Biography of Charles R. Gallistel

摘要

Psychologists have long been interested in the study of learning and memory. Central to the basic understanding of learning is a concept called "the learning curve," which is used to mathematically describe the emergence of a learned behavior. Visually, the learning curve is depicted by plotting the magnitude or frequency of the conditioned response as a function of the number of reinforcements. Some reinforcements are positive, such as food, whereas others are negative, such as a short electrical shock to the footpad. Despite a lack of supporting basic research, psychological dogma has held that learning is a gradual process, with behavior changing slowly over time, according to Charles R. Gallistel, professor of psychology and cognitive science at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey in New Brunswick. "You would think that determining what the learning curve actually looks like would be about as basic as you could get, and that they must have done that 100 years ago," Gallistel said. "But, in fact, no one ever did."