On the neurology of thinking
Karl H. Pribram · Systems Research and Behavioral Science · 2007
In the simplest case of learning by “trial and error,” the learner tries successive respohses to a given situation until he finds the correct one. Even in this simple type of learning there are at least two different components which contribute to the efficiency of the learning process: the degree to which the search is conducted systematically-for instance, not making the same wrong response twice-and the degree to which the correct response is fixed, so that no further mistakes will follow. If, in a later, different problem, a different response is correct, there is a third component-namely, the efficiency of unlearning or re-learning. The present study shows how ablations of different portions of the forebrain in monkeys affect the different components of trial and error learning, and the implications of these findings are discussed for the character of the neurological bases of the “active uncertainty” called thought.