trial and error

Examples of trial and error in the following topics:

• Basic Principles of Operant Conditioning: Thorndike's Law of Effect

  • Thorndike discovered that with successive trials, cats would learn from previous behavior, limit ineffective actions, and escape from the box more quickly.
  • He observed that the cats seemed to learn, from an intricate trial and error process, which actions should be continued and which actions should be abandoned; a well-practiced cat could quickly remember and reuse actions that were successful in escaping to the food reward.
  • From a young age, we learn which actions are beneficial and which are detrimental through a trial and error process.
  • As the number of trials increased, the cats were able to escape more quickly by learning.
  • Over successive trials, actions that were helpful in escaping the box and receiving the food reward were replicated and repeated at a higher rate.

• Kohler and Insight Learning

  • This theory of learning differs from the trial-and-error ideas that were proposed before it.
  • There is no gradual shaping or trial and error involved; instead, internal organizational processes cause new behavior.
  • Initially, Sultan tried to reach the fruit with the short stick and failed.
  • and Isaac Newton's realization that a falling apple and the orbiting moon are both pulled by the same force.
  • While both insight and heuristics can be used for problem solving and information processing, a heuristic is a simplistic rule of thumb; it is habitual automatic thinking that frees us from complete and systematic processing of information.

• Behavioral Psychology

  • Watson, Edward Lee Thorndike, and B.
  • Edward Lee Thorndike was an American psychologist whose work on animal behavior and the learning process led to the "law of effect."
  • Skinner saw human behavior as shaped by trial and error through reinforcement and punishment, without any reference to inner conflicts or perceptions.
  • In his theory, mental disorders represented maladaptive behaviors that were learned and could be unlearned through behavior modification.
  • Skinner's radical behaviorism advanced a "triple contingency" model, which explored the links between the environment, behavior, and the mind.

• Cognitive Development in Adolescence

  • In adolescence, changes in the brain interact with experience, knowledge, and social demands and produce rapid cognitive growth.
  • An individual can solve problems through abstract concepts and utilize hypothetical and deductive reasoning.
  • Adolescents use trial and error to solve problems, and the ability to systematically solve a problem in a logical and methodical way emerges.
  • The thoughts, ideas, and concepts developed at this period of life greatly influence one's future life and play a major role in character and personality formation.
  • Processing speed improves sharply between age five and middle adolescence, levels off around age 15, and does not appear to change between late adolescence and adulthood.

• Problem Solving

  • Our mental sets are shaped by our past experiences and habits.
  • There are many strategies that can make solving a problem easier and more efficient.
  • The most effective depends on the type of problem and the resources at hand.
  • Morphological analysis: assessing the output and interactions of an entire system.
  • Trial and error: testing possible solutions until the right one is found.

• Accuracy vs. Precision

  • When researchers collect data, they strive for both accuracy and precision so that their data are valid and they can reduce variance in their results due to error.
  • Measurement error can occur for a variety of reasons.
  • The errors would be "systematic"  because the same amount of error would be introduced each time you weighed something.
  • However, if you and your lab mate simply overestimate or underestimate the weight each time because you are not paying attention, this would be an example of "random" error.
  • The error is random because it will vary each time due to human error.

• Conformity

  • Both men and women will conform to current norms in order to be accepted by society and avoid social rejection.
  • This influence is primarily informational and depends on consistent adherence to a position, the degree of defection from the majority, and the status and self-confidence of the minority members.
  • Over the course of several trials, subjects were required to select the comparison line that corresponded in length to the reference line.
  • The participant and confederates were instructed to provide their answers out loud, and the confederates were told to sometimes unanimously provide a correct answer and sometimes an incorrect answer.
  • In a control group with no pressure to conform, participants had an error rate of less 1%.

• Memory Distortions and Biases

  • Intrusion errors are frequently studied through word-list recall tests.
  • Intrusion errors can be divided into two categories.
  • The first are known as extra-list errors, which occur when incorrect and non-related items are recalled, and were not part of the word study list.
  • The second type of intrusion errors are known as intra-list errors, which consist of irrelevant recall for items that were on the word study list. 
  • Evaluate how mood, suggestion, and imagination can lead to memory errors or bias

• Research Methods for Evaluating Treatment Efficacy

  • The therapeutic relationship is defined as the feelings and attitudes that a client and therapist have toward one another and the manner in which those feelings and attitudes are expressed.
  • Quantitative methods include randomly controlled clinical trials, correlational studies over the course of counseling, and laboratory studies about specific counseling processes and outcome variables.
  • A randomized controlled trial (RCT) is a type of scientific (often medical) experiment, where the people being studied are randomly allocated to one or another of the different treatments under study.
  • The RCT is often considered the gold standard for a clinical trial.
  • In a randomized controlled trial, people are randomly assigned to different groups that are receiving different treatment or no treatment at all, in order to study the effects of various treatment interventions.

• Specific Learning Disorder

  • Individuals with dysgraphia typically show multiple writing-related deficiencies, such as grammatical and punctuation errors within sentences, poor paragraph organization, multiple spelling errors, and excessively poor penmanship.
  • problems during pregnancy and birth.
  • Depending on the type and severity of their disability, interventions and technology may be used to help the individual learn strategies that will foster future success.
  • School psychologists and other qualified professionals often help design and manage such interventions.
  • Dysgraphia is often characterized by grammatical and punctuation errors within sentences, poor paragraph organization, multiple spelling errors, and excessively poor penmanship.