THE GUIDING OF LEARNING - AN OVERVIEW, ANALYSIS, AND CLASSIFICATION OF GUIDES

Learning needs guidance, and a key current issue examined in this arti cle is what guides exist in which species and how do they work. Resear chers in several fields are studying this problem, and the present stu dy is an effort to integrate the work done so far into a single framew ork. The problem is best analyzed as part of the more general evolutio nary problem of ensuring that species members have needed information. This general problem has many facets and tradeoffs. It can be solved in many ways, and some general guidelines and strategies to do so are outlined and compared against many that nature actually uses. A prelim inary classification of learning guides is also described. Guides work by programming organisms to learn specific things from specific exper iences, and/or by restricting the time in which learning does or does not occur, or by setting or changing emotional reactions to key stimul i. Some species are programmed with general heuristics, and some are p rovided with a teacher. Many previously unrelated phenomena can be und erstood as methods of dealing with this evolutionary problem. Some fur ther research issues suggested by the current framework are outlined. The present general theoretical method can help integrate research in other disparate areas.