Learning PDF

Learning Definition:Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour brought about by experience or practice. 1. To understand this definition we need to distinguish between performance changes due to maturationand changes brought about by experience. (Maturation is the nature...

Learning Definition:Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour brought about by experience or practice. 1. To understand this definition we need to distinguish between performance changes due to maturationand changes brought about by experience. (Maturation is the nature part of the nature-nurture question; experience is the nurture part). For example: Children become better tennis players as they grow older partially because their strength increases with their size – a maturational phenomenon. Maturational changes need to be differentiated from improvements due to practice, which indicate that learning has taken place. 2. Similarly we must distinguish short-term changes in behaviour that are due to factors other than learning, such as declines in performance resulting from fatigue or lack of effort, from performance changes that are due to actual learning. For example, if Venus Williams performs poorly in a tennis game because of tension or fatigue, this does not mean that she has not learned to play correctly or has forgotten how to play well. 3. The distinction between learning and performance is critical, and not always easy to make. To some psychologists, we can examine learning only indirectly, by observing changes in performance. However there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between learning and performance. For example, when a student does poorly on an exam due to fatigue or stress (she however does know the material but was unable to reproduce it at that particular time). To other psychologists learning is simple any change in behaviour. This approach tends to dismiss the thinking that can be involved with learning, by focusing only on observable performance. Classical Conditioning Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist who won the Nobel Prize for his work on digestion, is known primarily for his experiments on basic learning processes. Pavlov had been studying the secretion of stomach acids and salivation in dogs in response to the ingestion of various amounts and kinds of food. While doing so, he observed a curious phenomenon: Sometimes stomach secretions and salivation would begin in the dogs even before they had eaten the food. The sight and sound of the experimenter was enough to produce salivation in dogs. Pavlov saw that the dogs were responding not only on the basis of a biological need (hunger), but also as a result of learning – or, as it came to be called, classical conditioning. Definition:Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which a neutral stimulus (such as the experimenter’s footsteps) comes to bring about a response after it is paired with a stimulus (such as food) that naturally brings about that response. Experiment: Pavlov attached a tube to the salivary gland of a dog, which would allow him to measure precisely the dog’s salivation. He then rang a bell and, just a few seconds later, presented the dog with meat. At first the dog would salivate only when the meat itself was presented, but soon it began to salivate at the sound of the bell. In fact, even when Pavlov stopped presenting the meat, the dog still salivated after hearing the sound. The dog has been classically conditioned to salivate at the sound of the bell. Terms used in Classical Conditioning: Neutral Stimulus: A stimulus that, before conditioning, does not naturally bring about the response, we are interested in is called a NS. For example: The ringing of a bell does not lead to salivation but to some irrelevant response, such as perking up the ears or perhaps a startle reaction. Unconditioned Stimulus: A stimulus that brings about a response without having been learned is called an unconditioned stimulus. For example: The meat, because of the biological make-up of the dog, when placed in a dog’s mouth naturally leads to salivation is called UCS. Unconditioned Response: A response that is natural and needs no training; a natural, innate response that is not associated with previous learning is called UCR. Unconditioned responses are always brought about by the presence of unconditioned stimulus. For example: The salivation of the dog when the meat is put into the dog’s mouth is the UCR What is the goal of conditioning? The goal of conditioning is for the bell to become associated with the unconditioned stimulus (meat) and therefore to bring about the same sort of response as the unconditioned stimulus. During this period, salivation increases each time the bell is rung, until the bell alone causes the dog to salivate. Conditioned Stimulus: A once-neutral stimulus that has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus to bring about a responseformerly caused only by the unconditioned stimulus is the CS. For example: During conditioning, the bell is rung just before each presentation of the meat. When conditioning is complete, the bell has evolved from a neutral stimulus to what is now called a CS. Conditioned Response: A response that after conditioning follows a previously neutral stimulus is called the CR. For example: The salivation that occurs as a response to the conditioned stimulus (bell) is considered a CR. After conditioning, then, the CS evokes the CR. The sequence and timing of the presentation of the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus are particularly important. A neutral stimulus that follows an unconditioned stimulus has little chance of becoming a conditioned stimulus. On the other hand, a neutral stimulus that is presented just before the unconditioned stimulus is most apt to result in successful conditioning. Research has shown that conditioning is most effective if the neutral stimulus (which becomes the CS) precedes the UCS by between a half-second and several seconds. The following summary rules can help make the relationships between stimuli and responses easier to understand and remember. An UCS leads to an UCR. UCS-UCR pairings are unlearned and untrained. During conditioning, a previously neutral stimulus is transformed into the CS. A CS leads to a CR, and a CS-CR response pairing is a consequence of learning and training. An UCR and CR are similar (such as salivation in the above study), but the CR is learned, whereas the UCR occurs naturally. Applying Conditioning Principles to Human Behaviour Although the initial conditioning experiments were carried out with animals, classical conditioning principles were soon found to explain many aspects of everyday human behaviour. Emotional Responses are particularly likely to be learned through classical conditioning processes. For instance, how do some of us develop fears of mice, spiders and other creatures that are typically harmless? (Famous case of Little Albert) Similarly, the pairing of the appearance of certain species (such as mice or spiders) with the fearful comments of an adult may cause children to develop the same fears their parents have. This is called vicarious conditioning. Learning via classical conditioning also occurs during childhood. For example, you might not go to a dentist as often as you should because of prior associations of dentists and pain.  Or you might have a particular fondness for the smell of a certain perfume or aftershave lotion because the feelings and thoughts of an early lover come rushing back whenever you encounter it. Extinction: Extinction occurs when a previously conditioned responses decreases in frequency, and eventually disappears. To produce extinction, one needs to end the association between conditioned and unconditioned stimuli. For instance, if we had trained a dog to salivate at the ringing of a bell, we could produce extinction by ceasing to provide meat after the bell was rung. At first the dog would continue to salivate when it heard the bell, but after a few such instances, the amount of salivation would probably decline, and the dog would eventually stop responding to the bell altogether. At that point, we could say that the response has been extinguished. In sum, extinction occurs when the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus. Systematic Desensitization: This principle of extinction is very helpful, and has been used by psychologists to treat people with irrational fears, or phobias, by using a form of therapy called systematic desensitization. The goal of systematic desensitization is to bring about the extinction of the phobia. For example a therapist using systematic desensitization for a client who is afraid of dogs might repeatedly expose the client to dogs, starting with a less frightening aspect (a photo of a cute dog) and moving toward more feared ones (such as an actual encounter with an unfamiliar dog). As the anticipated negative consequences of exposure to the dog (for example, being jumped upon or bitten) do not occur, the fear eventually becomes extinguished. Spontaneous Recovery: Once a conditioned response has been extinguished, it does not however vanish forever. Pavlov discovered this when he returned to his dog a few days after the conditioned behaviour had seemingly been extinguished. If he rang a bell, the dog once again salivated – an effect known as spontaneous recovery, or the re-emergence of an extinguished conditioned response after a period of rest. Spontaneous recovery helps explain why it is so hard to overcome drug addictions. For example, cocaine addicts who are thought to be ‘cured’ could experience an irresistible impulse to use the drug again if they are subsequently confronted by a stimulus with strong connections to the drug, such as white powder. Generalization and Discrimination Stimulus generalization: This takes place when a conditioned response follows a stimulus that is similar to the original conditioned stimulus. The greater the similarity between the two stimuli, the greater the likelihood of stimulus generalization. For example: Baby Albert, who, was conditioned to be fearful of rats, was later found to be afraid of other furry white things as well. He was fearful of white rabbits, white fur coats, and even a white Santa Claus mask. On the other hand, according to the principle of stimulus generalization, it is unlikely that he would have been afraid of a black dog, because its colour would differentiateit sufficiently from the original fear-evoking stimulus. The conditioned response elicited by the new stimulus is usually not as intense as the original conditioned response, although the more similar the new stimulus is to the old one, the more similar the new response will be. For example: It is unlikely that Albert’s fear of the Santa Claus mask was as great as his learned fear of a rat. Still, stimulus generalization permits us to know, for example, that we ought to brake at all red lights, even if there are minor variations in size, shape and shade. Stimulus Discrimination: This is the ability to differentiate between stimuli. If two stimuli are sufficiently distinct from one another so that one evokes a conditioned response but the other does not, we can say that stimulus discrimination has occurred. For example: The ability to discriminate between a red and green traffic light prevents us from getting mowed down by oncoming traffic at intersections. Higher order Conditioning: Beyond traditional Classical Conditioning: Challenging Basic Assumptions Although Pavlov hypothesized that all learning is nothing more than long strings of conditioned responses, this notion has not been supported by subsequent research. It turns out that classical conditioning provides us with only a partial explanation of how people and animals learn and that Pavlov was wrong in some of his basic assumptions. Some of the flaws were: 1. The process of linking stimuli and responses occurs in a mechanistic, unthinking way: In contrast to this perspective, learning theorists influenced by cognitive psychology have argued that learners actively develop an understanding and expectancy about which particular unconditioned stimuli are matched with specific conditioned stimuli. For example: A ringing bell gives a dog something to think about; the impending arrival of food. 2. An unconditioned stimulus should immediately follow a conditioned stimulus for optimal conditioning to occur: It was found through experiments (Garcia) that conditioning could occur even when there was an interval of as long as eight hours between exposure to the conditioned stimulus and the response of sickness. 3. Conditioning occurs with repeated pairings of the unconditioned stimulus and conditioned stimulus: However, it has been found that conditioning persisted over very long periods and sometimes occurred after just one exposure to water that was followed later on by illness. These findings have had important practical implications. For example, to prevent coyotes from killing their sheep, some ranchers now routinely lace a sheep carcass with a drug and leave the carcass in a place where coyotes will find it. The drug temporarily makes the coyotes quite ill, but it does not permanently harm the. After just one exposure to a drug laden sheep carcass, coyotes avoid sheep, which are normally one of their primary natural victims. Operant Conditioning Operant conditioning is learning in which a voluntary response is strengthened or weakened, depending on its favourable or unfavourable consequences. Unlike classical conditioning, in which the original behaviours are the natural, biological responses to the presence of some stimulus such as food, water, or pain, operant conditioning applies to voluntary responses, which an organism performs deliberately, to produce a desirable outcome. The organism operates on the environment to produce the desired outcome. For example, operant conditioning is at work when we learn that toiling industriously can bring about a raise, or that studying hard results in good grades. Thorndike’s Law of Effect: Explain Thorndike’s cat in a cage experiment. Each time you returned the cat to the box, it would probably take a little less time for the cat to step on the paddle and escape. Basically, according to Thorndike, the cat would have learned that pressing the paddle was associated with the desirable consequence of getting food. This is summarised by the ‘Law of Effect’ which states that responses that lead to satisfying consequences are more likely to be repeated, and responses followed by negative outcomes are less likely to be repeated. Thorndike also believed that this law operated automatically, without the organism being aware that there is a connection between the stimulus and the response. The Basics of Operant Conditioning: Explain Skinner’s experiment with the pigeons in a Skinner box. Skinner called the process that leads the pigeon to continue pecking the key ‘reinforcement’. Reinforcement is the process by which a stimulus increases the probability that a preceding behaviour will be repeated. In other words, pecking is more likely to occur again due to the stimulus of food. A reinforcer is any stimulus that increases the probability that a preceding behaviour will occur again. Hence food is a reinforcer because it increases the probability that the behaviour of pecking the key (formally referred to the response of pecking) will take place. What kind of stimuli can act as reinforcers? Bonuses, toys and good grades can serve as reinforcers – if they strengthen the probability of the response that occurred before their introduction. A Primary reinforcer satisfies some biological need and works naturally, regardless of a person’s prior experience. Food for the hungry person, warmth for the cold person, and relief for the person in pain would all be classified as primary reinforcers. A Secondary reinforcer, in contrast, is a stimulus that becomes reinforcing because of its association with a primary reinforcer. For instance, we know that money is valuable because we have learned that it allows us to obtain other desirable objects, including primary reinforcers such as food and shelter. For example money is a secondary reinforcer as it allows us to obtain desirable objects, including primary reinforcers such as food and shelter. What makes something a reinforcer depends on individual preferences. Though a chocolate may be a reinforcer for one person, and individual who dislikes chocolates will prefer Rs 10/- The only way we can know if a stimulus is a reinforcer for a given organism, is to observe whether the frequency of a previously occurring behaviour increases after the presentation of stimulus. Positive Reinforcers, Negative Reinforcers and Punishment In many respects, reinforcers can be thought of in terms of rewards; both a reinforcer and a reward increase the probability that a preceding response will occur again. But the term reward is limited to positive occurrences, and this is where it differs from a reinforcer – for reinforcers can be both positive and negative. A positive reinforcer is a stimulus added to the environment to the environment that brings about an increase in a preceding response. For example: If food, water, money, or praise is provided following a response, it is more likely that that response will occur again in the future. Working hard (response) + Money (positive reinforcer/ stimulus) = person continuing to work hard. A negative reinforcer refers to an unpleasant stimulus whose removal from the environment leads to an increase in the probability that a preceding response will occur again in the future. In simple words negative reinforcement occurs when something already present is removed as a result of a behaviour and the behaviour that led to this removal will increase in the future because it created a favourable outcome. For example 1: If you have cold symptoms (unpleasant stimulus) that are relieved when you take medicine, you are more likely to take the medicine when you experience such symptoms again. Taking medicine (response) – symptoms of cold (stimulus/ negative reinforcer) = person taking medicine again for a cold. For example 3: If the radio volume is so loud that it hurts your ears, you are likely to find that turning it down relieves the problem. Lowering the volume (response) – hurt in your ears (stimulus/ negative reinforcer) = lowering of volume will be repeated in the future. Negative reinforcement, then, teaches the individual that taking an action removes a negative condition that exists in the environment.Like positive reinforcers, negative reinforcers increase the likelihood that preceding behaviours will be repeated. Punishment: It is important to note that negative reinforcement is not the same as punishment. Punishment refers to a stimulus that decreases the probability that a prior behaviour will occur again. Unlike negative reinforcement, which produces an increase in behaviour, punishment reduces the likelihood of a prior response. If we receive a shock that is meant to decrease a certain behaviour, then, we are receiving a punishment. But if we are already receiving a shock, the behaviour that stops the shock is considered to be negatively reinforced. In the first case, the specific behaviour is apt to decrease because of the punishment; in the second, it is likely to increase because of the negative reinforcement. There are two types of punishment: positive punishment and negative punishment. Positive punishment weakens the response through the application of an unpleasant stimulus. For example: Spanking a child for misbehaving, or ten years in jail for committing a crime is positive punishment. Negative punishment weakens the response through the removal of something pleasant. For example: When a teenager is ‘grounded’ and will not be allowed to use the family car because of her poor grades, or when an employee is informed that he has been demoted with a cut in pay because of poor job evaluations, negative punishment is being administered. Both positive and negative punishment result in a decrease in the likelihood that a prior behaviour will be repeated. Rules for distinguishing reinforcements and punishments: Reinforcement increases the frequency of the behaviour preceding it; punishment decreases the frequency of the behaviour preceding it. The application of a positive stimulus brings about an increase in the frequency of behaviour and is referred to as positive reinforcement. The application of a negative stimulus decreases or reduces the frequency of behaviour and is called positive punishment. The removal of a negative stimulus that results in an increase in the frequency of behaviour is termed negative reinforcement. The removal of a positive stimulus that decreases the frequency of behaviour is called negative punishment. The Pros and Cons of Punishment: Why Reinforcement beats punishment 1. Punishment often presents the quickest route to changing behaviour that, if allowed to continue, might be dangerous to an individual. For example: A parent might not have a second chance to warn a child not to run into a busy stress, so punishing the first incidence of this behaviour might prove to be wise. 2. Moreover, the use of punishment to suppress behaviour, even temporarily, provides the opportunity to reinforce a person for subsequently behaving in a more desirable way. 3. Punishment may also be the most humane approach to treating certain severe disorders. For example: Some children suffering from autism, injure themselves by banging their heads against the wall. In such cases, giving an electric shock (positive punishment) has been found useful in preventing self-injury. Several disadvantages of Punishment: 1. Punishment is frequently ineffective: If the punishment is not delivered shortly after the undesired behaviour, or if the individual leaves the setting in which the punishment is being given, punishment becomes ineffective. 2. Initial behaviour that is being punished may be replaced by one that is even less desirable: For example, a teenager whole loses the use of a family car may borrow a friends’ instead, or may steal the family car. 3. Physical punishment may convey to the recipient the idea that physical aggression is permissible and perhaps even desirable: A father, who yells at his son for misbehaving, teaches his son that aggression is an appropriate, adult response. The son might copy his father’s behaviour by behaving aggressively toward others. 4. Those who resort to physical punishment will be feared: Physical punishment is often administered by people who are themselves angry or enraged. Thus they are unlikely to think through what they are doing in that emotional state. They may not be able to control carefully the degree of punishment they are inflicting. 5. Punishment reduces the self-esteem of the recipient unless they can understand the reasons for it. 6. Punishment does not convey any information about what an alternative more appropriate behaviour might be: Punishing a child for staring out of the window in school, could merely lead her to stare at the floor instead. Unless we teach her appropriate ways to respond, we have merely managed to substitute one desirable behaviour for another. Punishment has to be followed up with reinforcement for subsequent behaviour that is more appropriate. Schedules of Reinforcement What are schedules of reinforcement? The frequency and timing of reinforcement following desired behaviour is called schedules of reinforcement. Continuous reinforcement schedule: Behaviour that is reinforced every time it occurs is said to be on a continuous reinforcement schedule. Partial reinforcement schedule: Behaviour that is reinforced some but not all of the time it occurs is said to be on a partial reinforcement schedule. Although learning occurs more rapidly under a continuous reinforcement schedule, behaviour lasts longer after reinforcement stops when it is learned under a partial reinforcement schedule. For example: putting coins into candy vending machines (continuous reinforcement schedule) and gambling slot machines (partial reinforcement schedule). If the machines at one point are broken, it is more likely that you will stop putting coins into the candy machine after a few failures, whereas you will continue to do so in the slot machine. Thus we can see that partial reinforcement schedules maintain performance longer than continuous reinforcement schedules. Partial reinforcement schedules can be put into two categories: Fixed-ratio and variable-ratio schedules: These are schedules that consider the number of responses made before reinforcement is given. In a fixed-ratio schedule: reinforcement is given only after a certain number of responses. For example: A pigeon might receive a food pellet every tenth time it pecked a key; here, the ratio would be 1:10. Garment workers are given money for every certain number of blouses they sew. In a variable-ratio schedule: reinforcement occurs after a varying number of responses rather than after a fixed number. For example: A telephone salesperson may make a sale during the third, eighth, ninth and twentieth calls without being successful during any call in between. So this makes them try to make as many calls as possible in as short a time as possible. Fixed-interval and variable-interval schedules: These are schedules that consider the amount of time that elapses before reinforcement is provided. Fixed-interval schedule: provides reinforcement for a response only if a fixed time period has elapsed. However, overall rates of response are relatively low. For example: A weekly paycheck makes relatively little difference exactly how much they produce in a given week. Students’ study habits often exemplify this reality. If the periods between exams are relatively long (meaning that the opportunity for reinforcement for good performance is fairly infrequent), students often study minimally or not at all until the day of the exam draws near. Just before the exam, however, students begin to cram for it, signalling a rapid increase in the rate of their studying response. As you might expect, immediately following the exam there is a rapid decline in the rate of responding, with few people opening a book the day after a test. Variable-interval schedule:Here the time between reinforcements varies around some average rather than being fixed. For example: A professor who gives surprise quizzes that vary from one every three days, to one every three weeks, is using a variable-interval schedule. Here students would be apt to study more regularly since they would never know when the next surprise quiz would be coming. Variable-interval schedules, in general, are more likely to produce relatively steady rates of responding than fixed-interval schedules, with responses that take longer to extinguish after reinforcement ends. Discrimination and Generalization Discrimination: The process by which people learn to discriminate stimuli is known as stimulus control training. In stimulus control training, a behaviour is reinforced in the presence of a specific stimulus, but not in its absence. For example, one of the most difficult discriminations many people face is determining when someone’s friendliness is not mere friendliness, but a signal of romantic interest. When such cues are absent, people learn to make the discrimination by observing the presence of certain non-verbal cues – such as increased eye contact and touching – that indicate romantic interest. When such cues are absent, people learn that no romantic interest is indicated. In this case, the non-verbal cue acts as a discriminative stimulus, one to which an organism learns to respond during stimulus control training. A discriminative stimulus signals the likelihood that reinforcement will follow a response. For example, if you wait until your roommate is in good mood before you ask to borrow her favourite compact disc, your behaviour can be said to be under stimulus control because you can discriminate between her moods. Generalization: Just as in classical conditioning, the phenomenon of stimulus generalization, in which an organism learns a response to one stimulus and then applies in to other stimuli, is also found in operant conditioning. If you have learned that being polite produces the reinforcement of getting your way in a certain situation, you are likely to generalize your responses to other situations. Sometimes, though, generalization can have unfortunate consequences, such as when people behave negatively toward all members of a racial group because they have had an unpleasant experience with one member of that group. Superstitious behaviour: Superstitious behaviours can be explained in terms of learning and reinforcement. Behaviour that is followed by a reinforcer tends to be strengthened. Occasionally, however, the behaviour that occurs prior to the reinforcement is entirely coincidental. Still, an association is made between the behaviour and reinforcement. Example of baseball player tapping his bat three times before making a single. Shaping: Reinforcing what doesn’t come naturally There are many complex behaviours, ranging from auto repair to zoo management, that we would not expect to occur naturally as part of anyone’s spontaneous behaviour. For such behaviours, for which there might otherwise be no opportunity to provide reinforcement (because the behaviour would never occur in the first place), a procedure known as shaping is used. Shaping is the process of teaching a complex behaviour by rewarding closer and closer approximations of the desired behaviour. In shaping, you start by reinforcing any behaviour that is at all similar to the behaviour you want the person to learn. Later, you reinforce only responses that are closer to the behaviour you ultimately want to teach. Finally you reinforce only the desired response. Each step in shaping, then, moves only slightly beyond the previously learned behaviour, permitting the person to link the new step to the behaviour learned earlier. Shaping allows even lower animals to learn complex responses that would never occur naturally, ranging from lions jumping through hoops to dolphins rescuing divers lost at sea. Biological constraints on Learning: You can teach an old dog just any trick Not all behaviours can be trained in all species equally well. Instead there are biological constraints, built-in limitations, in the ability of animals to learn particular behaviours. In some cases, an organism will have a special predisposition that will aid in its learning a behaviour (such as pecking behaviour in pigeons), called ‘instinctive drift’. In other cases, biological constraints will act to prevent or inhibit an organism from learning a behaviour (such as pigs unable to place a wooden disk into a piggy bank, they would only root the wooden disk along the ground). In either instance, it is clear that animals have specialized learning mechanisms that influence how readily both classical and operant conditioning influence their behaviour, and each species is biologically primed to develop particular kinds of associations and to have a difficult time in learning other. Cognitive-Social Approaches to Learning: Clearly not all learning is due to operant and classical conditioning. In fact, examples like learning to drive a car imply that some kinds of learning must involve higher-order processes in which people’s thoughts and memories and the way they process information account for their responses. Such situations argue against regarding learning as the unthinking, mechanical, and automatic acquisition of associations between stimulus and responses, as in classical conditioning, or the presentation of reinforcement, as in operant conditioning. Instead some psychologists view learning in terms of the thought processes, or cognitions, that underlie it – an approach known as cognitive-social learning theory. They focus on the unseen mental processes that occur during learning, rather than concentrating solely on external stimuli, responses and reinforcements. In its most basic formulation, cognitive-social learning theory suggests that it is not enough to say that people make responses because there is an assumed link between a stimulus and response due to a past history of reinforcement for the response. Instead, according to this point of view, people, and even animals, develop an expectation that they will receive a reinforcer upon making a response. Latent Learning: In latent learning, a new behaviour is learned but not demonstrated until reinforcement is provided for displaying it. Tolman and Honzik experiment on rats: A group of rats was allowed to wander around a maze once a day for 17 days without ever receiving any reward. Understandably, these rats made many errors and spent a relatively long time reaching the end of the maze. A second group, however, was always given food at the end of the maze. Not surprisingly, these rats learned to run quickly and directly to the food box, making few errors. A third group of rats started out in the same situation as the unrewarded rats, but only for the first ten days. On the 11th day, a critical experimental manipulation was introduced: from that point on, the rats in the group were given food for completing the maze. The results of this manipulation were dramatic. The previously unrewarded rats, who had earlier seemed to wander about aimlessly, showed such reductions in running time and declines in error rates that their performance almost immediately matched that of the group that had received rewards from the start. To cognitive-social theorists, it seemed clear 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 offered.  Instead, the rats seemed to develop a cognitive map of the maze – mental representation of spatial locations and directions. The possibility that we develop our cognitive maps through latent learning presents something of a problem for strict operant conditioning theorists. If we consider the results of Tolman’s maze experiment, for instance, it is unclear what the specific reinforcement was that permitted the rats that initially received no reward to learn about the layout of the maze, because there was obviously no reinforcer present. Instead, the results support a cognitive-social view of learning, in which learning might have resulted in changes in unobservable mental processes. Observational Learning: Learning through Imitation According to psychologist Albert Bandura a major part of human learning consists of observational learning, which they define as learning through observing the behaviour of another person called a model.(Explain Bobo doll experiment on aggression – negative behaviour. Explain Fearless peer experiment on children learning to approach a dog) According to Bandura, observational learning takes place in four steps: i. Paying attention and perceiving the most critical features of another person’s behaviour ii. Remembering the behaviour iii. Reproducing the action iv. Being motivated to learn and carry out the behaviour Instead of leaning occurring through trial and error, then, with successes being reinforced and failures punished, many important skills are learned through observational processes. Observational learning is particularly important in acquiring skills for which shaping is inappropriate. Piloting an airplane and performing brain surgery, for example, are behaviours that could hardly be learned using trial-and-error methods without grave cost – literally – to those involved in the learning. One crucial factor that determines whether we later imitate a model is the consequences of the model’s behaviour. If we observe a friend being rewarded for putting more time into her studies by receiving higher grades, we are more likely to imitate her behaviour than if her behaviour only results in her being stressed and tired. Models who are rewarded for behaving in a particular way are more apt to be mimicked than models who receive punishment. However, observing the punishment of a model does not necessarily stop observers from learning the behaviour. They can still describe the model’s behaviour – they are less apt to perform it. Violence on Television and in Movies: Does the Media’s message Matter? Discuss Oliver Stone’s movie, Natural Born Killers, (kids on drugs killing for pleasure) Most experts agree that watching high levels of media violence make viewers more susceptible to acting aggressively – for several reasons: Viewing violence seems to lower inhibitions against the performance of aggression. It makes aggression seem a legitimate response to particular situations. Viewing violence can distort our understanding of the meaning of others’ behaviour, predisposing us to view even nonaggressive acts by others as aggressive. A continual diet of aggression can leave us desensitized to violence. What previously would have repelled us now produces little emotional response. Insight Learning: Wolfgang Kohler performed a series of experiments on chimpanzees. Kohler found that at some point, while working on a problem, chimpanzees appeared to grasp its inner relationships through insight. The chimpanzee solved the problem not through mere trial and error but by perceiving the relationships essential to the solution or through perceptual organization. Definition: Insight can be defined as learning which involves a perceptual reorganization of elements in the environment such that new relationships among objects and events are suddenly seen. In a typical insight solution a problem is posed; a period follows during which no apparent progress is made, and then the solution comes suddenly. Human beings who solve a problem insightfully usually experience a good feeling called an ‘a-ha experience. This experience usually comes with puzzles or riddles that make good party games because people enjoy the experience of insight when it comes. Process of insight involves: The solution comes suddenly after a period during which one tries various response strategies. Perceptual rearrangement is important wherein new relationships between objects and events are suddenly seen. The solution can be generalized to other similar situations. The variables that influence insight are as follows: 1. Insight depends on the arrangement of the problem situation: Appropriate past experience, while necessary, does not guarantee a solution. Insight will come easily only if the essentials for solution are arranged so that their relationships can be perceived. Human beings can do much of their rearranging of a problem mentally, they can form a mental image of the solution and rearrange objects in that image in an attempt to find a solution. Mental manipulations may at times go on preconsciously and only when a solution has been found does the person suddenly realize that he had been thinking about the problem. 2. Once a solution occurs with insight, it can be repeated promptly: Gradual solutions appear to be the rule in trial and error learning. Sudden solution is the rule in insight. 3. A solution achieved with insight can be applied in new situations: What is learned in the insight experiment is not a specific stimulus-response sequence, but a cognitive relationship between means and an end. Hence one tool may be substituted for another. An effective learner is resourceful, adaptable person, able to use what he knows in new situations and to discover for himself solutions to problems that he has never faced before. Emphasis on insightful learning encourages such problem-solving behavior.