Learning

Learning is any relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential produced by experience. It is an inferred process, because we infer learning from performance.

Its distinguishing features are:
- It always involves experience.
- The change is relatively permanent.
- It is different from temporary changes due to fatigue, habituation, drugs, or fatigue.
- It involves a sequence of psychological events: input, processing, acquisition, and later recall.
- It is inferred from performance, but learning itself is not the same as performance.

So, learning means a lasting change based on experience, and not every change in behaviour is learning.

Classical conditioning demonstrates learning by association because one stimulus comes to signal another stimulus.

In Pavlov’s experiment:
- Food naturally produced salivation. Food is the unconditioned stimulus (US) and salivation is the unconditioned response (UR).
- A bell was repeatedly sounded just before food was given.
- After repeated pairings, the bell alone produced salivation.
- Now the bell became the conditioned stimulus (CS) and salivation to the bell became the conditioned response (CR).

Thus, the dog learned an association between the bell and food. This is called S–S learning, because one stimulus becomes a signal for another stimulus. The same kind of learning is seen when one stimulus comes to predict another in everyday life, such as a sweet dish making you expect taste and salivate.

Operant conditioning is a form of learning in which behaviour is learned, maintained, or changed through its consequences. The behaviour is voluntary and under the organism’s control, so it is also called instrumental conditioning.

A response is strengthened if it is followed by reinforcement. A reinforcer is any stimulus or event that increases the probability of a desired response.

The main factors that influence operant conditioning are:
- Type of reinforcement: positive or negative.
- Positive reinforcement uses pleasant stimuli such as food, praise, money, or status.
- Negative reinforcement increases avoidance or escape responses by removing unpleasant stimuli.
- Number, amount, and quality of reinforcement: more frequent, larger, and better-quality reinforcement usually speeds learning.
- Schedule of reinforcement:
- Continuous reinforcement: every correct response is reinforced.
- Partial/intermittent reinforcement: only some responses are reinforced.
- Partial reinforcement produces greater resistance to extinction.
- Delayed reinforcement: the longer the delay, the poorer the performance.
- Nature of the response being conditioned.

So, operant conditioning depends mainly on the consequences of behaviour and on how reinforcement is arranged.

The learning that supports a good role model is observational learning, also called imitation, modeling, or social learning.

In this kind of learning, a child learns by observing others and then emulating their behaviour. Bandura’s studies showed that children acquire knowledge by watching a model, but their actual performance depends on whether the model is rewarded or punished.

A growing child learns many social behaviours this way, such as:
- manners and courtesy,
- dressing and grooming,
- aggression or pro-social behaviour,
- diligence or indolence,
- ways of speaking and behaving in society.

Therefore, a good role model is important because children copy what they observe, and a model’s behaviour strongly influences the child’s own behaviour.

The chapter describes three main procedures used to study verbal learning:

1. Paired-associates learning
- A list of paired items is prepared.
- The first word is the stimulus term and the second is the response term.
- The learner first studies the pairs, then is shown the stimulus word and must recall the response word.
- Trials continue until all response words are recalled without error.
- The number of trials needed is the measure of learning.

2. Serial learning
- A list of verbal items is presented.
- The learner must recall the items in the same order as presented.
- In the serial anticipation method, one item serves as the stimulus for the next item.
- Learning continues until the whole sequence is correctly produced.

3. Free recall
- A list of words is shown one by one at a fixed pace.
- After the list, the learner recalls the words in any order.
- This method studies how words are organised in memory.
- Often, words at the beginning and end are easier to recall than middle words.

These methods help psychologists study how verbal material is learned and remembered.

A skill is the ability to perform some complex task smoothly and efficiently. Examples include car driving, airplane piloting, shorthand writing, and reading and writing.

Skill learning develops through three phases:

1. Cognitive phase
- The learner understands and memorises the instructions.
- The person tries to understand how the task has to be performed.
- A lot of conscious attention is required.

2. Associative phase
- Different stimuli are linked with the correct responses.
- With practice, errors decrease, performance improves, and time taken is reduced.
- The learner still needs attention and concentration.

3. Autonomous phase
- The task becomes more automatic.
- The demands on attention decrease.
- External interference has less effect.
- Performance becomes smooth and efficient.

Thus, skill learning is built through practice and exercise, and repeated practice leads to automaticity.