B.F. Skinner, John Watson and Thesis

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Yes, rote behavior might require direct reinforcement. But "stimuli play a cognitive role as signals to the organism, leading to the formation of "cognitive maps" and to "latent learning" in the absence of reinforcement." For example, a child may learn how to kick a ball and receive praise from a parent, but the child honing his or her skill later in life is not merely seeking praise, but has learned something else from the skill, in contrast to what would be alleged by Skinner. Meanings that began as simple stimulus and response activities can be invested with a larger purpose. Tolman also placed less of an emphasis on biology, arguing that muscle movements were "too far removed from our perceptual capacities and explanatory purposes to provide suitable units for meaningful behavioral analysis," unlike kicking a ball, or playing soccer game (Hauser 2006).
On a higher-level learning activity, the "incoming impulses are usually worked over and elaborated in the central control room into a tentative cognitive-like map of the environment. And it is this tentative map, indicating routes and paths and environmental relationships, which finally determines what responses, if any, the animal will finally make" (Hauser 2006). It is Tolman's learning theory that has the most influence today, as children and even adult learners are encouraged and praised for doing something well, from writing their name to crossing a bridge they fear to cross, and are then encouraged to independently apply what they have learned from the activity in a more creative and higher-order fashion.

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