The Act of Creation (72 page)

Thus neuro-physiological considerations, laboratory work with animals,
and the observations of ethologists of the Lorenz-Tinbergen school, all
seem to converge in the same direction. Even the embryological studies
of Coghill (pp. 430 ff.) and Weiss (p. 434 seq.), with their emphasis
on spontaneous, intrinsic activities on all levels of the organic
hierarchy, lend indirect support to the primacy of the exploratory
drive. The lesson of fifty years of rats-in-mazes has been summed up,
e.g. by Thacker in the statement that 'motivation for learning is central
and neural . . . organized and proliferated cognitive structure itself
is the goal towards which learning moves'. [39]
In other words,
the motivation for learning is to learn
.
Thorpe, for all his habitual caution, has gone even further. He starts
with a rhetorical question: 'And so it becomes important to consider
how far there is evidence of learning motivated by a general drive
quite independent of the motivation of particular instincts'; [40] and
he concludes that 'there is now substantial and precise evidence for a
general drive in a number of animals, and this can be looked upon as an
indication of a primary motivation which to some extent, however slight,
is superior to the governing centres of any of the instincts or of their
combinations, and finds its most characteristic expression in exploratory
behaviour in all its various forms'. [41]
In his monograph on "The Nature of Explanation" (1943), which has
inspired a great many neurologists and computer-theorists, the Cambridge
psychologist K. J. Craik put forward the idea that the function of the
organism's nervous system is to set up a symbolic model of the external
world: 'The brain . . . imitates or models external processes. The
function of such symbolization is plain. If the organism carries
a "small-scale model" of external reality and of its own possible
actions within its head, it is able to try out various alternatives,
conclude which is the best of them, react to future situations before
they arise, utilize the knowledge of past events in dealing with the
present and future, and every way to react in a much fuller, safer,
and more competent manner to the emergencies which face it.' [42]
To extract information from the chaotic environment is as vital to the
organism as it is essential for it to extract specific forms of energy
from sunlight and food. If we assume this to be an inherent tendency
of all living organisms, then we must also assume the existence of
an inherent primary drive to explore the environment for relevant
information.
Thus the organism functions not merely by responding to the environment,
but by asking it questions. The main incentive to its exploratory
activities are novelty, surprise, conflict, uncertainty.* The
exploratory drive may combine with, or be instrumental to, other drives
-- sex, nutrition, anxiety. But in its purest form -- in play, latent
learning, unrewarded problem-solving -- 'stimuli' and 'responses' are
undistinguishable parts of the same feedback loop along which excitation
is running in a circle like a kitten chasing its tail. 'The scientist',
wrote Allport, 'by the very nature of his commitment, creates more and
more questions, never fewer. Indeed the measure of our intellectual
maturity, one philosopher suggests, is our capacity to feel less and
less satisfied with our answers to better problems.' [43]
We have thus established a broader base for the scientist's motivation as
discussed earlier on (Book One,
XI
). The exploratory
drive may combine with the self-transcending mysticism of a Kepler or
with the self-asserting vanity of a Galileo. Each original artist has an
element of the explorer in him: the poet does not 'manipulate words' as
Watson thought, he explores the emotive and descriptive potentialities of
language; the painter is engaged, throughout his life, in learning to see.

 

 

 

NOTES

 

 

To
p. 496
. Ernest Jones says in his biography:
'Freud partook in much of the prudishness of his time, when allusions
to lower limbs were improper'. He then gives several examples -- such
as Freud 'sternly forbidding' his fiancée to stay 'with an old
friend, recently married, who, as she delicately put it, "had married
before her wedding" ' (Jones, 1953, Vol. I, p. 142).

 

 

To
p. 498
. 'The simple reflex is probably a
purely abstract conception, because all parts of the nervous system
are connected together and no part of it is probably ever capable of
reaction without affecting and being affected by various other parts
. . . the simple reflex is a convenient, if not a probable, fiction'
(Sherrington, 1906, p. 8).

 

 

To
p. 500
. 'His thinking was particular, not
general. When he thought of secondary drive, he thought of . . . fear or
anxiety. When he thought of secondary reinforcement, he thought of such
things as . . . tokens substituting for food' (Hilgard, 1958, p. 177).

 

 

To
p. 507
. Uncertainty is more arousing than
certainty -- as witnessed by the universal passion for gambling which
coincided with the consolidation of the British Welfare State. Its
rudiments can be found even in the rat and pigeon -- as Skinner himself
pointed out -- when rewards are given rarely and irregularly; this
treatment induces the creature to go on trying for an astonishingly long
time without a single reward -- just as Britons will fill in week after
week their football coupons.

 

 

 

 

 

IX
PLAYING AND PRETENDING
Logically every book on learning theory ought to have between the sections
on 'innate behaviour' and 'acquired behaviour' a chapter on 'learning
through play' -- or, at least, on 'ludic behaviour' (from
ludere
,
to play) -- a term coined by Berlyne, presumably to make the subject
sound more respectable. The role of play in the learning and practice of
skills is too obvious to naturalists and pedagogues to need stressing;
yet play was another stepchild of the Psychology of the Dark Ages. Its
connotations of curiosity, exploration, frivolousness and joie de vivre
did not appeal to the spirit of the times; its unpredictability did
not fit the S.-R. schema; above all, its self-reinforcing motivation,
dissociated from the primary physiological needs, stood in flagrant
contradiction to any drive-reducing theory. Thus the concept of 'ludic
behaviour' was objectionable on the same grounds as the concept of
the exploratory drive; the former appears in fact to be the purest
manifestation of the latter.
Difficulties of Definition
A further reason for this neglect may have been the difficulty of defining
'play'* without making the definition circular. By way of elimination,
let us try to distinguish between true play and vacuum activities during
maturation. A young bird toys with straws and feathers 'aimlessly'
before the other action-patterns of the nest-building instinct have
matured; displays of fragmentary mating behaviour before sexual maturity
fall into the same category. Some of these activities look playful in
the sense of serving no apparent purpose (although in fact they may be
useful as 'practice runs' in develop ing a skill); yet they can hardly
be regarded as true play because they display all the rigidity of fixed
action-patterns. They are performances of isolated bits of the animal's
built-in repertory, and thus contrary to appearances, in the direct
service of 'primary biological needs' in the classic sense. This implies
that 'true play' is dissociated from those needs; that 'it does not have
a biological function that we easily recognize'. [1] But precisely at
this point the danger of circular definitions comes in: to say that play
does not serve a primary need reopens the whole question of what needs,
drives, motivations, should be called 'primary'. Thus, for instance, in
Drever's
Dictionary of Psychology
play is defined as an 'activity,
which may be physical or mental, existing apparently for its own sake,
or having for the individual as its main aim the pleasure which the
activity itself yields;
usually involving also a detachment from
serious aims and ends
. . .' If we then ask 'What are serious aims
and ends?' the answer is obviously: those which are not playful. The way
out of the vicious circle is to 'take play seriously', as an activity
with a definite 'primary biological function' -- viz. to give free rein
to the exploratory drive. But such a view can only be held once it is
recognized that the exploratory drive itself originates in a 'primary
need' equal in importance to the others.
It seems to be wrong, however, to go to the opposite extreme and stretch
the meaning of the word 'play' so as to cover
all
manifestations
of the exploratory drive -- as Berlyne seems to do when he says that
'in human beings, ludic behaviour includes everything that is classified
as recreation, entertainment, or "idle curiosity", as well as art,
philosophy, and pure (as distinct from applied) science. . . . ' [2] This,
of course, is a matter of definitions, but I think it more expedient
to use the word play in a more precise and restricted sense, which is
closer to its colloquial usage. A small child, kicking a ball about,
plays; a professional football 'player' works hard for a living. When the
monkey takes the puzzle apart and puts it together again, he 'plays';
when there is food inside the puzzle he 'strives'. Two chess masters
may play a friendly café game; in a tournament they
compete
.
The examples show how fluid the borderlines are, yet the principle is
clear:
the degree of 'playfulness' in an action decreases in proportion
as the exploratory drive is adulterated by other drives
; or, to put
it differently: as the self-arousing and self-rewarding nature of the
activity, characteristic of the exploratory drive, yields to striving
for specific rewards. This foreshadows a similarly continuous, graded
relationship between the dynamics of latent and reinforced learning,
to be discussed later.
The Ludic and the Ludicrous
It follows from the above that play can only arise at an evolutionary
level or in such special situations, where the organism has been partially
liberated from the tyranny of 'primary needs' in the traditional sense,
and can afford to 'take time off' to play. This happens among animals
where the young mature slowly and enjoy prolonged parental protection
and care; under the sheltered conditions of domestication and captivity;
and in human history, of course, with the increase of security against
the hazards of the natural and social environment. To quote Thorpe
again: 'The prolonged childhood of the human species [has] been of
prime importance in the process of freeing appetitive behaviour from
the primary needs. This and man's growing mastery of his environment
have been the essential first steps not only for play but for all those
activities which transcend mere maintenance and which underlie the mental
and spiritual development of man; activities which, though originating in
"play", have produced real advantages in knowledge and comprehension,
of the scheme of things. . . .' [3]
A related process of emancipation, namely the detachment of reasoning
from emotion, gave rise, as we saw, to humour. Man's emergent ability
to perceive a thing or event simultaneously in two incompatible
mental contexts enabled him to take the step from the 'ludic' to the
'ludicrous'. The historic link between the two is probably reflected in
the word 'ludicrum' -- stage play. The actor's or bard's pretence of
being himself and somebody else at the same time was at the origin of
tragedy and epic; a similar act of magic -- carving or painting a thing
which is meant to be something else -- was the origin ofrepresentational
art. These, of course, are activities on an incomparably higher level
than the play of kittens and birds; yet as Lorenz has pointed out, both
imitation and pretence occur already on the animal level. When puppies
fight in play, they do not hurt each other or their masters; they conform
to certain 'rules of the game'. Whether these have their phylogenetical
origin in the ritualized fights of their wild ancestors or whether they
are acquired by social learning, the fact remains that such fights are
'not in earnest' and necessitate 'bringing in the
higher
or more
psychological concept of
pretence
.' [4]
Equally suggestive is the so-called 'sub-song' of birds. As distinct from
the true or full song which is fixed and species-specific, the sub-song
is 'a somewhat amorphous, rambling utterance'. [5] Birds indulge in
it when their 'primary needs' are not pressing -- before the mating
season or in captivity -- as a kind of vocal play which might either
represent practice for the true song, or else a form of 'pretending':
some birds which never imitate alien species in their true song do so in
their sub-song. Thorpe compares this vocal imitation to the process by
which human infants learn to speak -- from 'amorphous' babblings to the
imitation of sounds produced by their elders (echolalia). Thus imitation,
pretence, as well as art, seem to have their precursors in the playful
activities of the higher mammalia and birds.
To sum up: 'exploratory behaviour is motivated by the exploratory
drive'. In play, its purest form, it is generalized, non-specific, and
indiscriminate -- a puppy let into an unfamiliar room rushes to and
fro, sniffs at every corner, picks up any object, beside itself with
excitement under the incentive of novelty. On the other hand, when the
exploratory drive is canalized towards more specific targets, it results
in latent learning and, still higher up, in problem-solving. While play
is self-rewarding, in problem-solving the search itself may also be
self-rewarding to varying degrees, but the principal reward is finding
the solution. In this broader sense, of course, the law of effect remains
valid; but the reward, the pleasure derived from success, is specific to
the exploratory drive -- its 'consummatory act' as it were -- and not
a premium extraneous to its nature. If the problem was an easy one,
the solution may be both a reward and an incentive to have a go at
another problem at once; if the drive was obstructed, involving stress,
the solution is tension-reducing. And, of course, the solution may carry
supplementary rewards -- the carrot of satisfied ambition, for instance.
In laboratory experiments the animal's exploratory possibilities are
restricted, and artificial motivations replace the drive as it operates
in freedom. At the same time, animals in the laboratory are induced
to pay attention to, and discriminate between, stimuli which under
normal circumstances would be biologically irrelevant to them; or else
to perform motor actions (e.g. Skinner's ping-pong playing pigeons)
which are outside their natural repertory. Tricks of this kind can be
taught only by stamping in; and attempts to build a universal theory
of learning on such methods carry the danger of confusing a travelling
circus with Plato's Academy.
NOTE
To