Laws of association

The principle laws of association are contiguity, repetition, attention, pleasure-pain, and similarity. The basic laws were formulated by Aristotle in approximately 300 B.C. and by John Locke in the seventeenth century. Both philosophers taught that the mind at birth is a blank slate and that all knowledge has to be acquired by learning. The laws they taught still make up the backbone of modern learning theory.^[1]

David Hartley taught that contiguity is the main law of association, and, believing that it is the primary source, Hartley ignored David Hume’s law of resemblance (Warren, 1921).^[1]

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