Learning

Activity . C OGNITIVE L EARNING Some psychologists view learning in terms of cognitive processes that underlie it. They have developed approaches that focus on such processes that occur during learning rather than concentrating solely on S-R and S-S connections, as we have seen in the case of classical and operant conditioning. Thus, in cognitive learning, there is a change in what the learner knows rather than what s/he does .

This form of learning shows up in insight learning and latent learning . Insight Learning Kohler demonstrated a model of learning which could not be readily explained by conditioning. He performed a series of experiments with chimpanzees that involved solving complex problems. Kohler placed chimpanzees in an enclosed play area where food was kept out of their reach.

Tools such as poles and boxes were placed in the enclosure. The chimpanzees rapidly learned how to use a box to stand on or a pole to move the food in their direction. In this experiment, learning did not occur as a result of trial and error and reinforcement, but came about in sudden flashes of insight. The chimpanzees would roam about the enclosure for some time and then suddenly would stand on a box, grab a pole and strike a banana, which was out of normal reach above the enclosure.

The chimpanzee exhibited what Kohler called insight learning – the process by which the solution to a problem suddenly becomes clear. In a normal experiment on insight learning, a problem is presented, followed by a period of time when no apparent progress is made and finally a solution suddenly emerges. In insight learning, sudden solution is the rule. Once the solution has appeared, it can be repeated immediately the next time the problem is confronted.

Thus, it is clear that what is learned is not a specific set of conditioned associations between stimuli and responses but a cognitive relationship between a means and an end. As a result, insight learning can be generalised to other similar problem situations. Latent Learning Another type of cognitive learning is known as latent learning . In latent learning, a new behaviour is learned but not demonstrated until reinforcement is provided for displaying it.

Tolman made an early contribution to the concept of latent learning. To have an idea of latent learning, we may briefly understand his experiment. Tolman put two groups of rats in a maze and gave them an opportunity to explore. In one group, rats found food at the end of the maze and soon learned to make their way rapidly through the maze.

On the other hand, rats in the second group were not rewarded and showed no apparent signs of learning. But later, when these rats were reinforced, they ran through the maze as efficiently as the rewarded group. Tolman contended that the unrewarded rats had learned the layout of the maze early in their explorations. They just never displayed their latent learning until the reinforcement was provided.

Instead, the rats developed a cognitive map of the maze, i.e. a mental representation of the spatial locations and directions, which they needed to reach their goal. V ERBAL L EARNING Verbal learning is different from conditioning and is limited to human beings. Human beings, as you must have observed, acquire knowledge about objects, events, and their features largely in terms of words.

Words then come to be associated with one another. Psychologists have developed a number of methods to study this kind of learning in a laboratory setting. Each method is used to investigate specific questions about learning of some kind of verbal material. In the study of verbal learning, psychologists use a variety of materials including nonsense syllables, familiar words, unfamiliar words (see Table .

for sample items), sentences, and paragraphs. Methods used in Studying Verbal Learning . Paired-Associates Learning : This method is similar to S-S conditioning and S-R learning. It is used in learning some foreign language equivalents of mother tongue words.

First, a list of paired-associates is prepared. The first word of the pair is used as the stimulus, and the second word as the response. Members of each pair may be from the same language or two different languages. A list of such words is given in Table .

. The first members of the pairs (stimulus term) are nonsense syllables (consonant- vowel-consonant), and the second are English nouns (response term). The learner is first shown both the stimulus-response pairs together, and is instructed to remember and recall the response after the presentation of each stimulus term. After that a learning trial begins.

One by one the stimulus words are presented and the participant tries to give the correct response term. In case of failure, s/he is shown the response word. In one trial all the stimulus terms are shown. Trials continue until the participant gives all the response words without a single error.

The total number of trials taken to reach the criterion becomes the measure of paired-associates learning. . Serial Learning : This method of verbal learning is used to find out how participants learn the lists of verbal items, and what processes are involved in it. First, lists of verbal items, i.e.

nonsense syllables, most familiar or least familiar words, interrelated words, etc. are prepared. The participant is presented the entire list and is required to produce the items in the same serial order as in the list. In the first trial, the first item of the list is shown, 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 TTTTTable able .

Examples of Stimulus – Response P Examples of Stimulus – Response P Examples of Stimulus – Response P Examples of Stimulus – Response P Examples of Stimulus – Response Pairs used in P airs used in P airs used in P airs used in P airs used in Paired-Associates Learning aired-Associates Learning aired-Associates Learning aired-Associates Learning aired-Associates Learning 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 TTTTTable able . Sample Lists of Items used in V Sample Lists of Items used in V Sample Lists of Items used in V Sample Lists of Items used in V Sample Lists of Items used in Verbal Learning Experiments erbal Learning Experiments erbal Learning Experiments erbal Learning Experiments erbal Learning Experiments and the participant has to produce the second item. If s/he fails to do so within the prescribed time, the experimenter presents the second item. Now this item becomes the stimulus and the participant has to produce the third item that is the response word.

If s/he fails, the experimenter gives the correct item, which becomes the stimulus item for the fourth word. This procedure is called serial anticipation method . Learning trials continue until the participant correctly anticipates all the items in the given order. .

Free Recall : In this method, participants are presented a list of words, which they read and speak out. Each word is shown at a fixed rate of exposure duration. Immediately after the presentation of the list, the participants are required to recall the words in any order they can. Words in the list may be interrelated or unrelated.

More than ten words are included in the list. The presentation order of words varies from trial to trial. This method is used to study how participants organise words for storage in memory. Studies indicate that the items placed in the beginning or end of the lists are easier to recall than those placed in the middle, which are more difficult to recall.

Determinants of Verbal Learning Verbal learning has been subjected to the most extensive experimental investigations. These studies have indicated that the course of verbal learning is influenced by a number of factors. The most important determinants are the different features of the verbal material to be learned. They include length of the list to be learned and meaningfulness of the material .

Meaningfulness of material is measured in several ways. The number of associations elicited in a fixed time, familiarity of the material and frequency of usage, relations among the words in the list, and sequential dependence of each word of the list on the preceding words, are used for assessing meaningfulness. Lists of nonsense syllables are available with different levels of associations. The nonsense syllables should be selected from a list containing the same association value.

On the basis of research findings, the following generalisations have been made. Learning time increases with increase in length of the list, occurrence of words with low association values or lack of relations among the items in the list. The more time it takes to learn the list, stronger will be the learning. In this respect psychologists have found that the total time principle operates.

This principle states that a fixed amount of time is necessary to learn a fixed amount of material, regardless of the number of trials into which that time is divided. The more time it takes to learn, the stronger becomes the learning . If participants are not restricted to the serial learning method and are allowed to give free recall, verbal learning becomes organisational. It implies that in free recall participants recall the words not in their order of presentation, but in a new order or sequence.

Bousfield first demonstrated this experimentally. He made a list of words that consisted of words drawn from each of the four semantic categories, i.e. names, animals, professions, and vegetables. These words were presented to participants one by one in random order.

The participants were required to make free recall of the words. However, they recalled the words of each category together. He called it category clustering . It is worth noting that, though, the words were presented randomly the participants organised them category-wise in recall.

Here category clustering occurred because of the nature of the list. It has also been demonstrated that free recall is always organised subjectively. Subjective organisation shows that the participants organise words or items in their individual ways and recall accordingly. Verbal learning is usually intentional but a person may learn some features of the words unintentionally or incidentally.

In this kind of learning, participants notice features such as whether two or more words rhyme, start with identical letters, have same vowels, etc. Thus, verbal learning is both intentional as well as incidental. C ONCEPT L EARNING The world, in which we live, consists of innumerable objects, events and living beings. These objects and events are different in their structures and functions.

One of the many things human beings have to do is to organise the objects, events, animals, etc., into categories so that within the category, objects are treated as equivalent even though they are different in their features. Such categorisations involve concept learning. What is a Concept? A concept is a category that is used to refer to a number of objects and events .

Animal, fruit, building, and crowd are examples of concepts or categories. It may be noted that the terms, concept and category, are interchangeably used. A concept is defined as ‘a set of features or attributes connected by some rule’. Instances of a concept are those objects or events or behaviours, which have common features.

A feature is any characteristic or aspect of an object or event or living organism that is observed in them, and can be considered equivalent to some features observed or discriminated in other objects . Features are of innumerable kinds and their discriminability depends upon the degree of the observer’s perceptual sensitivity. Properties like colour, size, number, shape, smoothness, roughness, softness, and hardness are called features. Rules that are used to connect the features to form a concept may be very simple or complex.

A rule is an instruction to do something . Keeping in view the rules that are used in defining concepts, psychologists have studied two types of concepts : artificial concepts and natural concepts or categories. Artificial concepts are those that are well- defined and rules connecting the features are precise and rigid. In a well-defined concept the features that represent the concept are both singly necessary and jointly sufficient .

Every object must have all the features in order to become an instance of the concept. On the other hand, natural concepts or categories are usually ill-defined. Numerous features are found in the instances of a natural category. Such concepts include biological objects, real world products, and human artefacts such as tools, clothes, houses, etc.

Let us take the example of the concept of a square. It is a well-defined concept. It must have four attributes, i.e. closed figure, four sides, each side of equal length, and equal angles.

Thus a square consists of four features connected by a conjunctive rule . In order to understand various rules for creating well- defined concepts let us look at Figure . . Take the following words and write them on separate cards, and ask the participants to read them aloud one by one.

After completion of two readings, ask them to write down the words in any order : book, law, bread, shirt, coat, paper, pencil, biscuit, pen, life, history, rice, curd, shoes, sociology, sweet, pond, potato, ice-cream, muffler, and prose. After the presentation, ask them to write down the words they read, without bothering about the order of presentation. Analyse your data to see whether recalled words show any organisation.