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Chapter 5 Learning After reading this chapter, you would be able to describe the nature of learning, explain different forms or types of learning and the procedures used in such types o...

Chapter 5 Learning After reading this chapter, you would be able to describe the nature of learning, explain different forms or types of learning and the procedures used in such types of learning, understand various psychological processes that occur during learning and influence its course, and explain the determinants of learning. Contents Introduction Nature of Learning Paradigms of Learning Classical Conditioning Determinants of Classical Conditioning Operant/Instrumental Conditioning Determinants of Operant Conditioning Classical and Operant Conditioning : Differences (Box 5.1) Key Learning Processes Learned Helplessness (Box 5.2) Observational Learning Cognitive Learning Verbal Learning Skill Learning Factors Facilitating Learning Learning Disabilities Learning preserves errors Key Terms of the past as well as its Summary wisdom. Review Questions Project Ideas – A.N. Whitehead Rationalised 2023-24  Introduction At the time of birth every human baby is equipped with the capacity to make a limited number of responses. These responses occur reflexively whenever appropriate stimuli are present in the environment. As the child grows and matures, s/he becomes capable of making diverse types of responses. These include identifying the images of some persons as one’s mother, father or grandfather, using a spoon when eating food, and learning how to identify alphabets, to write, and to combine them into words. S/he also observes others doing things in specific environmental conditions, and imitates them. Learning names of objects such as book, orange, mango, cow, boy, and girl, and retaining them is another important task. One also learns to drive a scooter or a car, to communicate with others effectively, and to interact with others. It is all due to learning that a person becomes hard working or indolent, socially knowledgeable, skilled, and professionally competent. Each individual manages her or his life and solves all kinds of problems because of the capacity to learn and adapt. This chapter focuses on the various aspects of learning. First, learning is defined and characterised as a psychological process. Second, an account is presented that explains how one learns. A number of learning methods that account for simple to complex types of learning are described. In the third section, some empirical phenomena, that occur in the course of learning, are explained. In the fourth section, different factors that determine the speed and extent of learning are described including different learning disabilities. always involves some kinds of experience. We NATURE OF LEARNING experience an event occurring in a certain As indicated above learning is a key process in sequence on a number of occasions. If an event human behaviour. It refers to a spectrum of happens then it may be followed by certain changes that take place as a result of one’s other events. For example, one learns that if experience. Learning may be defined as “any the bell rings in the hostel after sunset, then relatively permanent change in behaviour or dinner is ready to be served. Repeated behavioural potential produced by experience”. experience of satisfaction after doing One must remember that some behavioural something in a specified manner leads to the changes occur due to the use of drugs, or formation of habit. Sometimes a single experience can lead to learning. A child strikes fatigue. Such changes are temporary. They are a matchstick on the side of a matchbox, and not considered learning. Changes due to gets her/his fingers burnt. Such an experience practice and experience, which are relatively makes the child learn to be careful in handling permanent, are illustrative of learning. the matchbox in future. Behavioural changes that occur due to Features of Learning learning are relatively permanent. They must The process of learning has certain distinctive be distinguished from the behavioural changes characteristics. The first feature is that learning that are neither permanent nor learned. For 78 Psychology Rationalised 2023-24 example, changes in behaviour often occur due or action. Let us understand what is meant by to the effects of fatigue, habituation, and drugs. the term inference. Suppose you are asked by Suppose you are reading your textbook of your teacher to memorise a poem. You read psychology for sometime or you are trying to that poem a number of times. Then you say learn how to drive a motor car, a time comes that you have learned the poem. You are asked when you will feel tired. You stop reading or to recite the poem and you are able to recite driving. This is a behavioural change due to it. The recitation of the poem by you is your fatigue, and is temporary. It is not considered per for mance. On the basis of your learning. performance, the teacher infers that you have Let us take another case of change in one’s learned the poem. behaviour. Suppose in the vicinity of your residence a marriage is being performed. It PARADIGMS OF LEARNING generates a lot of noise, which continues till late night. In the beginning, the noise distracts Learning takes place in many ways. There are you from whatever you are doing. You feel some methods that are used in acquisition of disturbed. While the noise continues, you simple responses while other methods are make some orienting reflexes. These reflexes used in the acquisition of complex responses. become weaker and weaker, and eventually In this section you will learn about all these become undetectable. This is also one kind of methods. The simplest kind of learning is behavioural change. This change is due to called conditioning. Two types of conditioning continuous exposure to stimuli. It is called have been identified. The first one is called habituation. It is not due to learning. You must classical conditioning, and the second have noticed that people who are on sedatives instrumental/operant conditioning. In or drugs or alcohol, their behaviour changes addition, we have observational learning, as it affects physiological functions. Such cognitive learning, verbal learning, and skill changes are temporary in nature and learning. disappear, as the effect wears out. Lear ning involves a sequence of psychological events. This will become clear if CLASSICAL CONDITIONING we were to describe a typical lear ning experiment. Suppose psychologists are This type of learning was first investigated by interested in understanding how a list of words Ivan P. Pavlov. He was primarily interested in is learned. They will go through the following the physiology of digestion. During his studies sequence : (i) do a pre-test to know how much he noticed that dogs, on whom he was doing the person knows before learning, (ii) present his experiments, started secreting saliva as the list of words to be remembered for a fixed soon as they saw the empty plate in which time, (iii) during this time the list of words is food was served. As you must be aware, saliva processed towards acquiring new knowledge, secretion is a reflexive response to food or (iv) after processing is complete, new something in the mouth. Pavlov designed an knowledge is acquired (this is LEARNING), and experiment to understand this process in detail (v) after some time elapses, the processed in which dogs were used once again. In the information is recalled by the person. By first phase, a dog was placed in a box and comparing the number of words which a harnessed. The dog was left in the box for some person now knows as compared to what s/he time. This was repeated a number of times on knew in the pre-test, one infers that learning different days. In the meantime, a simple did take place. surgery was conducted, and one end of a tube Thus, learning is an inferred process and was inserted in the dog’s jaw and the other end is different from performance. Performance of the tube was put in a measuring glass. The is a person’s observed behaviour or response experimental setup is illustrated in Figure 5.1. 79 Chapter 5 Learning Rationalised 2023-24  In the second phase of the experiment, the Unconditioned Stimulus (US) and salivation dog was kept hungry and placed in harness which follows it, an Unconditioned Response with one end of the tube ending in the jaw (UR). After conditioning, salivation started to and the other end in the glass jar. A bell was occur in the presence of the sound of the bell. The bell becomes a Conditioned Stimulus (CS) One-way and saliva secretion a Conditioned Response glass wall (CR). This kind of conditioning is called classical conditioning. The procedure is Food illustrated in Table 5.1. It is obvious that the learning situation in classical conditioning is one of S–S learning in which one stimulus (e.g., sound of bell) becomes a signal for another stimulus (e.g., food). Here one stimulus signifies the possible occurrence of another stimulus. Examples of classical conditioning abound Tube from Cup for Recording in everyday life. Imagine you have just finished salivary glands measuring saliva device your lunch and you are feeling satisfied. Then you see some sweet dish served on the Fig.5.1 : A Dog in Pavlovian Harness for Conditioning adjoining table. This signals its taste in your mouth, and triggers the secretion of saliva. You sounded and immediately thereafter food (meat feel like eating it. This is a conditioned response powder) was served to the dog. The dog was (CR). Let us take another example. In the early allowed to eat it. For the next few days, stages of childhood, one is naturally afraid of everytime the meat powder was presented, it any loud noise. Suppose a small child catches was preceded by the sound of a bell. After a an inflated balloon which bursts in her/his number of such trials, a test trial was hands making a loud noise. The child becomes introduced in which everything was the same afraid. Now the next time s/he is made to hold as the previous trials except that no food a balloon, it becomes a signal or cue for noise followed the sounding of the bell. The dog still and elicits fear response. This happens because salivated to the sound of the bell, expecting of contiguous presentation of balloon as a presentation of the meat powder as the sound conditioned stimulus (CS) and loud noise as of bell had come to be connected with it. This an unconditioned stimulus (US). association between the bell and food resulted in acquisition of a new response by the dog, Determinants of Classical Conditioning i.e. salivation to the sound of the bell. This has been termed as conditioning. You may have How quickly and strongly acquisition of a noticed that all dogs salivate when they are response occurs in classical conditioning presented with food. Food is thus an depends on several factors. Some of the major Table 5.1 Relationship of Stages of Conditioning and Operations Stages of Nature of Stimulus Nature of Response Conditioning Before Food (US) Salivation (UR) Sound of the Bell Alertness (No Specific Response) During Sound of the Bell (CS) + Food (US) Salivation (UR) After Sound of the Bell (CS) Salivation (CR) 80 Psychology Rationalised 2023-24 factors influencing learning a CR are described 3. Intensity of Conditioned Stimuli : This below: influences the course of both appetitive and 1. Time Relations between Stimuli : The aversive classical conditioning. More intense classical conditioning procedures, discussed conditioned stimuli are more effective in below, are basically of four types based on the accelerating the acquisition of conditioned time relations between the onset of conditioned responses. It means that the more intense the stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus conditioned stimulus, the fewer are the (US). The first three are called forward number of acquisition trials needed for conditioning procedures, and the fourth one conditioning. is called backward conditioning procedure. The basic experimental arrangements of these Activity 5.1 procedures are as follows: a) When the CS and US are presented In order to understand and explain conditioning, together, it is called simultaneous you may carry out the following exercise. Take a few pieces of mango pickle on a plate and conditioning. show it to the students in the classroom. Ask b) In delayed conditioning, the onset of them what they experienced in their mouth? CS precedes the onset of US. The CS Most of your classmates are likely to report ends before the end of the US. some salivation in their mouth. c) In trace conditioning, the onset and end of the CS precedes the onset of US with some time gap between the two. OPERANT/I NSTRUMENTAL C ONDITIONING d) In backward conditioning, the US precedes the onset of CS. This type of conditioning was first investigated It is now well established that delayed by B.F. Skinner. Skinner studied occurrence conditioning procedure is the most effective of voluntary responses when an organism way of acquiring a CR. Simultaneous and trace operates on the environment. He called them conditioning procedures do lead to acquisition operants. Operants are those behaviours or of a CR, but they require greater number of responses, which are emitted by animals and acquisition trials in comparison to the delayed human beings voluntarily and are under their conditioning procedure. It may be noted that control. The term operant is used because the the acquisition of response under backward organism operates on the environment. conditioning procedure is very rare. Conditioning of operant behaviour is called 2. Type of Unconditioned Stimuli : The operant conditioning. unconditioned stimuli used in studies of Skinner conducted his studies on rats and classical conditioning are basically of two pigeons in specially made boxes, called the types, i.e. appetitive and aversive. Appetitive Skinner Box. A hungry rat (one at a time) is unconditioned stimuli automatically elicits placed in the chamber, which was so built that approach responses, such as eating, drinking, the rat could move inside but could not come caressing, etc. These responses give out. In the chamber there was a lever, which satisfaction and pleasure. On the other hand, was connected to a food container kept on the aversive US, such as noise, bitter taste, electric top of the chamber (see Figure 5.2). When the shock, painful injections, etc. are painful, lever is pressed, a food pellet drops on the harmful, and elicit avoidance and escape plate placed close to the lever. While moving responses. It has been found that appetitive around and pawing the walls (exploratory classical conditioning is slower and requires behaviour), the hungry rat accidentally presses greater number of acquisition trials, but the lever and a food pellet drops on the plate. aversive classical conditioning is established The hungry rat eats it. In the next trial, after in one, two or three trials depending on the a while the exploratory behaviour again starts. intensity of the aversive US. As the number of trials increases, the rat takes 81 Chapter 5 Learning Rationalised 2023-24 lesser and lesser time to press the lever for food. response. They include its types – positive or Conditioning is complete when the rat presses negative, number or frequency, quality – the lever immediately after it is placed in the superior or inferior, and schedule – continuous chamber. It is obvious that lever pressing is or intermittent (partial). All these features an operant response and getting food is its influence the course of operant conditioning. consequence. Another factor that influences this type of learning is the nature of the response or behaviour that is to be conditioned. The interval or length of time that lapses between occurrence of response and reinforcement also influences operant learning. Let us examine some of these factors in detail. Types of Reinforcement Reinforcement may be positive or negative. Positive reinforcement involves stimuli that have pleasant consequences. They strengthen and maintain the responses that have caused them to occur. Positive reinforcers satisfy Fig.5.2 : Skinner Box needs, which include food, water, medals, In the above situation the response is praise, money, status, information, etc. instrumental in getting the food. That is why, Negative reinforcers involve unpleasant and this type of lear ning is also called painful stimuli. Responses that lead organisms instrumental conditioning. Examples of to get rid of painful stimuli or avoid and escape instrumental conditioning abound in our from them provide negative reinforcement. everyday life. Children who want to have some Thus, negative reinforcement leads to learning sweets in the absence of their mother learn to of avoidance and escape responses. For locate the jar in which mother hides the sweets instance, one learns to put on woollen clothes, for safekeeping and eat it. Children learn to burn firewood or use electric heaters to avoid be polite and say ‘please’ to get favours from the unpleasant cold weather. One learns to their parents and others. One learns to operate move away from dangerous stimuli because mechanical gadgets such as radio, camera, they provide negative reinforcement. It may T.V., etc. based on the principle of be noted that negative reinforcement is not instrumental conditioning. As a matter of fact punishment. Use of punishment reduces or human beings learn short cuts to attain suppresses the response while a negative desired goals or ends through instrumental reinforcer increases the probability of avoidance or escape response. For instance, conditioning. drivers and co-drivers wear their seat belts to Determinants of Operant Conditioning avoid getting injured in case of an accident or to avoid being fined by the traffic police. You have noted that operant or instrumental It should be understood that no conditioning is a form of learning in which punishment suppresses a response behaviour is learned, maintained or changed permanently. Mild and delayed punishment through its consequences. Such consequences has no effect. The stronger the punishment, are called reinforcers. A reinforcer is defined the more lasting is the suppression effect but as any stimulus or event, which increases the it is not permanent. probability of the occurrence of a (desired) Sometimes punishment has no effect response. A reinforcer has numerous features, irrespective of its intensity. On the contrary, which affect the course and strength of a the punished person may develop dislike and 82 Psychology Rationalised 2023-24 hatred for the punishing agent or the person some trials it is given and in others it is who administers the punishment. omitted. Thus, the reinforcement may be continuous or intermittent. When a desired Number of Reinforcement and other Features response is reinforced every time it occurs we call it continuous reinforcement. In contrast, It refers to the number of trials on which an in intermittent schedules responses are organism has been reinforced or rewarded. sometimes reinforced, sometimes not. It is Amount of reinforcement means how much known as partial reinforcement and has been of reinforcing stimulus (food or water or found to produce greater resistance to intensity of pain causing agent) one receives extinction – than is found with continuous on each trial. Quality of reinforcement refers reinforcement. to the kind of reinforcer. Chickpeas or pieces of bread are of inferior quality as compared Delayed Reinforcement with raisins or pieces of cake as reinforcer. The course of operant conditioning is usually The ef fectiveness of reinforcement is accelerated to an extent as the number, dramatically altered by delay in the occurrence amount, and quality of reinforcement of reinforcement. It is found that delay in the increases. delivery of reinforcement leads to poorer level of performance. It can be easily shown by Schedules of Reinforcement asking children which reward they will prefer for doing some chore. Smaller rewards A reinforcement schedule is the arrangement immediately after doing the chore will be of the delivery of reinforcement during preferred rather than a big one after a long conditioning trials. Each schedule of gap. reinforcement influences the course of conditioning in its own way; and thus Key Learning Processes conditioned responses occur with differential characteristics. The organism being subjected When learning takes place, be it classical or to operant conditioning may be given operant conditioning, it involves the reinforcement in every acquisition trial or in occurrence of certain processes. These include B o x 5.1 Classical and Operant Conditioning : Diff Differences erences 1. In classical conditioning, the responses are 3. In classical conditioning, the experimenter under the control of some stimulus because controls the occurrence of US, while in operant they are reflexes, automatically elicited by conditioning the occurrence of the reinforcer is the appropriate stimuli. Such stimuli are under the control of the organism that is learning. selected as US and responses elicited by Thus, for US in classical conditioning the them as UR. Thus Pavlovian conditioning, in organism remains passive, while in operant which US elicits responses, is often called conditioning the subject has to be active in order respondent conditioning. to be reinforced. In instrumental conditioning, responses 4. In the two forms of conditioning, the technical are under the control of the organism and are voluntary responses or ‘operants’. Thus, terms used to characterise the experimental in the two forms of conditioning different proceedings are different. Moreover what is called types of responses are conditioned. reinforcer in operant conditioning is called US in 2. In classical conditioning the CS and US are classical conditioning. An US has two functions. well-defined, but in operant conditioning CS In the beginning it elicits the response and also is not defined. It can be inferred but is not reinforces the response to be associated and directly known. elicited later on by the CS. 83 Chapter 5 Learning Rationalised 2023-24  B o x 5.2 Learned Helplessness It is an interesting phenomenon, which is a result suffered the shock through, and did not attempt to of an interaction between the two forms of escape. This behaviour of the dog was called learned conditioning. Learned helplessness underlies helplessness. psychological cases of depression. Seligman and This phenomenon has been shown to be operative Maier demonstrated this phenomenon in a study in humans also. It has been found that continuous on dogs. First, they subjected dogs to sound (CS) failure in a set of tasks shows the occurrence of and electric shock (US) using classical conditioning learned helplessness. In an experimental study, the procedure. The animal had no scope to escape or subjects are initially given failure experience avoid the shock. This pairing was repeated a irrespective of their performance. In the second phase number of times. Then the dogs were subjected to the subjects are given a task. Learned helplessness shock in an operant conditioning procedure. The is often measured in terms of the subject’s ability and dogs could escape the shock by pressing their persistence before they give up the task. Continuous heads against the wall. After having experienced failure leads to little persistence and poor performance. inescapable shock in the Pavlovian contingency, This shows helplessness. There are numerous studies the dog failed to escape or avoid shock in the that demonstrate that persistent depression is often operant conditioning procedure. The dog just caused by learned helplessness. reinforcement, extinction or non-occurrence lead to the desired response. Such a response of lear ned response, generalisation of is shaped by reinforcing successive lear ning to other stimuli under some approximations to the desired response. specifiable conditions, discrimination between reinforcing and non-reinforcing Extinction stimuli, and spontaneous recovery. Extinction means disappearance of a learned response due to removal of reinforcement from Reinforcement the situation in which the response used to Reinforcement is the operation of occur. If the occurrence of CS-CR is not administering a reinforcer by the experimenter. followed by the US in classical conditioning, Reinforcers are stimuli that increase the rate or lever pressing is no more followed by food or probability of the responses that precede. pellets in the Skinner box, the learned We have noted that reinforced responses behaviour will gradually be weakened and increase in rate, while non-reinforced ultimately disappear. responses decrease in rate. A positive Learning shows resistance to extinction. reinforcer increases the rate of response that It means that even though the learned precedes its presentation. Negative reinforcers response is now not reinforced, it would increase the rate of the response that precedes continue to occur for sometime. However, with their removal or termination. The reinforcers increasing number of trials without may be primary or secondary. A primary reinforcement, the response strength reinforcer is biologically important since it gradually diminishes and ultimately it stops determines the organism’s survival (e.g., food occurring. How long a learned response shows for a hungry organism). A secondary reinforcer resistance to extinction depends on a number is one which has acquired characteristics of of factors. It has been found that with the reinforcer because of the organism’s increasing number of reinforced trials experience with the environment. We resistance to extinction increases and learned frequently use money, praise, and grades as response reaches its highest level. At this level reinforcers. They are called secondary performance gets stabilised. After that the reinforcers. Systematic use of reinforcers can number of trials do not make a difference in 84 Psychology Rationalised 2023-24 the response strength. Resistance to extinction For example, suppose a child is conditioned increases with increasing number of to be afraid of a person with a long moustache reinforcements during acquisition trials, and wearing black clothes. In subsequent beyond that any increase in number of situation, when s/he meets another person reinforcement reduces the resistance to dressed in black clothes with a beard, the child extinction. Studies have also indicated that shows signs of fear. The child’s fear is as the amount of reinforcement (number of generalised. S/he meets another stranger who food pellets) increases during the acquisition is wearing grey clothes and is clean-shaven. trials, resistance to extinction decreases. The child shows no fear. This is an example of If the reinforcement is delayed during discrimination. Occurrence of generalisation acquisition trials, the resistance to extinction means failure of discrimination. increases. Reinforcement in every acquisition Discriminative response depends on the trial makes the learned response to be less discrimination capacity or discrimination resistant to extinction. In contrast, learning of the organism. intermittent or partial reinforcement during acquisition trials makes a learned response Spontaneous Recovery more resistant to extinction. Spontaneous recovery occurs after a learned Generalisation and Discrimination response is extinguished. Suppose an organism has learned to make a response for The processes of generalisation and getting reinforcement, then the response is discrimination occur in all kinds of learning. extinguished and some time lapses. A question However, they have been extensively now may be asked, whether the response is investigated in the context of conditioning. completely extinguished, and will not occur if Suppose an organism is conditioned to elicit a the CS is presented. It has been demonstrated CR (saliva secretion or any other reflexive that after lapse of considerable time, the response) on presentation of a CS (light or learned or CR recovers and occurs to the CS. sound of bell). After conditioning is established, and another stimulus similar to the CS (e.g., The amount of spontaneous recovery depends ringing of telephone) is presented, the organism on the duration of the time lapsed after the makes the conditioned response to it. This extinction session. The longer the duration of phenomenon of responding similarly to similar time lapsed, the greater is the recovery of stimuli is known as generalisation. Again, learned response. Such a recovery occurs suppose a child has learned the location of a spontaneously. Fig.5.3 shows the jar of a certain size and shape in which sweets phenomenon of spontaneous recovery. are kept. Even when the child’s mother is not (1) (2) (3) around, the child finds the jar and obtains the Acquisition Extinction Spontaneous sweets. This is a learned operant. Now the (CS+US) (CS alone) recovery sweets are kept in another jar of a different (CS alone) size and shape and at a different location in Strength of the CR the kitchen. In the absence of the mother the child locates the jar and obtains the sweets. This is also an example of generalisation. When a learned response occurs or is elicited by a new stimulus, it is called generalisation. Baseline Rest Another process, which is complimentary to generalisation, is called discrimination. Generalisation is due to similarity while Trials discrimination is a response due to difference. Fig.5.3 : Phenomenon of Spontaneous Recovery 85 Chapter 5 Learning Rationalised 2023-24  an experimental room in which similar toys OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING were placed around. The children were allowed The next form of learning takes place by to play with the toys. These groups were observing others. Earlier this form of learning secretly observed and their behaviours noted. was called imitation. Bandura and his It was found that those children who saw colleagues in a series of experimental studies aggressive behaviour being rewarded were investigated observational learning in detail. most aggressive; children who had seen the In this kind of learning, human beings learn aggressive model being punished were least social behaviours, therefore, it is sometimes aggressive. Thus, in observational learning called social learning. In many situations observers acquire knowledge by observing the individuals do not know how to behave. They model’s behaviour, but per formance is observe others and emulate their behaviour. influenced by model’s behaviour being This form of learning is called modeling. rewarded or punished. Examples of observational lear ning You must have noticed that children abound in our social life. Fashion designers observe adults’ behaviours, at home and employ tall, pretty, and gracious young girls during social ceremonies and functions. They enact adults in their plays and games. For and tall, smart, and well-built young boys for instance, young children play games of popularising clothes of different designs and marriage ceremonies, birthday parties, thief fabrics. People observe them on televised and policeman, house keeping, etc. Actually fashion shows and advertisements in they enact in their games what they magazines and newspapers. They imitate these observe in society, on television, and read in models. Observing superiors and likeable books. persons and then emulating their behaviour Children lear n most of the social in a novel social situation is a common behaviours by observing and emulating adults. experience. The way to put on clothes, dress one’s hair, In order to understand the nature of and conduct oneself in society are learned observational learning we may refer to the through observing others. It has also been studies conducted by Bandura. In one of his shown that children learn and develop various well-known experimental study, Bandura personality characteristics through showed a film of five minutes duration to observational learning. Aggressiveness, pro- children. The film shows that in a large room social behaviour, courtesy, politeness, there are numerous toys including a large diligence, and indolence are acquired by this sized ‘Bobo’ doll. Now a grown-up boy enters method of learning. the room and looks around. The boy starts showing aggressive behaviour towards the toys in general and the bobo doll in particular. He Activity 5.2 hits the doll, throws it on the floor, kicking it and sitting on it. This film has three versions. You can have first-hand experience of observational In one version a group of children see the boy learning by doing the following exercise. (model) being rewarded and praised by an Collect four or five school going children and demonstrate how to make a boat out of a sheet of adult for being aggressive to the doll. In the paper. Do it two or three times and ask the children second version another group of children see to observe carefully. After having shown how to the boy being punished for his aggressive fold the paper in different ways for a number of behaviour. In the third version the third group times, give them sheets of paper and ask them to of children are not shown the boy being either make a toy boat. rewarded or punished. Most children will be able to do it somewhat After viewing a specific version of the film successfully. all the three groups of children were placed in 86 Psychology Rationalised 2023-24  learning can be generalised to other similar COGNITIVE LEARNING problem situations. Some psychologists view learning in terms of cognitive processes that underlie it. They have Latent Learning developed approaches that focus on such Another type of cognitive learning is known as processes that occur during learning rather latent learning. In latent learning, a new than concentrating solely on S-R and S-S behaviour is learned but not demonstrated connections, as we have seen in the case of until reinforcement is provided for displaying classical and operant conditioning. Thus, in it. Tolman made an early contribution to the cognitive learning, there is a change in what concept of latent learning. To have an idea of the learner knows rather than what s/he does. latent learning, we may briefly understand his This form of learning shows up in insight experiment. Tolman put two groups of rats in learning and latent learning. a maze and gave them an opportunity to explore. In one group, rats found food at the Insight Learning end of the maze and soon learned to make their way rapidly through the maze. On the Kohler demonstrated a model of learning other hand, rats in the second group were not which could not be readily explained by rewarded and showed no apparent signs of conditioning. He perfor med a series of learning. But later, when these rats were experiments with chimpanzees that involved reinforced, they ran through the maze as solving complex problems. Kohler placed efficiently as the rewarded group. chimpanzees in an enclosed play area where Tolman contended that the unrewarded food was kept out of their reach. Tools such rats had learned the layout of the maze early as poles and boxes were placed in the in their explorations. They just never displayed enclosure. The chimpanzees rapidly learned their latent learning until the reinforcement how to use a box to stand on or a pole to move was provided. Instead, the rats developed a the food in their direction. In this experiment, cognitive map of the maze, i.e. a mental learning did not occur as a result of trial and representation of the spatial locations and error and reinforcement, but came about in directions, which they needed to reach their sudden flashes of insight. The chimpanzees goal. 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 VERBAL LEARNING normal reach above the enclosure. The Verbal learning is different from conditioning chimpanzee exhibited what Kohler called and is limited to human beings. Human insight learning – the process by which the beings, as you must have observed, acquire solution to a problem suddenly becomes clear. knowledge about objects, events, and their In a nor mal experiment on insight features largely in terms of words. Words then learning, a problem is presented, followed by come to be associated with one another. a period of time when no apparent progress is Psychologists have developed a number of made and finally a solution suddenly emerges. methods to study this kind of learning in a In insight learning, sudden solution is the rule. laboratory setting. Each method is used to Once the solution has appeared, it can be investigate specific questions about learning repeated immediately the next time the of some kind of verbal material. In the study problem is confronted. Thus, it is clear that of verbal learning, psychologists use a variety what is learned is not a specific set of of materials including nonsense syllables, conditioned associations between stimuli and familiar words, unfamiliar words (see Table responses but a cognitive relationship between 5.2 for sample items), sentences, and a means and an end. As a result, insight paragraphs. 87 Chapter 5 Learning Rationalised 2023-24  Table 5.2 Sample Lists of Items used in Verbal Learning Experiments Verbal Nonsense syllables Unfamiliar words Familiar words YOL ZILCH BOAT RUV PLUMB NOSE TOJ VERVE KNOW LIN BLOUT GOAL LUF THILL BOWL GOW SCOFF LOAD NOK TENOR FEET RIC WRACK MEET NEZ BOUGH TENT TAM MALVE FOAM SUK PATTER TALE KOZ MANSE JOKE GUD KYDRA MALE MUP BORGE BALM KUG DEVEN SOLE Methods used in Studying Verbal each stimulus term. After that a learning trial Learning begins. One by one the stimulus words are presented and the participant tries to give the 1. Paired-Associates Learning : This method correct response term. In case of failure, s/he is similar to S-S conditioning and S-R learning. is shown the response word. In one trial all It is used in learning some foreign language the stimulus terms are shown. Trials continue equivalents of mother tongue words. First, a until the participant gives all the response list of paired-associates is prepared. The first words without a single error. The total number word of the pair is used as the stimulus, and of trials taken to reach the criterion becomes the second word as the response. Members of the measure of paired-associates learning. each pair may be from the same language or two different languages. A list of such words 2. Serial Learning : This method of verbal is given in Table 5.3. learning is used to find out how participants The first members of the pairs (stimulus learn the lists of verbal items, and what term) are nonsense syllables (consonant- processes are involved in it. First, lists of verbal vowel-consonant), and the second are English items, i.e. nonsense syllables, most familiar or nouns (response term). The learner is first least familiar words, interrelated words, etc. are shown both the stimulus-response pairs prepared. The participant is presented the entire together, and is instructed to remember and list and is required to produce the items in the recall the response after the presentation of same serial order as in the list. In the first trial, Table 5.3 Examples of Stimulus – Response PPairs airs used in PPaired-Associates aired-Associates Learning Stimulus - Response Stimulus - Response GEN – LOOT LUR – ROOF BEM – TIME RUL – GOLD DIV – LAMP VAK – HILL WUF – DEER KER – NAME JIT – LION HOZ – GOAT DAX – COAL MUW – BULL 88 Psychology Rationalised 2023-24 the first item of the list is shown, and the a list containing the same association value. participant has to produce the second item. If On the basis of research findings, the following s/he fails to do so within the prescribed time, generalisations have been made. the experimenter presents the second item. Learning time increases with increase in Now this item becomes the stimulus and the length of the list, occurrence of words with low participant has to produce the third item that association values or lack of relations among is the response word. If s/he fails, the the items in the list. The more time it takes to experimenter gives the correct item, which learn the list, stronger will be the learning. In becomes the stimulus item for the fourth word. this respect psychologists have found that the This procedure is called serial anticipation total time principle operates. This principle method. Learning trials continue until the states that a fixed amount of time is necessary participant correctly anticipates all the items to learn a fixed amount of material, regardless in the given order. of the number of trials into which that time is divided. The more time it takes to learn, the 3. Free Recall : In this method, participants are stronger becomes the learning. presented a list of words, which they read and If participants are not restricted to the speak out. Each word is shown at a fixed rate of serial learning method and are allowed to give exposure duration. Immediately after the free recall, verbal lear ning becomes presentation of the list, the participants are organisational. It implies that in free recall required to recall the words in any order they participants recall the words not in their order can. Words in the list may be interrelated or of presentation, but in a new order or unrelated. More than ten words are included in sequence. Bousfield first demonstrated this the list. The presentation order of words varies experimentally. He made a list of 60 words from trial to trial. This method is used to study that consisted of 15 words drawn from each how participants organise words for storage in of the four semantic categories, i.e. names, memory. Studies indicate that the items placed animals, professions, and vegetables. These in the beginning or end of the lists are easier to words were presented to participants one by recall than those placed in the middle, which one in random order. The participants were are more difficult to recall. required to make free recall of the words. However, they recalled the words of each Determinants of Verbal Learning category together. He called it category Verbal learning has been subjected to the most clustering. It is worth noting that, though, extensive experimental investigations. These the words were presented randomly the studies have indicated that the course of verbal participants organised them category-wise in learning is influenced by a number of factors. recall. Here category clustering occurred The most important determinants are the because of the nature of the list. It has also different features of the verbal material to be been demonstrated that free recall is always learned. They include length of the list to be organised subjectively. Subjective organisation learned and meaningfulness of the material. shows that the participants organise words Meaningfulness of material is measured in or items in their individual ways and recall several ways. The number of associations accordingly. elicited in a fixed time, familiarity of the Verbal learning is usually intentional but material and frequency of usage, relations a person may learn some features of the words among the words in the list, and sequential unintentionally or incidentally. In this kind of dependence of each word of the list on the learning, participants notice features such as preceding words, are used for assessing whether two or more words rhyme, start with meaningfulness. Lists of nonsense syllables are identical letters, have same vowels, etc. Thus, available with different levels of associations. verbal learning is both intentional as well as The nonsense syllables should be selected from incidental. 89 Chapter 5 Learning Rationalised 2023-24  skill learning, the learner has to understand Activity 5.3 and memorise the instructions, and also understand how the task has to be performed. Take the following words and write them on separate cards, and ask the participants to read In this phase, every outside cue, instructional them aloud one by one. After completion of two demand, and one’s response outcome have to readings, ask them to write down the words in be kept alive in consciousness. any order : book, law, bread, shirt, coat, paper, The second phase is associative. In this pencil, biscuit, pen, life, history, rice, curd, shoes, phase, different sensory inputs or stimuli are sociology, sweet, pond, potato, ice-cream, muffler, linked with appropriate responses. As the and prose. After the presentation, ask them to write down the words they read, without bothering practice increases, errors decrease, about the order of presentation. performance improves and time taken is also Analyse your data to see whether recalled reduced. With continued practice, errorless words show any organisation. performance begins, though, the learner has to be attentive to all the sensory inputs and maintain concentration on the task. Then the third phase, i.e. autonomous phase, begins. SKILL LEARNING In this phase, two important changes take place in performance: the attentional Nature of Skills demands of the associative phase decrease, A skill is defined as the ability to perform some and interference created by external factors complex task smoothly and efficiently. Car reduces. Finally, skilled performance attains driving, airplane piloting, ship navigating, automaticity with minimal demands on shorthand writing, and writing and reading are conscious effort. examples of skills. Such skills are learned by Transitions from one phase to the other practice and exercise. A skill consists of a clearly show that practice is the only means of chain of perceptual motor responses or as a skill learning. One has to keep on exercising sequence of S-R associations. and practicing. As the practice increases, improvement rate gradually increases; and Phases of Skill Acquisition automaticity of errorless performance becomes the hallmark of skill. That is why it is said that Skill lear ning passes through several ‘practice makes a man perfect’. qualitatively different phases. With each successive attempt at learning a skill, one’s performance becomes smoother and less effort FACTORS FACILITATING LEARNING demanding. In other words, it becomes more spontaneous or automatic. It has also been In the preceding section we examined the shown that in each phase the performance specific determinants of learning, such as improves. In transition from one phase to the contiguous presentation of CS and US in next, when the level of performance stands classical conditioning; number, amount, and still, it is called performance plateau. Once delay of reinforcement in operant conditioning; the next phase begins, performance starts status and attractiveness of models in improving and its level starts going up. observational learning; procedure in verbal One of the most influential accounts of the learning; and the nature of rules and phases of skill acquisition is presented by perceptual features of objects and events in Fitts. According to him, skill learning passes concept learning. Now, we shall discuss some through three phases, viz. cognitive, general determinants of learning. This associative and autonomous. Each phase or discussion is not exhaustive. Rather it deals stage of skill learning involves different types with some salient factors only which are found of mental processes. In the cognitive phase of very important. 90 Psychology Rationalised 2023-24 Continuous vs Partial Reinforcement fulfilling the current need. In other words, In experiments on learning the experimenter motivation energises an organism to act can arrange to deliver reinforcement according vigorously for attaining some goal. Such acts to a specific schedule. In the context of persist until the goal is attained and the need learning, two kinds of schedules namely is satisfied. Motivation is a prerequisite for continuous and partial have been found very learning. Why does a child forage in the kitchen important. In continuous reinforcement the when the mother is not in the house? S/he does participant is given reinforcement after each so because s/he needs sweets to eat for which target response. This kind of schedule of s/he is trying to locate the jar in which sweets reinforcement produces a high rate of are kept. During the course of foraging the child responding. However, once the reinforcement learns the location of the jar. A hungry rat is is withheld, response rates decrease very placed in a box. The animal forages in the box quickly, and the responses acquired under this for food. Incidentally it presses a lever and food schedule tend to extinguish. Since organism drops in the box. With repeated experience of is getting reinforcement on each trial, the such activity, the animal learns to press the effectiveness of that reinforcer is reduced. In lever immediately after the animal is placed such schedules where reinforcement is not there. continuous, some responses are not Have you ever asked yourself why you are reinforced. Hence, they are called partial or studying psychology and other subjects in intermittent reinforcement. There are several Class XI? You are doing so to pass with good ways in which one might reinforce responses marks or grades in your final examination. according to an intermittent schedule. It has The more motivated you are, the more hard been found that partial reinforcement work you do for learning. Your motivation for schedules often produce very high rates of learning something arises from two sources. responding, particularly when responses are You learn many things because you enjoy reinforced according to ratio. In this kind of them (intrinsic motivation) or they provide you schedule, an organism often makes several the means for attaining some other goal responses that are not reinforced. Therefore, it (extrinsic motivation). becomes difficult to tell when a reinforcement has been discontinued completely and when Preparedness for Learning it has merely been delayed. When The members of different species are very reinforcement is continuous it is easier to tell different from one another in their sensory when it has been discontinued. This kind of capacities and response abilities. The difference has been found crucial for extinction. mechanisms necessary for establishing It has been found that extinction of a response associations, such as S-S or S-R, also vary from is more difficult following partial species to species. It can be said that species reinforcement than following continuous have biological constraints on their learning reinforcement. The fact that the responses capacities. The kinds of S-S or S-R learning an acquired under partial reinforcement are organism can easily acquire depends on the highly resistant to extinction is called partial associative mechanism it is genetically reinforcement effect. endowed with or prepared for. A particular kind of associative learning is easy for apes or Motivation human beings but may be extremely difficult All living organisms have survival needs and and sometimes impossible for cats and rats. It human beings, in addition, have growth needs. implies that one can learn only those Motivation is a mental as well as a physiological associations for which one is genetically state, which arouses an organism to act for prepared. 91 Chapter 5 Learning Rationalised 2023-24  The concept of preparedness may be best intelligence, adequate sensory motor systems, understood as a continuum or dimension, on and adequate learning opportunities. If it is not one end of which are those learning tasks or remedied, it may continue throughout life and associations which are easy for the members affect self-esteem, vocation, social relations, of some species, and on the other end are those and daily living activities. learning tasks for which those members are not prepared at all and cannot learn them. In Symptoms of Learning Disabilities the middle of the continuum fall those tasks There are many symptoms of learning and associations for which the members are disabilities. They become manifest in different neither prepared nor unprepared. They can combinations in children who suffer from this learn such tasks, but only with great difficulty disorder irrespective of their intelligence, and persistence. motivation, and hard work for learning. 1. Difficulties in writing letters, words and LEARNING DISABILITIES phrases, reading out text, and speaking appear quite frequently. Quite often they You must have heard, observed or read that have listening problems, although they thousands of children get enrolled for may not have auditory defects. Such education in schools. Some of them, however, children are very different from others in find the demands of educational process too developing learning strategies and plans. difficult to meet, and they drop out. Such 2. Learning-disabled children have disorders students are called “drop-outs”. The reasons of attention. They get easily distracted and for this are numerous, such as sensory cannot sustain attention on one point for impairment, intellectual disability, social and long. More often than not, attentional emotional disturbance, poor economic deficiency leads to hyperactivity, i.e. they conditions of the family, cultural beliefs and are always moving, doing different things, norms or other environmental influences. trying to manipulate things incessantly. Apart from these conditions, there is another 3. Poor space orientation and inadequate source of obstacle in the continuance of sense of time are common symptoms. education that is called learning disabilities. Such children do not get easily oriented to It makes school learning, i.e. acquisition of new surroundings and get lost. They lack knowledge and skills too difficult to grapple a sense of time and are late or sometimes with. Such children also fail to move forward too early in their routine work. They also in their learning activities. show confusion in direction and misjudge Learning disability is a general term. It right, left, up and down. refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders 4. Learning-disabled children have poor manifested in terms of difficulty in the motor coordination and poor manual acquisition of learning, reading, writing, dexterity. This is evident in their lack of speaking, reasoning, and mathematical balance, inability to sharpen pencil, handle activities. The sources of such disorders are doorknobs, difficulty in learning to ride a inherent in the child. It is presumed that these bicycle, etc. difficulties originate from problems with the 5. These children fail to understand and functioning of the central nervous system. It follow oral directions for doing things. may occur in conjunction with physical 6. They misjudge relationships as to which handicaps, sensory impairment, intellectual classmates are friendly and which ones are disability or without them. indif ferent. They fail to lear n and It must be noted that learning disabilities understand body language. may be observed as a distinct handicapping 7. Learning-disabled children usually show condition in children of average to superior perceptual disorders. These may include 92 Psychology Rationalised 2023-24  visual, auditory, tactual, and kinesthetic appropriate techniques for correcting most misperception. They fail to differentiate a of the symptoms related to learning call-bell from the ring of the telephone. It disabilities. is not that they do not have sensory acuity. They simply fail to use it in performance. Key Terms 8. Fairly large number of learning-disabled children have dyslexia. They quite often Associative learning, Biofeedback, Cognitive fail to copy letters and words; for example, map, Conditioned response, Conditioned they fail to distinguish between b and d, stimulus, Conditioning, Discrimination, p and q, P and 9, was and saw, unclear Dyslexia, Extinction, Free recall, and nuclear, etc. They fail to organise verbal Generalisation, Insight, Learning disabilities, Mental set, Modeling, Negative reinforcement, materials. Operant or instrumental conditioning, It must be noted that learning Positive reinforcement, Punishment, disabilities are not incurable. Remedial Reinforcement, Serial learning, Spontaneous teaching methods go a long way in helping recovery, Unconditioned response, them to learn and become like other students. Unconditioned stimulus, Verbal learning Educational psychologists have developed Summary Learning is any relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential produced by experience or practice. It is an inferred process and differs from performance which is the observed behaviour/response/action. The main types of learning are: classical and operant conditioning, observational learning, cognitive learning, verbal learning, and skill learning. Pavlov first investigated classical conditioning in the course of studies on digestion in dogs. In this kind of learning an organism comes to associate stimuli. A neutral stimulus (CS) that signals an unconditioned stimulus (US) begins to produce a response (CR) that anticipates and prepares the organism for US. Skinner first investigated operant or instrumental conditioning (OC). An operant is any response voluntarily emitted by an organism. OC is a type of learning in which response is strengthened if followed by reinforcement. A reinforcer can be any event that increases the frequency of preceding response. Thus, the consequence of a response is crucial. The rate of OC is influenced by the type, number, schedule, and delay of reinforcement. Observational learning is also known as imitation, modeling and social learning. We acquire knowledge by observing a model’s behaviour. The performance depends on whether the model’s behaviour is rewarded or punished. In verbal learning words get associated with one another on the basis of structural, phonetic, and semantic similarity and contrast. They are often organised in clusters. In experimental studies, paired-associates learning, serial learning, and free recall methods are used. Meaningfulness of material, and subjective organisation influence learning. It may be incidental also. Skill refers to the ability to carry out complex tasks smoothly and efficiently. They are learned by practice and exercise. The skilled performance is the organisation of S-R chain into large response patterns. It passes through cognitive, associative, and autonomous phases. Factors facilitating learning include motivation and preparedness of the organism. Learning disabilities (e.g., reading, writing) restrict learning in people. They are hyperactive, lack sense of time, and eye-hand coordination, etc. 93 Chapter 5 Learning Rationalised 2023-24  Review Questions 1. What is learning? What are its distinguishing features? 2. How does classical conditioning demonstrate learning by association? 3. Define operant conditioning. Discuss the factors that influence the course of operant conditioning. 4. A good role model is very important for a growing up child. Discuss the kind of learning that supports it. 5. Explain the procedures for studying verbal learning. 6. What is a skill? What are the stages through which skill learning develops? 7. How can you distinguish between generalisation and discrimination? 8. Why is motivation a prerequisite for learning? 9. What does the notion of preparedness for learning mean? 10. Explain the different forms of cognitive learning? 11. How can we identify students with learning disabilities? Project Ideas How do your parents reinforce you for behaving in the ways they think are good for you? Select five different instances. Compare these with the reinforcement employed by teachers in the classroom and relate them to the concepts taught in the class. 94 Psychology Rationalised 2023-24