6.1 Involuntary and voluntary behaviour: subsystems of the NAD
If learning is a matter of the mind, then there is a mind in every part of an organism. There is the "visceral learning" of bowel-habits, of vascular responses to foreboding (palpitations of the heart, or blushing), of sexual responses to anticipated arousal. Blushing, constipation, hyperventilating are involuntary behaviours of the mind/body. Most of the involuntarily learned functions and behaviours can be unlearned by remedial programs which are provided by paramedical specialists in a body-oriented therapy.
An apparently involuntary function that can be brought under partial voluntary control, is activation or arousal. A drowsy or sleepy state is not a suitable condition to learn perceptual and motor skills. When body and mind are activated to the right degree the senses are alert, the coordinating nervous system and the muscles are responsive. When attention is low, there is no keenness of observation, no attempt at discovery and fine discrimination, no interest, no probing, and hardly retention and storage in memory. Yet all this is required for perceptual and cognitive learning and for developing communicative skills.
The arousal system, as expected, has a concentric organisation. The activating system consists of layers that can be identified as
a general arousal system (the inner layer) and
a system for focussed attention (the outer layer).
The first has its base close to the core functions. It promotes a wakeful state and a readiness of the body for action; the brain's substrate for this function is the reticular system in the brainstem. The substrate for focussed attention is the limbic system. This part of the brain is more differentiated and envelops the brainstem. The limbic system is an old part of the cerebral cortex, originally connected to the sense of smell, where the meaning of perceptual information is evaluated for its attention value. If found relevant, the outcome is transformed into the kind of motivation that leads to the appropriate form of action. For example an attractive smell elicits approach, a repugnant smell avoidance. Information from the other senses are also processed by the limbic system. In an infant, the sound of a spoon in a cup is associated with food and elicits a positive expectation, whereas the sight of a strange face may inspire apprehension.
Just as there are two layers of activation there are two modes of learning, the functional layers of which envelop each other:
Type I, learning of emotional or motivational responses, and
Type II, learning of instrumental responses that satisfy the motives (Maps 3-5).
Emotional and motivational learning by classical conditioning, mainly involves the central part of the brain and the limbic system. It is attended by adjustments in the "vegetative" or autonomous nervous system; messages, such as an arousal response, are relayed by neuro-endocrine messengers. Glands and smooth muscles are the effector organs. Increased ortho-sympathetic innervation (by the autonomous system) leads to increased circulation of adrenal hormones, and prepares the body for sustained effort. An aroused state of the autonomous system is elicited by signals which are interpreted by the individual as exciting. Vice versa the arousal state lowers the thresholds of the mind for strong emotional reactions such as anxiety and anger.
Type II, instrumental or operant learning, is mediated by the brain's cortex and the sensomotor system of nerve-tracks and muscles. It uses striped muscles as effector organs. This is the fast responding "animal" system. Basically it implements the needs and motives generated by the "vegetative" or autonomous system, that oscillates in a slower rhythm.
Learning, in the words of Pringle, is an "evolutionary" increase in complexity of rhythm, analogous to the increase of structural complexity which occurs in organic evolution. Oscillators within the neuronal system are more or less coupled by their sharing a number of neurons and this leads to partial synchronisation. A change in one oscillator will change the pattern of all the others until a new equilibrium in the whole system is reached. External stimulation leads to the formation of rhythmic patterns specific for the release of a certain response.
A high level of arousal prepares the individual for exertion but may interfere with fine motor activities e.g. by causing a tremor. One of the input processing systems may become overloaded and then is not able to cope with the influx of information, either because the information is of an unusual kind or comes in excessive quantities. This then leads to a temporary breakdown of coordination and to activation of a more primitive zone of adaptation and defence (regression, Map 6.1). It may lead to tremor, rigidity, inhibited coordination of "nervous" origin, which all have great relevance for voice- and speech pathology, especially in speech- and voice neuroses (stuttering and spastic dysphonia). It may also lead to a more permanent inhibition of development.
Derived from the two elementary forms of learning are other forms such as vicarious learning and learning by association, by imagination, by imitation, which take place at a high cognitive level.