experience. To be sure, in physics,
Heinrich Hertz once tried to do without the
concept "force." He actually wrote
a treatise on mechanics in which he avoided
this term. And what happened? He had to populate
the physical world with unobservable masses,
introduced only in order to make their hidden
presence substitute for the much simpler
action of forces. Ever since that time, physicists
have happily returned to the old concept
"force," and nobody has ever been
harmed by the fact.
The present reasoning leads to a conclusion
which distinguishes this reasoning from the
treatment of motivation in the Behaviorist's
system. Clark Hull was a great admirer of
science; but, to my knowledge, he hardly
ever used the concepts characteristic of
field physics. The fundamental distinction
between physical facts which are scalars
(that is, facts which have a magnitude but
no direction) and vectors (which have both
an intensity and a direction) played no decisive
part in his theorizing. His main concepts
were obviously meant to be scalars. There
is no particular spatial direction in a habit
strength, none in a reaction potential, and
none even in what he called a drive state.
Hence, the core of modern physics as developed
by Faraday and Maxwell had no influence on
his system. For this reason, and also because
he refused to consider motivation as an experienced
vector, he could not discover that the operations
of motivation appear to be isomorphic with
those of fields or forces in the brain.
But, if motivation is to be interpreted in
this fashion, certain assumptions often made
by Behav-[p. 734] iorists may no longer be
acceptable. Take the concept of learned drives.
As I understand this term, it means that
learning can attach a drive state to a great
variety of stimuli which, as such, are neutral
facts. Now, so long as a drive is not regarded
as a vector, this seems indeed quite possible.
But, if the drive in Hull's sense is replaced
by a motivational force which operates between
a subject and some perceptual fact, no arbitrary
connections of this kind can be established.
For, now motivation becomes the experienced
counterpart of a force in the brain, and
this force depends entirely upon the relation
between conditions in the subject and the
characteristics of the perceived object.
There can be no such force if the object
is, and remains, a neutral object. Forces
only operate between objects which have the
right properties. Any example of a force
in nature illustrates this fact.
How, then, are the observations to be explained
which are now interpreted as a learning of
drives? After all, some learning must be
involved when an originally neutral object
gradually begins to attract or repel a subject.
From the present point of view, only one
explanation is possible. Supposing that the
subject's need does not vary, learning must
change the characteristics of the object,
and thus transform it into an adequate motivation
object. One instance would be what Tolman
calls a sign Gestalt; in other words, the
neutral object would become the signal for
the appearance of something else which is
a proper motivational object. This expected
object would now be the object of the motivation.
Or also, when a neutral object is often accompanied
by facts which are natural motivational objects,
the characteristics of such facts may gradually
"creep into" the very appearance
of the formerly neutral object and thus make
it a proper motivational object. Years ago,
comparative psychologists in England stressed
the importance of such processes, to which
they gave the name "assimilation."
They regarded assimilation as a particularly
effective form of an association. And is
it not true that, as a consequence of learning,
a coffin looks forbidding or sinister? I
also know somebody to whom a bottle covered
with dust and just brought up from the cellar
looks most attractive.
As a further and particularly simple possibility,
the subject might just learn more about the
characteristics of the given object itself
than he knew in the beginning; and the characteristics
revealed by this learning might be such that
now the same object fits a need. It seems
to me that all these abilities ought to be
considered before we accept the thesis that
motivations in the present sense can be attached
to actually neutral objects. Incidentally,
similar changes of objects may also be responsible
for the developments which Gordon Allport
once regarded as evidence of "functional
autonomy."
You will ask me whether my suggestions lead
to any consequences in actual research. Most
surely, they do. But, since I have lived
so long in America, and have therefore gradually
become a most cautious scientist, I am now
preparing myself for the study of motivation
by investigating, first of all, the action
of dynamic vectors in simpler fields, such
as cognition and perception. It is a most
interesting occupation to compare motivational
action with dynamic events in those other
parts of psychology. When you do so, everything
looks different, not only in perception but
also in certain forms of learning. Specific
work? There is, and will be more of it than
I alone can possibly manage. Consequently,
I need help. And where do I expect to find
this help? I will tell you where.
The Behaviorist's premises, we remember,
lead to certain expectations and experiments.
What I have just said invites us to proceed
in another direction. I suggest that, in
this situation, we forget about schools.
The Behaviorist is convinced that his functional
concepts are those which we all ought to
use. The Gestalt psychologist, who deals
with a greater variety of both phenomenal
and physical concepts, expects more from
work based on such premises. Both parties
feel that their procedures are scientifically
sound. Why should we fight? Many experiments
done by Behaviorists seem to me to be very
good experiments. May I now ask the Behaviorists
to regard the use of some phenomenal facts,
and also of field physics, as perfectly permissible?
If we were to agree on these points, we could,
I am sure, do excellent work together. It
would be an extraordinary experience -- and
good for psychology.
[1] Address of the President at the sixty-seventh
Annual Convention of the American Psychological
Association, Cincinnati, Ohio, September
6, 1959.
|
