Visceral learning as problem solving

Abstract

One purpose of this paper is to describe some experiments that have examined what subjects learn about a visceral target as a consequence of training on a feedback task. Initially this research was undertaken to explore the proposition (implicit in Brcner, 1974a) that control of the viscera is possible only when subjects have learned to recognize events associated with the production of target behavior. Subsequent efforts to explain current findings have led us to employ a tentative theoretical framework for the study of learning mechanisms that bears greater resemblance to analyses of human problem solving than to motor skills and other models that currently dominate the visceral learning literature (Schwartz and Beatty, 1977). A second purpose of this paper is to briefly describe this framework.