LEARNING

Definitions: Learning is:

1. “the relatively permanent change in a person’s

knowledge or behavior due to experience or practice”
(Mayer, 1982, p. 1040).

2. “an enduring change in behavior, or in the capacity to

behave in a given fashion, which results from practice or
other forms of experience” (Shuell, 1986, p. 412).
Learning is:

• An experiential process

• Resulting in a relatively permanent change

• Not explained by temporary states, maturation, or innate response

tendencies.

• What can be learned can be unlearned

 Laws of LEARNING
Laws of LEARNING were proposed by Thorndike

• Law of Readiness
• Law of Exercise
• Law of Effect
• Law of Primacy
• Law of Intensity
• Law of Recency
 Two Types of Learning

• Associative Learning : learning through relationships among events

• Non associative: learning about a single stimulus

Classical conditioning
• Ivan Pavlov - Russian physiologist, late 1800’s
• Experiment with saliva and digestion of dogs
Classical conditioning

• Learning in which a neutral stimulus acquires the ability to produce a

response that was originally produced by a different stimulus.

• Previously neutral stimulus becomes associated with another

stimulus through repeated pairing with that stimulus

Important Terms
• Unconditioned stimulus - any stimulus that causes a reflex or
emotional response without any learning or conditioning required
• Unconditioned response - the reflex response triggered by a stimulus
w/o any learning required
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS) - a previously neutral stimulus that,
through conditioning now causes a classically conditioned response
• Conditioned Response (CR) - a learned response to a previously
neutral stimulus that has been associated with the stimulus through
repeated pairings
• Acquisition : initial stage of learning when a response is first established and
gradually strengthened

• Generalization : tendency for a stimulus that is similar to the original

conditioned stimulus to elicit a response that is similar to the conditioned
response.

• Discrimination : learns to make a particular response to some stimuli but not to

others.

• Extinction : conditioned stimulus no longer elicit the conditioned response as a

result of repeated unpairing
• Spontaneous Recovery: reappearance of the conditioned response
TYPES OF CONDITIONING
• Delayed Conditioning: A form of forward conditioning in which the presentation of
the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) begins while the conditioned stimulus (CS) is still
present.
• Trace Conditioning: A form of forward conditioning in which the onset of the
conditioned stimulus (CS) precedes the onset of the unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
and the CS and UCS do not overlap.
• Simultaneous Conditioning: A form of conditioning in which the conditioned
stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) begin and end at the same
time.
• Backward Conditioning: A type of conditioning in which the presentation of the
unconditioned stimulus (UCS) precedes the presentation of the conditioned
stimulus (CS).
Classical Conditioning of Emotional
Responses
• John Watson and Rosalie Raynor demonstrated how fear could be conditioned (1920)
• Human fears can be acquired through Pavlovian conditioning.
• “Little Albert” - baby was taught to fear white rat
• Rat paired with loud noise
• Stimulus generalized to other white objects (white rabbit, white fur coat)
• UCS (noise)- UCR (startle response)
• UCS (noise) was paired with neutral stimulus (rat)
• CR (startle response) occurred in the presence of rat (CS)
• Mary Cover Jones developed counterconditioning -- a technique for eliminating
conditioned fears.
Applications
• Advertisements
• Aversion Therapy
• encourage individuals to give up undesirable habits by associating it with
unpleasant stimulus
• Systematic Desensitization
•  individual is trained to relax while being exposed to progressively more
anxiety -provoking stimuli
• Flooding
• Repeated exposure to highly distressing stimuli until anxiety response is
extincted
OPERANT CONDITIONING

• Learning is based on the consequences following behavior

• Association is made between a behavior and its consequences

• Behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcement and weakened if followed

by a punishment
• Learning in which the consequence of a behavior (reward or punishment) increases
or decreases the chance that one will again perform that same behavior.
• Also known as instrumental conditioning / learning

• Behavior is active and voluntary

Major theorists

• Thorndike: The Law of Effect: The frequency of the behavior is

modified by its consequences

• B.F. Skinner: “to understand behavior, we must look at environmental

stimuli and responses”.
B F Skinner

• Father of operant conditioning

• His work was based on “law of effect” by Thorndike
1. Neutral operant
2. Reinforcement is a consequence that occurs after a behavior and
increases the chance that the behavior will occur again.
• Positive reinforcement refers to the presentation of a stimulus that increases
the probability that a behavior will occur again.
• Negative reinforcement refers to the removal of an unpleasant stimulus
which increases the likelihood of repeating that behaviour
• Primary reinforces
• Secondary reinforces: stimulus that acquired its reinforcing power
through experience
Schedules of Reinforcement

• Continuous Reinforcement

• Partial Reinforcement
• Fixed-ratio schedule: after fixed number of response

• Fixed-interval schedule: after a fixed interval of time

• Variable-ratio schedule: after an average number of correct responses

• Variable-interval schedule : after an average amount of time has passed.

3. Punishment is a consequence that occurs after a behavior and

decreases the chance that the behavior will occur again.

• Positive punishment : presenting an unpleasant stimulus to decrease the

chances that the response will recur.

• Negative punishment : removal of a reinforcing stimulus to decrease the

chances that the response will recur.

Other major principles

• Shaping: procedure in which an experimenter successively reinforces

behaviors that lead up to or approximate the desired behavior

• Chaining : break down a task to fine subcomponents and teaching

those steps
Operant Conditioning in daily life

• Toilet Training

• Food refusal

• Parenting

• Teaching

• Gaming
Cognitivism

• Grew in response to Behaviorism

• Knowledge is stored cognitively as symbols

• Learning is the process of connecting symbols in a

meaningful & memorable way

• Studies focused on the mental processes that facilitate

symbol connection
Social Learning Theory (SLT)
• Grew out of Cognitivism

• A. Bandura (1973)

• Learning takes place through observation and sensorial experiences

• Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery

• SLT is the basis of the movement against violence in media & video
games
Bobo doll experiment
• In one of his well-known experimental study, Bandura showed a film of
five minutes duration to children.
• The film shows that in a large room there are numerous toys including
a large sized ‘Bobo’ doll.
• Now a grown-up boy enters the room and looks around.
• The boy starts showing aggressive behaviour towards the toys in
general and the bobodoll in particular.
• He hits the doll, throws it on the floor, kicking it and sitting on it.
• This film has three versions. In one version a group of children see the
boy (model) being rewarded and praised by an adult for being
aggressive to the doll.
Conti..
• In the second version another group of children see the boy being punished for his aggressive
behaviour.
• In the third version the third group of children are not shown the boy being either rewarded or
punished
• After viewing a specific version of the film all the three groups of children were placed in an
experimental room in which similar toys were placed around. The children were allowed to play
with the toys.
• These groups were secretly observed and their behaviours noted.
• It was found that those children who saw aggressive behaviour being rewarded were most
aggressive; children who had seen the aggressive model being punished were least aggressive.
• Thus, in observational learning observers acquire knowledge by observing the model’s
behaviour, but performance is influenced by model’s behaviour being rewarded or punished.
Process of Socio Cognitive Learning
• Attention
• Memory
• Imitation
• Motivation
Insight Learning
• Wolfgang Kohler
• Insight is a mental process marked by the sudden and unexpected
solution to a problem
• phenomenon often called the “ah-ha!” experience
• innate tendencies or predispositions that may either facilitate or
inhibit certain kinds of learning
• As a result, insight learning can be generalised to other similar
problem situations.
Experiment
• He performed a series of experiments with chimpanzees that involved solving complex
problems.
• Kohler placed chimpanzees in an enclosed play area where food was kept out of their reach.
• Tools such as poles and boxes were placed in the enclosure.
• The chimpanzees rapidly learned how to use a box to stand on or a pole to move the food in
their direction.
• In this experiment, learning did not occur as a result of trial and error and reinforcement, but
came about in sudden flashes of insight.
• The chimpanzees would roam about the enclosure for some time and then suddenly would
stand on a box, grab a pole and strike a banana, which was out of normal reach above the
enclosure.
• The chimpanzee exhibited what Kohler called insight learning – the process by which the
solution to a problem suddenly becomes clear.
Latent Learning
• In latent learning, a new behaviour is learned but not demonstrated until reinforcement
is provided for displaying it.
• Tolman made an early contribution to the concept of latent learning.
• Tolman put two groups of rats in a maze and gave them an opportunity to explore.
• In one group, rats found food at the end of the maze and soon learned to make their
way rapidly through the maze.
• On the other hand, rats in the second group were not rewarded and showed no
apparent signs of learning.
• But later, when these rats were reinforced, they ran through the maze as efficiently as
the rewarded group.
• Tolman contended that the unrewarded rats had learned the layout of the maze early in
their explorations.
• They just never displayed their latent learning until the reinforcement was provided.
Place learning
• Tolman’s (1948) place learning (or sign learning) theory maintains that
rats learn expectations as to which part of the maze will be followed
by which other part of the maze.
• Tolman called these expectations cognitive maps, a primitive kind of
perceptual map of the maze, an understanding of its spatial
relationships (much like the mental map you have of familiar streets
leading to home or college)
TRANSFER OF LEARNING
• Transfer refers to the influence of earlier learning on later learning,
which is an inherent feature of the learning process in general (Howe,
1980).
• Negative transfer
• Positive transfer
• Zero transfer
END