(1) Emphasis within conditioning and multiple-response learning is upon the acquiring of specific responses for verbal habits. Some psychologists warn against an overemphasis upon the automatic nature of learning that comes from exclusive concern with stimulus-response associations. They stress instead situations in which understanding is prominent. Kohler’s insight experiments pointed out how the arrangements of the problem make the solution easy or hard, and how a solution once-achieved with insight can be repeated or applied to hovel situations.
(2) Tolman’s sign-learning experiments also emphasize the role of understanding and the development of cognitive schemata. Results from an experiment on latent learning provide opposing evidence to theories they lay stress upon the acquisition of particular response sequences without taking into account the subject’s cognitive representation of the relationships involved.
(3) Something can be learned from each of these emphases. Learning goes on in part through associative processes, with little rational direction from the learner, and in art through cognitive processes, with which are learner perceives relationships and organized knowledge.