Errorless learning was an instructional design introduced by psychologist
Charles Ferster
Charles Bohris Ferster (1 November 1922 – 3 February 1981) was an American behavioral psychologist. A pioneer of applied behavior analysis, he developed errorless learning and was a colleague of B.F. Skinner's at Harvard University, co-autho ...
in the 1950s as part of his studies on what would make the most effective learning environment.
B. F. Skinner
Burrhus Frederic Skinner (March 20, 1904 – August 18, 1990) was an American psychologist, behaviorist, author, inventor, and Social philosophy, social philosopher. He was a professor of psychology at Harvard University from 1958 until his ret ...
was also influential in developing the technique, noting that,
...errors are not necessary for learning to occur. Errors are not a function of learning or vice versa nor are they blamed on the learner. Errors are a function of poor analysis of behavior, a poorly designed shaping program, moving too fast from step to step in the program, and the lack of the prerequisite behavior necessary for success in the program.
Errorless learning can also be understood at a synaptic level, using the principle of
Hebbian learning
Hebbian theory is a neuroscientific theory claiming that an increase in synaptic efficacy arises from a presynaptic cell's repeated and persistent stimulation of a postsynaptic cell. It is an attempt to explain synaptic plasticity, the adaptatio ...
("Neurons that fire together wire together").
Many of Skinner's other students and followers continued to test the idea. In 1963,
Herbert Terrace
Herbert S. Terrace (born 29 November 1936) is a Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Columbia University. His work covers a broad set of research interests that include behaviorism, animal cognition, ape language and the evolution of langu ...
wrote a paper describing an experiment with pigeons which allows
discrimination learning
Discrimination learning is defined in psychology as the ability to respond differently to different stimuli. This type of learning is used in studies regarding operant and classical conditioning. Operant conditioning involves the modification of a ...
to occur with few or even with no responses to the negative stimulus (abbreviated S−). A negative
stimulus
A stimulus is something that causes a physiological response. It may refer to:
*Stimulation
**Stimulus (physiology), something external that influences an activity
**Stimulus (psychology), a concept in behaviorism and perception
*Stimulus (economi ...
is a stimulus associated with undesirable consequences (e.g., absence of
reinforcement
In behavioral psychology, reinforcement is a consequence applied that will strengthen an organism's future behavior whenever that behavior is preceded by a specific antecedent stimulus. This strengthening effect may be measured as a higher fr ...
). In discrimination learning, an error is a response to the S−, and according to Terrace errors are not required for successful discrimination performance.
Principles
A simple discrimination learning procedure is one in which a subject learns to associate one stimulus, S+ (positive stimulus), with reinforcement (e.g. food) and another, S− (negative stimulus), with extinction (e.g. absence of food). For example, a pigeon can learn to peck a red key (S+), and avoid a green key (S−). Using traditional procedures, a pigeon would be initially trained to peck a red key (S+). When the pigeon was responding consistently to the red key (S+), a green key (S−) would be introduced. At first the pigeon would also respond to the green key (S−) but gradually responses to this key would decrease, because they are not followed by food, so that they occurred only a few times or even never.
Terrace (1963) found that discrimination learning could occur without errors when the training begins early in
operant conditioning and visual stimuli (S+ and S−) like colors are used that differ in terms of brightness, duration and wavelength. He used a fading procedure in which the brightness and duration differences between the S+ and the S− were decreased progressively leaving only the difference in wavelength. In other words, the S+ and S− were initially presented with different brightness and duration, i.e., the S+ would appear for 5 s and fully red, and the S− would appear for 0.5 s and dark. Gradually, over successive presentations, the duration of the S− and its brightness were gradually increased until the keylight was fully green for 5 s.
Studies of
implicit memory
In psychology, implicit memory is one of the two main types of long-term human memory. It is acquired and used unconsciously, and can affect thoughts and behaviours. One of its most common forms is procedural memory, which allows people to perfo ...
and
implicit learning Implicit learning is the learning of complex information in an unintentional manner, without awareness of what has been learned. According to Frensch and Rünger (2003) the general definition of implicit learning is still subject to some controver ...
from cognitive psychology and cognitive neuropsychology have provided additional theoretical support for errorless learning methods (e.g., Brooks and Baddeley, 1976, Tulving and Schacter, 1990). Implicit memory is known to be poor at eliminating errors, but can be used to compensate when explicit memory function is impaired. In experiments on amnesiac patients, errorless implicit learning was more effective because it reduced the possibility of errors "sticking" in amnesiacs' memories.
Effects
The errorless learning procedure is highly effective in reducing the number of responses to the S− during training. In Terrace's (1963) experiment, subjects trained with the conventional discrimination procedure averaged over 3000 S− (errors) responses during 28 sessions of training; whereas subjects trained with the errorless procedure averaged only 25 S− (errors) responses in the same number of sessions.
Later, Terrace (1972) claimed not only that the errorless learning procedure improves long-term discrimination performance, but also that: 1) S− does not become aversive and so does not elicit "aggressive" behaviors, as it often does with conventional training; 2) S− does not develop
inhibitory
An inhibitory postsynaptic potential (IPSP) is a kind of synaptic potential that makes a postsynaptic neuron less likely to generate an action potential.Purves et al. Neuroscience. 4th ed. Sunderland (MA): Sinauer Associates, Incorporated; 2008. ...
properties; 3) positive
behavioral contrast Behavioral contrast refers to a change in the strength of one response that occurs when the rate of reward of a second response, or of the first response under different conditions, is changed. For example, suppose that a pigeon
Columbidae ( ...
to S+ does not occur. In other words, Terrace has claimed that the "by-products" of conventional discrimination learning do not occur with the errorless procedure.
Limits
However, some evidence suggests that errorless learning may not be as qualitatively different from conventional training as Terrace initially claimed. For example, Rilling (1977) demonstrated in a series of experiments that these "by-products" can occur after errorless learning, but that their effects may not be as large as in the conventional procedure; and Marsh and Johnson (1968) found that subjects given errorless training were very slow to make a discrimination reversal.
Applications
Interest from psychologists studying basic research on errorless learning declined after the 1970s. However, errorless learning attracted the interest of researchers in
applied psychology, and studies have been conducted with both children (e.g., educational settings) and adults (e.g.
Parkinson's
Parkinson's disease (PD), or simply Parkinson's, is a long-term degenerative disorder of the central nervous system that mainly affects the motor system. The symptoms usually emerge slowly, and as the disease worsens, non-motor symptoms becom ...
patients). Errorless learning continues to be of practical interest to animal trainers, particularly dog trainers.
Errorless learning has been found to be effective in helping memory-impaired people learn more effectively.
[B. Wilson (2009) Memory Rehabilitation: Integrating Theory and Practice, The Guilford Press, 284 pages.] The reason for the method's effectiveness is that, while those with sufficient memory function can remember mistakes and learn from them, those with memory impairment may have difficulty remembering not only which methods work, but may strengthen incorrect responses over correct responses, such as via emotional stimuli. See also the reference by Brown to its application in teaching mathematics to undergraduates.
See also
*
Evidence-based learning
Evidence-based education (EBE) is the principle that education practices should be based on the best available scientific evidence, rather than tradition, personal judgement, or other influences. Evidence-based education is related to evidence-base ...
References
* R. Brown
Getting students not to fear confusion(2012) Using these ideas for undergraduate teaching of mathematics!
* BF Skinner biography. http://faculty.coe.uh.edu/smcneil/cuin6373/idhistory/skinner.html
* Rosales Ruiz, J. (2007). 'Teaching Dogs the Clicker Way' In: ''Teaching Dogs Magazine'', May/June 2007.
* Mazur, J.E. (2006). ''Learning and behavior''. 6th edition. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
* Rilling, M. (1977). Stimulus control and inhibitory processes. In: W.K. Honing & J.E.R Staddon (Orgs.), ''Handbook of operant behavior'' (pp. 432–480). Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
* Skinner, B. F. (1937). Two types of conditioned reflex: a reply to Konorski and Miller. ''Journal of General Psychology'', 16, 272-279.
* Skinner, B. F. (1938). The Behavior of Organisms. New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts.
* Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and Human Behavior. New York: Macmillan.
* Terrace, H.S. (1963). Discrimination learning with and without "errors". ''Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior'', 6, 1–27.
* Terrace, H.S. (1972). By-products of discrimination learning. In G.H. Bower (Ed.), ''The psychology of learning and motivation'' (Vol. 5). New York: Academic Press.
Learning