STOP ACTION PRINCIPLE

Guthrie and Horton were two researchers who followed Thorndike’s experimental paradigm.

The learning that took place in the puzzle box involved the strengthening of whatever behavior happened to be followed
by escape and food.

After their cats mastered the task (i.e., getting out of the box), there was relatively little variability from trial to trial for a
given cat, but there was considerable variability from one cat to the other.
STOP ACTION PRINCIPLE

Brown and Herrnstein (1975) used Guthrie and

Horton's results to add a principle to the Law of Effect,
which they called the stop-action principle:

The occurrence of the reinforcer (i.e., escape) serves to

stop the organism’s ongoing behavior and to strengthen
the association between the situation (the puzzle box)
and those precise behaviors that were occurring at the
moment of reinforcement

The specific bodily position and muscle movements

occurring at the time of reinforcement will have a
higher probability of occurring on the next trial
The more those particular behaviors yield the
reinforcement on subsequent trials, the stronger the S –
R connection will be.
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STOP ACTION PRINCIPLE

The stop-action principle states that because of this

strengthening process, the specific bodily position and
the muscle movements occurring at the moment of
reinforcement will have a higher probability of
occurring on the next trial. If the cat repeats this bodily
position and movements on the next trial, this will
produce a second reinforcer, thereby further
strengthening that S-R association even more. This sort
of positive feedback process should eventually produce
one S-R connection that is so much stronger than any
other that this particular response pattern will occur
with high probability, trial after trial. This reasoning
provides a simple explanation of why different cats
developed different stereotyped techniques for moving
the pole. For each cat, whatever random behavior
happened to get reinforced a few times would become
dominant
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over other behaviors.
Problem with Stop - Action Principle

Flaws in Guthrie's View

Firstly, the experiment was a tad contrived.

The response required to open the box was
only very simple. It was inevitable that the
cats might open it on one trial; so there was
no opportunity for trial and error learning to
even occur.

Secondly, we know from other experiments

that learning isn't all or none. It IS gradual,
and the rate of conditioning increases over
time.
Flaws in Stop
Problem with Guthrie's View
- Action Principle

Thirdly, responses AREN'T fixed to particular

stimuli alone. Lashley (1924) taught rats to
run a maze for food, and then flooded the
maze. The rats swam the maze, even
though swimming hadn't been taught as a
response to the maze stimulus.

Fourthly, taught behaviors aren't always as

specific as Guthrie would have us believe.
General movements can be taught.
Muenzinger (1928) taught rats to press a
bar for food, and noted that the rats didn't
always press the bar in exactly the same
way.

Finally, there's more to conditioning than

the amount of information provided. In fact,
changing stimuli across trials is actually
more likely to slow learning rather than
strengthen
5 it.