Edward L. ThorndikeBorn 31 Aug 1874; died 9 Aug 1949 at age 74. Edward L(ee) Thorndike was a U.S. psychologist considered to be the father of Educational Psychology who studied the process of learning in animals, children and adults. His theory of connectionism proposed that mental or behavioral responses to specific stimuli are the result of a process of trial and error that produces neural connections linking the stimuli with the most satisfactory response. Thorndike studied how animals learn through trial and error in his "puzzlebox" experiments, such as observing a hungry cat in a box which received food when it escaped. Gradually, the animal learned what it had to do to escape, and the escape time became shorter. He applied such associative learning to humans and to the practice of education.« |
