Thorndike ’ s research with Robert Woodworth on the theory of transfer found that learning one subject will only influence your ability to learn another subject if the subjects are similar.

Thorndike ’ s puzzle boxes were arranged so that the animal would be required to perform a certain response ( pulling a lever or pushing a button ), while he measured the amount of time it took them to escape.

Thorndike saw the same results with other animals, and he observed that there was no improvement even when he placed the animals ’ paws on the correct levers, buttons, or bar.

By observing and recording the animals ’ escapes and escape times, Thorndike was able to graph the times it took for the animals in each trial to escape, which eventually resulted in a learning curve.

# Thorndike ’ s law of exercise has two parts ; the law of use and the law of disuse.

Thorndike influenced many schools of psychology as Gestalt psychologists, psychologists studying the conditioned reflex, and behavioral psychologists all studied Thorndike ’ s research as a starting point.

Thorndike ’ s work would eventually be a major influence to B. F. Skinner and Clark Hull.

Thorndike ’ s research drove comparative psychology for fifty years, and influenced countless psychologists over that period of time, and even still today.

Köhler concluded that the chimps had not arrived at these methods through trial-and-error ( which American psychologist Edward Thorndike had claimed to be the basis of all animal learning, through his law of effect ), but rather that they had experienced an insight, in which, having realized the answer, they then proceeded to carry it out in a way that was, in Köhler ’ s words, “ unwaveringly purposeful .”

Thorndike ’ s careful observations of the escape of cats, dogs, and chicks from puzzle boxes led him to conclude that intelligent behavior may be compounded of simple associations and that inference to animal reason, insight, or consciousness is unnecessary and misleading.

During this time there was considerable progress in understanding simple associations ; notably, around 1930 the differences between Thorndike ’ s instrumental ( or operant ) conditioning and Pavlov ’ s classical ( or Pavlovian ) conditioning were clarified, first by Miller and Kanorski, and then by B. F. Skinner.

Robert Sternberg ’ s awards include the Sir Francis Galton Award from the International Association of Empirical Aesthetics, the Arthur W. Staats Award from the American Psychological Foundation and the Society for General Psychology and the E. L. Thorndike Award for Career Achievement in Educational Psychology Award from the Society for Educational Psychology of the American Psychological Association ( APA ).

Thorndike ’ s Puzzle-Box.

Thorndike ’ s Law of Effect can be compared to Darwin ’ s theory of natural selection in which successful organisms are more likely to prosper and survive to pass on their genes to the next generation, while the weaker, unsuccessful organisms are gradually replaced and “ stamped out ”.

The law of effect provided a framework for psychologist B. F. Skinner almost half a century later on the principles of operant conditioning, “ a learning process by which the effect, or consequence, of a response influences the future rate of production of that response .” Skinner would later use an updated version of Thorndike ’ s puzzle box, which has contributed immensely to our perception and understanding of the law of effect in modern society and how it relates to operant conditioning.

* 1939 Emlyn Williams ’ s The Corn is Green, starring the author and Sybil Thorndike, was playing at the time of compulsory closure due to the outbreak of war.

* 1947 Priestley ’ s The Linden Tree with Lewis Casson and Sybil Thorndike played 400 performances.

* 1963 Bill Naughton ’ s Alfie and the return of Sybil Thorndike in William Douglas-Home ’ s The Reluctant Peer.

* APA ’ s E. L. Thorndike Award ( 1978 )

This is different from Edward Thorndike ’ s cat experiment findings.

Thorndike contributed arithmetic books based on learning theory.

Thorndike was a pioneer not only in behaviorism and in studying learning, but also in using animals in psychology experiments.

Thorndike was able to create a theory of learning based on his research with animals.

From his research with puzzle boxes, Thorndike was able to create his own theory of learning.

Thorndike was one of the first pioneers of active learning, a theory that proposes letting children learn themselves, rather than receiving instruction from teachers.

Thorndike was the first to apply psychological principles to the area of learning.

In 1929, Thorndike addressed his early theory of learning, and claimed that he had been wrong.

The learning theories of Thorndike and Pavlov were later synthesized by Clark Hull.

Operant conditioning, sometimes called instrumental learning, was first extensively studied by Edward L. Thorndike ( 1874 – 1949 ), who observed the behavior of cats trying to escape from home-made puzzle boxes.

Thorndike produced the first known learning curves through this procedure.

But by the early 20th century, Edward Thorndike was experimenting on learning that posited a connectionist type network.

In the early stages of empirical research of motor memory Edward Thorndike, a leading pioneer in the study of motor memory, was among the first to acknowledge learning can occur without conscious awareness.

Skinner's empirical work expanded on earlier research on trial-and-error learning by researchers such as Thorndike and Guthrie with both conceptual reformulations — Thorndike's notion of a stimulus – response " association " or " connection " was abandoned ; and methodological ones — the use of the " free operant ," so called because the animal was now permitted to respond at its own rate rather than in a series of trials determined by the experimenter procedures.

Thorndike uses " learning to do an act from seeing it done.

Edward Thorndike first tested his theory on learning behavior using a customized puzzle box in which a hungry cat was placed.

The group at Columbia, led by James McKeen Cattell, Edward L. Thorndike, and Robert S. Woodworth, was often regarded as a second ( after Chicago ) " school " of American Functionalism ( see, e. g., Heidbredder, 1933 ), although they never used that term themselves, because their research focused on the applied areas of mental testing, learning, and education.

This theoretical framework was developed in the early 20th century with the animal learning experiments of Ivan Pavlov, Edward Thorndike, Edward C. Tolman, Clark L. Hull, B. F. Skinner and many others.

Thorndike believed a learning curve took place with each trial as the association increased between the stimulus and the successful response of the escape.

Thorndike was interested in whether animals could learn tasks through imitation or observation.

B. F. Skinner, like Thorndike, put animals in boxes and observed them to see what they were able to learn.

Thorndike is well known for his experiments on animals, which supports the Law of Effect.

However, it is interesting to note that many cognitive experiments with animals made, and still make, ingenious use of conditioning methods pioneered by Thorndike and Pavlov.

George Thorndike Angell ( June 5, 1823 – March 16, 1909 ) was an American lawyer, philanthropist, and advocate for the humane treatment of animals.