This concept of cognitive field theory has been derived from field psychology which was developed by Kurt Lewin (1890-1947), a Berlin University Professor migrated to United States of America in 1932. He taught at Stanford, Cornell and Iowa.
In 1944 he became the director of research in group dynamics and M.I.T. Field theory is originally propounded by him. Field theory of learning sometimes also known as cognitive field theory of learning owes its origin to the contributions made by Lewin. But in due course several other psychologists have also made their contributions. These were Allport, Bruner, Comps, John Dewey, Donald, Snygg, Tolman and Wright.
Somewhat analogous to the Gestalt theory where the whole context is emphasised, is the field theory of learning by Lewin to whom the organism and environment constitute the total field as the individual is considered inseparably connected with the environment and both interact. The organism has its own inherent forces or needs while the environment has its own pressures and pulls and requirements according to which the organism is affected and his development or learning is conditioned.
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In the environment-individual context which becomes a whole situation the organism or man develops interaction between the two i.e., between learner and the society, determine the extent and the type of learning. In the school situation, for example, the classroom situation and the social climate, interaction among, children, the attitude of the teacher and as such factors influence the learning in the child. The theory has been formulated in an attempt to construct scientific principles of learning highly applicable to classroom situations. Its advocates rest its validity upon educational results, scientifically ascertained.
A cognitive field theory describes how a person gains understanding of himself and his world. Learning according to this theory is the medication of person’s world as represented by the model life space or the psychological model. The cognition and field both are related together that is, what a person comes to know is what the field impresses upon him. Hence, cognitive theory tells how people gain understanding of themselves and their environments and how they use their cognition.
Field theory emphasizes psychological activity of a person and says that every activity of the person occurs in the field of his own. To these psychologists, never a behaviour occurs in the vacuum. The field of a person consists of all the experiences of his life converted into psychological realities and mental entities which is co-extensive with his life.
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Within cognitive field theory; learning, briefly defined, is an interactional process within which a person attains new insights or cognitive structures or changes old ones. In no sense is it a mechanistic, associationistic process of connecting stimuli, which impinge upon, and responses which are evoked or emitted from a biological organism, frankly speaking, Lewin could not develop a theory of learning but could give a system of description known as field theory or topological psychology or vector psychology.
In order to understand his topology, one must understand a few terms he applies, so often.
1. Field
2. Person
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3. Life space
4. Regions
5. Valences
6. Vectors
7. Foreign Hull
8. Topology
1. Field:
For a psychologist, a field means a psychological world that covers an individual himself, his concepts and expectations. It does not correspond with a Geographical or a Physical world. A field situation is perceived in such a way that any change in the field depends upon the nature of the field at that time. An astronomer used ‘field’ to describe the universe and predict the orbits of stars. A biologist relates the function of cells to their location in a growth ‘field’.
A physicist uses field in his study of the structure of an atom. Similarly, a psychologist use ‘field’ to mean the total psychological world in which a person lives at a given time. It includes a psychological past, present and future, also a concrete and imaginative reality— all interpreted as simultaneous aspects of a current situation. An individual’s understanding of his field, his learning—is his insight or cognitive structure of his life space.
2. Person:
A person is a psychological self. A person is not limited to a mind or body, nor mind and body. It refer to what is T, ‘my’, ‘mine’, ‘me’. Life space contains the person himself, the goals he is seeking (positive valences), the goals he is avoiding (negative valences), the ‘barriers’ that restrict his movements, and the ‘paths’ he must follow to get what he wants. In an ideal situation, the person being kept in the present state of isolation wants to reach his goal ‘G’. But, in between person himself (P) and goal (G) stands barriers (B), the apologising barrier. Thus, the person is nothing but a teaching itself.
3. Life Space:
The basic concept of cognitive field psychology is life space. Life space is a model of psychological reality or functional relationships developed for the purpose of describing what is possible and what is impossible for the person being studied, and of anticipating what he is likely to be thinking and doing now as well as what his subsequent thoughts and actions will be.
Briefly speaking, life space may be defined as the totality of facts such as people, objects, thoughts, fantasies, imaginations, drives and tensions which determine the behaviour of a given individual at a given time. So, a snake below my bed, not perceived by me, does not exist in my life space. If I take a rope to be a snake, the snake does exist in my life space. It is represented topographically as two-dimensional space in which the individual moves. Here the emphasis is on the present and not on the past.
Actually, a life space represents the total pattern of factors or influences that affect an individual’s behaviour at a certain moment or longer juncture of time. Within field psychology, behaviour is any change in a life space that is psychological, i.e., in accordance with a growing intelligence.
The concept life space constitutes an instrument whereby one may be objective in studying human activity by being, to some degree, subjective. A teacher may conjecture, “What would I be thinking if I were a student and were acting that way”? or “If I were in his situation, why would I be acting the way he is?” Cognitive field theorists, thus, use life space as a model paradigm that enables them to take into consideration the total contemporaneous life situations of an individual.
Mathematically, the concept of life space may be expressed as
B = f (P, E)
where, B = Behaviour
P = Person
E = Environment
4. Regions:
The life space also consists of numerous relationships between person and his environment, numerous inter-dependent variables and total patterns of factors and influences together with the individual with all his needs, percepts, concepts, ideas, knowledge, beliefs and images of concrete objects. The life space can be divided into numerous regions depending upon one’s similar experiences or reference material. Each region may consists of numerous positive-negative vectors and valences.
In cognitive field term, a generalization arises through a person’s categorization of sub-regions into a unified region of his life space. When a child learns that vegetables, flowers, bushes and trees are plants or a student learns that hopes, dreams, beliefs and anticipations are all sub-regions of a ‘future’ region in his contemporaneous life space, he is generalizing. A student of professional education, through differentiation of various instances of learning, may develop a generalized concept, learning to cover any learning in any situation.
5. Valences:
According to Morris L. Bigge, “Valences are the attracting or repelling forces of regions”. It has direction as well as magnitude. The person is teaching. There are three alternative regions available to him. The boundary between one region and the other shows the barrier which should be crossed before the final goal is achieved.
An object’s valence is the degree to which it elicits approaching or avoiding responses. Valences are of two types, positive and negative. Positive valences are the situations or objects, the individual wants to approach and is represented by (+) plus sign. On the other hand, negative valences are the situations or an object that the person wants to avoid and is represented by (-) minus sign.
The concept of valence is related with conflict, which means that a person is confronted with a complicated situation to the different aspects of which he has learned to make in compitable responses. Every person, incident or object tends to attract or repel you in some degree.
In A, some change in person or in environment brings the person psychologically nearer to object first. Since the impulse to go to object first is stronger and the impulse to go to object second is weaker, the conflict will soon be resolved.
B is a situation of avoidance-avoidance conflict. The person is likely to leave the field (escape). For example, a student wants to avoid homework as well as punishment. As a result he may become a truant.
C is a situation of approach-avoidance conflict. The same object is attractive as well as equally repulsive for the person e.g., ice-cream for a modem girl. She wants to enjoy it but at the same time fears adding weight.
A, B, and C are typical situations of producing tension.
6. Vectors:
The concept of vectors is added to indicate the relative strengths of tendencies to approach or to avoid different points in the life space. A vector is a force operating in a certain direction and is represented by an arrow, with the direction of the arrow indicating the direction of the force, and the length of the arrow indicating the strength of the force. In other words, it is a force with direction opposite to person’s goal. It tells us what would happen in a particular position or has already happened. It is its nature to go in opposite direction of the change in the life space. Briefly speaking, vector is a driving force or restraining force. It is an index of valences.
7. Foreign Hull:
The two principal aspects of a lift space and a person and his psychological environment. The two are not mutually exclusive. Both are surrounded by a non-psychological Foreign Hull. The Foreign Hull of a life space is composed of those aspects of a person’s physical-social environment that are observable not by the person himself but by the one who is studying the particular person but which, at the juncture under consideration have no significance for the person being studied.
So, they are not included in his psychological environment. Foreign Hull lies outside the life space. For example, I know what you desire more to be the president of the college. Briefly speaking, Foreign Hull includes all those elements, which, at a particular time are not the parts of our life space, but in the long run or later stage may include in our life space.
8. Topology:
Topology is a kind of Geometry, which is concerned with inside, outside, boundary etc. and not with length, breadth, height, thickness. Here, we do not pay importance to the distance. Topology explains the position of man in reference to his functions, goals and barriers.
In analyzes the position of the person in the structure of his life space-with reference to positive and negative vectors in the regions of his lift space. The church, the school, the family, the house, the religion, the politics, the occupation, all these region may be related to a person psychologically in different ways with different patterns of vectors and valences.