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.

In Thorndike ’ s learning curve the animals had difficulty escaping at first, but eventually “ caught on ” and escaped faster and faster with each successive puzzle box trial, until they eventually leveled off.

# 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.

CBT was primarily developed through an integration of behavior therapy ( first popularized by Edward Thorndike ) with cognitive psychology research, first by Donald Meichenbaum and several other authors with the label of cognitive-behavior modification in the late 1970s.

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.

The work of Thorndike, Pavlov and a little later of the outspoken behaviorist John B. Watson set the direction of much research on animal behavior for more than half a century.

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.

Its main influences were Ivan Pavlov, who investigated classical conditioning although he did not necessarily agree with behaviorism or behaviorists, Edward Lee Thorndike, John B. Watson who rejected introspective methods and sought to restrict psychology to experimental methods, and B. F. Skinner who conducted research on operant conditioning.

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.

Note: the experiment was organised on order by the IALA ( International Auxiliary Language Association ) by Dr. Edward Thorndike, director of the psychology section of the institute for pedagogic research at Columbia University.

Edward Thorndike, known for his contributions to educational psychology, coined the term " halo effect " and was the first to support it with empirical research.

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.

Skinner based most of his work on the research done by Edward Lee Thorndike at Harvard University in the 1890s.

The cast combined professional actors such as Daniel Thorndike ( the author's son ), Michael Fields, Steven Povey and Ben Barton, along with various amateurs from the marshes.

This claim has been disputed by historians of science including Lynn Thorndike, John Maxson Stillman and George Sarton and by Bacon's editor Robert Steele, both in terms of authenticity of the work, and with respect to the decryption method.

" Shaw the Villager and Human Being — a Biographical symposium ", with a preface by Dame Sybil Thorndike ( 1962 ).

The Kennedy – Thorndike experiment shown with interference fringes.

Along with Edward L. Thorndike, Yerkes was a member and Chairman of the Committee on Inheritance of Mental Traits, part of the Eugenics Record Office, which was founded by Charles Benedict Davenport, a former teacher of Yerkes at Harvard.

Thorndike composed three different word books to assist teachers with word and reading instruction.

For the edition broadcast on Saturday 23 November 1963, the day after the assassination of United States President John F. Kennedy, TW3 produced a shortened 20-minute programme with no satire, reflecting on the loss, including a contribution from Dame Sybil Thorndike and the tribute song " In the Summer of His Years " sung by Martin with lyrics by Herbert Kretzmer.

Together with the Ives – Stilwell and Kennedy – Thorndike experiments, it forms one of the fundamental tests of special relativity theory.

It was very popular between the wars, with appearances by Gracie Fields, Sybil Thorndike, Ivor Novello, Markova and Noël Coward.

1826 map of Portage County with Brimfield labeled by its former name " Thorndike.

It was known as Swamptown, Beartown, Greenbriar, and Wylestown, before town leaders agreed to name it " Thorndike " at the establishment of the township government in 1818 after Israel Thorndike, one of the original proprietors ( along with John Wyles ), who had agreed to donate land for a town square.

In 1954 he toured Australia in a company which included his wife, Meriel Forbes, together with Sybil Thorndike and her husband, Lewis Casson, playing Terence Rattigan's plays The Sleeping Prince and Separate Tables.

2 illustrates a Kennedy – Thorndike apparatus with perpendicular arms and assumes the validity of Lorentz contraction.

* Macbeth ( 1926, Shakespeare, Sybil Thorndike's Prince Theatre, London production with Thorndike, Henry Ainley, Lewis Casson, and design by Frank Brangwyn, 1926, music later incorporated in Macbeth Overture )

Toward a literate world ; with a foreword by Edward L. Thorndike.

Educational psychologist Edward Thorndike of Columbia University noted that in Russia and Germany teachers were using word frequency counts to match books with students.