Unit 2: Learning

I. Orientation

Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour, knowledge, skill, or potential for behaviour produced by experience or practice. Psychology explains learning through observable environmental events as well as internal cognitive and motivational processes. Major foundations include behaviourism, associated with Watson and Skinner, and social-cognitive theory, associated with Bandura.

• Experience-based change: Learning results from interaction with the environment, not merely from maturation, fatigue, illness, or temporary mood.
• Relative permanence: A learned change usually lasts beyond the immediate situation, although it may weaken through disuse or extinction.
• Adaptation: Learning helps organisms predict events, obtain rewards, avoid danger, and adjust to social conditions.
• Multiple levels: Learning may involve stimulus-response connections, habits, concepts, expectations, language, or problem-solving strategies.
• Scientific analysis: Psychologists examine antecedents, behaviour, and consequences, often using controlled observation and experimentation.
• Active organism: Learners do not merely react; attention, memory, expectations, motivation, and interpretation influence what is learned.

II. Meaning and definition

A. Meaning and definition

Learning refers to a lasting modification in behaviour or behavioural potential caused primarily by experience. It includes both directly observable performance and changes that may remain unexpressed until an appropriate situation occurs.

• Core definition: Learning is a relatively enduring change in behaviour or knowledge resulting from experience, practice, or conditioning.
• What learning is not: Temporary performance changes caused by sleep loss, drugs, illness, hunger, or physical growth are not normally classified as learning.
• Potential versus performance: A student may learn a rule but fail to demonstrate it because of anxiety, low motivation, or lack of opportunity.
• Concrete example: Repeatedly pairing a tone with food can make a dog salivate to the tone alone, showing a learned response to a previously neutral stimulus.
• Functional value: Learning permits prediction; after repeated consequences, a person may anticipate that studying improves examination performance.

III. Theories of learning

A. Theories of learning

Theories of learning provide different explanations for how experience produces change, with each emphasizing particular mechanisms and evidence.

• Behaviourist theory: Learning is inferred from observable changes in responses produced by environmental contingencies; conditioning experiments are central.
• Cognitive theory: Learning involves internal representations, expectations, memory, attention, and insight, not only stimulus-response bonds.
• Social-cognitive theory: Albert Bandura proposed that people learn by observing models and by judging their own ability to perform behaviour.
• Constructivist view: Learners actively organize information and connect new material with prior knowledge rather than passively receiving facts.
• Biological perspective: Preparedness, species-specific tendencies, and neural plasticity constrain what can be learned easily.
• Comparative value: Behavioural theories explain measurable acquisition and performance particularly well, while cognitive theories explain latent learning, insight, and expectations.

IV. Classical conditioning — learning by association

A. Classical conditioning

Classical conditioning occurs when an originally neutral stimulus becomes capable of eliciting a response after being associated with a stimulus that naturally produces that response.

• Pavlovian basis: Ivan Pavlov’s experiments paired food with a bell or tone; salivation eventually occurred to the tone.
• Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): A stimulus that naturally elicits a response, such as food producing salivation.
• Unconditioned response (UCR): The unlearned response to the UCS, such as salivation to food.
• Conditioned stimulus (CS): A formerly neutral stimulus that acquires predictive power, such as a tone after tone-food pairings.
• Conditioned response (CR): The learned response to the CS, such as salivation to the tone.
• Acquisition: Learning is strongest when the CS reliably precedes the UCS by a short interval; repeated tone-food pairings increase responding.
• Extinction and recovery: If the CS occurs repeatedly without the UCS, the CR declines; after rest, spontaneous recovery may briefly return.
• Generalization and discrimination: A response may spread to similar stimuli, whereas discrimination restricts responding to the stimulus that predicts the UCS.
• Applications and limits: Conditioning helps explain phobias and advertising, but human learning also depends on beliefs, language, and awareness of stimulus relationships.

V. Operant conditioning — consequences shape behaviour

A. Operant conditioning

Operant conditioning is learning in which the consequences following a voluntary behaviour alter the future probability of that behaviour.

• Thorndike’s law of effect: Responses followed by satisfying consequences become more likely; responses followed by discomfort become less likely.
• Reinforcement: Any consequence that increases a behaviour, such as praise increasing class participation.
• Positive reinforcement: Something desirable is added; giving a student extra credit after completed work may increase studying.
• Negative reinforcement: Something unpleasant is removed; fastening a seat belt stops an irritating alarm and increases seat-belt use.
• Punishment: A consequence that decreases behaviour. Positive punishment adds an unpleasant event, while negative punishment removes a desirable event.
• Shaping: Successive approximations are reinforced; a trainer might reward first approaching, then touching, and finally pressing a target.
• Discriminative stimulus: A cue signals that reinforcement is available; a “sale” sign indicates that purchasing may produce a discount.
• Limitations: Punishment can suppress behaviour without teaching an alternative, and reinforcement effects depend on timing, magnitude, and the learner’s expectations.

VI. Observational learning — learning from models

A. Observational learning

Observational learning occurs when an individual acquires behaviour, emotional reactions, or strategies by watching another person and the consequences of that person’s actions.

• Bandura’s model: Learning can occur without immediate performance or direct reinforcement, as shown in studies of children observing aggressive adult models.
• Attention: The learner must notice the model; status, attractiveness, similarity, and clarity can increase attention.
• Retention: Observed actions must be represented in memory through images, verbal descriptions, or organized steps.
• Reproduction: The learner needs the physical ability and knowledge required to perform the behaviour.
• Motivation: Performance is more likely when the observer expects reward or sees the model rewarded.
• Vicarious reinforcement: Watching another person receive praise can increase imitation; watching punishment can reduce it.
• Self-efficacy: Belief in one’s capability influences persistence; successful practice generally strengthens confidence.
• Social significance: Children may imitate language, emotional responses, prejudice, cooperation, or aggression from family, peers, and media.

VII. Basic processes in learning

A. Basic processes in learning

Basic learning processes describe how associations are acquired, strengthened, weakened, and transferred to related situations.

• Acquisition: A new response or association develops through repeated pairing, practice, feedback, or consequences.
• Reinforcement: A consequence strengthens behaviour; its effect is defined by increased future frequency, not by whether it appears pleasant to an observer.
• Punishment: A consequence decreases behaviour; its effect must be assessed by later behavioural change.
• Extinction: A learned response declines when reinforcement or the expected outcome no longer follows behaviour.
• Spontaneous recovery: An extinguished response can reappear after a rest period, indicating that extinction suppresses rather than completely erases learning.
• Stimulus generalization: Learning transfers from one stimulus to similar stimuli, such as fear extending from one dog to many dogs.
• Stimulus discrimination: The learner responds differently to stimuli with different consequences, such as distinguishing a genuine warning from a harmless signal.
• Feedback: Information about accuracy or consequences guides correction; immediate feedback is especially useful during early skill acquisition.

VIII. Reinforcement schedules

A. Reinforcement schedules

A reinforcement schedule specifies when and how often a behaviour receives reinforcement, strongly influencing its rate and resistance to extinction.

• Continuous reinforcement: Every correct response is reinforced; this supports rapid acquisition but can produce rapid extinction when reinforcement stops.
• Fixed-ratio schedule: Reinforcement follows a set number of responses, such as a reward after every tenth completed task; it produces high responding with a brief pause after reward.
• Variable-ratio schedule: Reinforcement follows an unpredictable number of responses, as in gambling; it produces high, steady responding and strong resistance to extinction.
• Fixed-interval schedule: The first response after a fixed time is reinforced, such as a weekly quiz; responding often accelerates as the expected time approaches.
• Variable-interval schedule: The first response after varying time periods is reinforced, as with checking for unpredictable messages; it produces steady, moderate responding.
• Schedule comparison: Ratio schedules depend on number of responses, whereas interval schedules depend on passage of time; variable schedules generally resist extinction better than fixed schedules.
• Practical application: A teacher may begin with continuous feedback for a new skill and gradually shift to intermittent reinforcement to maintain performance.

IX. Transfer of training — applying previous learning

A. Transfer of training

Transfer of training is the influence of previously learned knowledge or skills on learning or performing a new task.

• Positive transfer: Earlier learning facilitates new learning; typing skills can help someone learn another keyboard layout.
• Negative transfer: Earlier learning interferes; a driver accustomed to right-side traffic may initially steer incorrectly in a left-side traffic system.
• Zero transfer: Previous learning has little measurable effect on the new task.
• Near transfer: Application occurs in a similar context, such as using a laboratory measurement procedure in another laboratory.
• Far transfer: Application occurs in a substantially different context, such as using logical reasoning learned in mathematics to evaluate an everyday claim.
• Identical elements: Transfer is strongest when the old and new tasks share stimuli, responses, rules, or underlying principles.
• Improving transfer: Varied practice, explanation of underlying concepts, and explicit comparison of situations help learners recognize when prior knowledge applies.

X. Motivational and cognitive influences on learning

A. Motivational and cognitive influences on learning

Learning depends not only on environmental consequences but also on goals, attention, expectations, prior knowledge, and interpretations of success or failure.

• Motivation: Intrinsic motivation arises from interest or mastery, whereas extrinsic motivation involves external rewards; either can influence persistence.
• Attention: Information that is novel, relevant, emotionally significant, or connected to a goal is more likely to be processed.
• Expectancy: A learner’s belief that an action will produce an outcome affects effort; expecting study to improve performance encourages practice.
• Value: Effort increases when the outcome is considered important, useful, or personally meaningful.
• Cognitive maps: Edward Tolman showed that organisms can form mental representations of environments; learning may occur without immediate reinforcement.
• Latent learning: Knowledge can be acquired without visible performance and revealed later when motivation or opportunity changes.
• Insight: Some problem solving involves sudden reorganization of relationships rather than gradual trial-and-error conditioning.
• Self-regulation: Effective learners set goals, monitor understanding, use strategies, and adjust effort when feedback reveals error.
• Biological and emotional limits: Stress, fear, sleep deprivation, and working-memory overload can reduce attention and retrieval even when prior learning is present.