Searching for (dynamic) principles of learning
Résumé
In order to provide a comprehensive and predictive framework for learning and memory, a dynamical pattern theory seeks for very general laws and principles that determine stability and change of behavioral patterns. In the nineties, learning was defined as the emergence of a new stable behavioral pattern involving the alteration of the entire layer of underlying dynamics. Twelve years after, we attempt to evaluate what new insights this approach may afford. After a brief outline of a dynamic theory of learning, we propose three generic principles underlying learning, coming from an overview of experimental work on bimanual coordination and pattern perception: a principle of symmetry conservation, a principle of distance, and a principle of time scales. Throughout this first round of research, a deep question lingers as to the possible existence of two routes to learning. Future research has to establish whether they correspond to two levels of behavioral organization, a metric and a topological level, discerned by Bernstein.