4.2 The role of cognitive processes in the formation of skills

Known zoopsychologists G. Spencer, C. Lloyd-Morgan, G. Jennings and E. Thorndike as a result of research conducted in the middle of the XX century, came to the conclusion that the process of formation of skills is carried out through "trial and error." This meant the formation of skills both in terms of orientation among the components of the environment, and in the formation of new combinations of movements. The animal selected random actions that led to a successful result, and are fixed. Actions that do not lead to success are gradually eliminated and not fixed, and “successful” actions, repeatedly repeating themselves, form skills. Thus, the concept of "trial and error" states that all actions are performed spontaneously and randomly, while the animal turns out to be passive in relation to the components of the environment.

However, the formation of skills as a process requires an activity of the animal, a selective attitude towards the components of the environment. In the 1920s. the concept of "trial and error" appeared opponents - the American neo-behavioral psychologist E. Tolman (1886–1959; Purposeful Behavior in Animals and Man, 1932), the Russian physiologist V.P. Protopopov (1880–1957) and other scholars. They disagreed with the notions of chaos and non-directionality of animal movements when solving problems. In their view, skills are formed in the process of active orienting motor activity of the animal. The animal analyzes the situation and actively selects those actions that are appropriate for achieving the goal. In other words, the resulting movements are adequate to the goal. The decisive factor here is not a random choice, but an active motor analysis. These views have experimental confirmation. The experiments of scientists I.F. Deshiella, C. Spence, and V. Shipley, conducted in the middle of the 20th century, showed that a rat, when it enters the maze, often reaches dead ends that are located towards the target (food bait) than are located in the opposite direction. Initially, the rat conducts the first motor orientation in the labyrinth, and on its basis creates a pattern of movement, i.e., its actions are not accidental. Thus, in the development of skills as a result of primary active orientation in animals, directed actions arise.

These data allowed the Polish zoopsychologist I. Krechevsky to put forward the assumption that the animal is guided in solving various problems with a kind of “hypothesis”. They are especially vivid if animals face a task that is obviously not solvable for them. For example, an animal is placed in a labyrinth, the doors in which are closed and opened without any system or sequence, randomly. In this case, according to Krechevsky, each animal builds its own “hypothesis” and repeatedly tests it. If, after repeating the actions, the “hypothesis” does not lead to a solution, the animal abandons it and builds another one, which it also checks, etc. In such a situation, each animal, regardless of changing external conditions, behaves in the same way. In experiments on rats in a maze with randomly closing passages, each animal acted in accordance with its “strategy”. Some rats alternated turns to the right and left with a clear regularity. Others at the first fork at each fork turned right, and when this did not lead to success, they began to turn left constantly. Thus, in constantly changing conditions, the animals tried to reveal a certain principle and act according to it. Krechevsky concluded that this abstract "principle" is due to the inner "tuning" of the animal.

Krechevsky drew attention to the complexity of the behavioral reactions of the animal at the initial stage of solving the problem - during this period the role of exploratory behavior is particularly pronounced. His concept focuses on the active behavior of the animal, its manifestation of the initiative. In addition, the concept of Krechevsky emphasizes the role of internal factors, and above all the mental attitude of the animal, in the choice of actions to solve the task before him.

The concept of "trial and error" is refuted by some experiments and experiments. For example, experiments with the use of “latent learning” are known . Their essence lies in the fact that the animal is given the opportunity to become familiar with the device of the experimental setup before the start of the experiment. It is especially important that the familiarization takes place actively, that is, the animal has the opportunity to run a little in the installation. It should be noted that the approximate behavior of a rat that first entered the installation, in the absence of reinforcement, only serves to accumulate experience. When a rat is placed in an installation before the start of the experiment, it still does not see any goal, since there is no food reinforcement (positive stimulus) or painful influence (negative stimulus). With such a primary examination of the labyrinth in different animals, the nature of perception of objects can vary significantly: some rats will use mainly visual stimuli, others - olfactory. Individual characteristics as a whole are a sign of the learning process, since the instinctive components of behavior are conservative and invariable. If we compare the rate of education of skills in an animal, which is placed in the labyrinth immediately before the experiment, and in an animal that has actively become familiar with the labyrinth, it will be much less in the second animal.

All these experiments convincingly prove that an active cognitive activity of an animal is necessary as a prerequisite for the successful emergence of a skill. It is this cognitive process that determines the nature of the skill.

A.N. Leontiev proposed a criterion for the separation of skill from other forms of learning. This most important criterion he called the "operation". The operation is a component of the activity of the animal, which corresponds to the conditions in which the object prompting the activity is given. Leontyev suggested that only fixed operations should be considered as skills. The isolation of the operation in the motor activity of an animal indicates that this is a real skill.

An example of a separation operation can serve as an experience using the workaround method, which was conducted by A.V. Zaporozhets and I.G. Dimanstein In an aquarium with water, a transverse gauze partition was installed, and a narrow passage was left at the side through which experimental fish could swim. In one part of the aquarium was placed fish, and in the other part, separated by a partition, food bait for her (for example, bloodworms). The fish could grab the bait, only bypassing the septum, this happened after she could not swim up to food directly. During the search for the path that led her to the bait, the experimental animal produced certain motor actions.

In this locomotor activity, Leontiev proposes to see two components. The first is a directional activity, which arises under the influence of the property of the object itself, which induces the activity, i.e., the smell of the moth, its appearance. The second component of the locomotor reaction is the activity associated with the impact of the obstacle, i.e., the conditions in which the subject is given to the activity. This activity will be in accordance with Leontiev's terminology operation.

After the experimental fish learns a workaround to the bait, i.e. a motor skill is developed, the barrier from the aquarium is removed. However, the fish will be exactly the same way around the obstacles. Over time, the path will straighten. Thus, the impact of the obstacles in this experience is strongly associated with the effects of the bait, both of these components act together and inseparably, the bait is not separated from the septum and vice versa. Therefore, in this situation, the operation can be distinguished only conditionally, it is not yet separable from other components of the motor reaction.

This fish example is an example of automated skill - a skill that is still at a very low level of development. In this case, the cognitive aspect of the formation of the skill is extremely weak, so the trajectory of the path to the bait becomes so strongly fixed that it remains even after the removal of the obstacle. In order to form a complex skill, its cognitive component must be very large. The highest level of skills in higher vertebrate animals is characterized by the fact that the operation is clearly distinguished and plays an extremely important cognitive role. However, this does not mean that they have no primitive skills, they are not important for the accumulation of individual experience. The level of an emerging skill depends on the biology of the species and on the situation in which the animal had a task.

The cognitive aspect of skill manifests itself in ways to overcome obstacles. When analyzing the formation of skills, an obstacle is understood not only as a direct physical obstacle that blocks the path to the inducing object. An obstacle in solving the problem facing the animal is l / vBe an obstacle to the goal, regardless of its nature. This was experimentally proved by V.P. Protopopov. His research has shown that absolutely any motor skills in animals are formed through overcoming a certain “barrier”, and it is precisely her character and nature that determine the content of the formed skill. According to Protopopov, the stimulus has only a dynamic effect on the formation of a skill, that is, it determines the speed and strength of its consolidation. Overcoming an obstacle is an important element of skill formation not only when it is developed by a workaround method, but also when other methods are used for this purpose, for example, the maze method and the problem box method.

The Hungarian zoopsychologist L. Kardosh paid much attention to the cognitive aspects of the development of skills. He emphasized that when an animal is trained in a labyrinth, it enriches its knowledge and it accumulates a considerable amount of useful information. Kardosh wrote about this: “... at the beginning of the maze, the animal in memory ... sees beyond the walls covering its field of sensations; these walls become transparent. In memory, it “sees” the goal and the most important in terms of locomotion (movement - Auth.) Parts of the path, open and closed doors, ramifications, etc., “sees” exactly the same way and where it saw and in reality maze time. ^[12]

In addition, Kardosh clearly defined the boundaries of the animal's cognitive abilities when solving problems. Here, in his opinion, there are two possibilities: locomotor and manipulative cognition. In case of locomotor cognition, the animal changes its spatial position in the environment without changing the environment itself. During manipulation cognition, an active change in the environment of animals occurs.

Manipulative cognition is carried out in the formation of instrumental skills. Kardosh conducted studies in which he showed that an animal (in experience - a rat) can be taught to choose different paths in the maze, leading to one point, and then move on differently, for example in one or the other direction. This can serve as an example of locomotor cognition. However, according to Kardos, no animal (except for great apes) can be taught that, depending on the choice of one of the two paths of movement, quite definite changes will occur in the environment. In the experiment, for example, food was replaced by another reinforcement — water. L. Kardosh writes: “... a person would be surprised to find different subjects in the same place when he approached right and left, but he would learn after the first experiment. It is here that development makes a leap ... A person can completely free himself from the directing influence of the spatial order, if temporal-causal connections require another. ” ^[13]