Learning and Its Importance
Beatrix Phan
Columbia Christian High School
Psychology
9 January 2017
There is no default setting in our genes, which means genes do not help us automatically know what to do and how to adapt to life. Thanks to this reason, human have an opportunity to build up adaptability – allows us to learn new behaviors to cope with difficulties and changes. Since, we all have to learn through experiences and shape ourselves flexibly to fit in all kind of environment and conditions. In shorter words, learning is the basic tool to gain experiences that human need to equip themselves in order to manage living. It is important to know about learning and how have we learnt in the past. (Myers, 237)
There are different ways of learning and they are classed into three main types: Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and cognitive learning.
Classical conditioning is a type of learning that the learners associate with two stimuli and predict incidents ahead of time. The most famous research about classical conditioning is carried out by a Russian psychologist Ivan Pavlov (1849 – 1936) who won a Nobel prize in physiology or medicine 1904 (Wikipedia). He mainly did research on animal digestion and unintentionally came across the recognition of association between the conditions and dog’s reaction. To perform the experiment, Ivan gave his dog food and rang a bell at the same time. The dog drooled as it saw the food in response. Later on, he noticed his dog drooled as the bell rang even without food. He had stimulated the dog with a strong stimuli – the food, and a neutral stimuli – the tone, and since the dog drooled as the food, it is an unconditioned response. When the dog drooled as the tone, the bell has become a conditioned stimulus and salivation has become conditioned response.
However, the CS will be less efficient if it being used repeatedly without the presence of the US. The dog for example, after repeatedly hears the bell rings without seeing the food, it salivates less and less than previous. This is defined as extinction – the lessened reaction that happens when the CS can not trigger the CR any longer. However, Ivan found that CR came back after giving the dog a break. After the break, the dog again salivates when it hears the tone of the bell. This phenomenon is defined as spontaneous recovery – the return of the CR after a cessation. Extinction is more likely to suppress the CR than to remove it. (Myers, 242)
Generalization – propensity to respond to stimuli that is alike with the CS, was also discovered during his study, when he recorded his dog likely salivates toward different tones or similar sounds. (Myers, 243) An example from real life is when you have a bad memory from being stung by a bee and now you are afraid of all kinds of bees. Generalization differs from discrimination – being able to distinguish between the CR and unrelated stimuli.
Operant conditioning is the type of learning where your behavior is shaped by reinforcement or punishment before it becomes a habit. A famous research about operant conditioning is B.F Skinner’s hamster. Skinner created a box, well known as Skinner Box, where there is a button (a lever) to press, and a record equipment. For each time the rat presses the button, food will come out and help the rat to notice the relation between the lever and the food. In this way the rat’s behavior has been shaped – slowly directing the rat conduct toward the coveted behavior, by reinforcement – a way of strengthening behavior by encouraging the learner (the rat) to do something (press the button) for a reward (the food). (Myers, 247)
There are four types of reinforcement: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, primary reinforcer and conditioned reinforcers. One way to remember these terms that works for me is when I see the word positive, it means you have something added (like a treat or a reward) when you do something good; negative is when you have something taken away from you when you have done something that you not suppose to. Primary reinforcer is something that essential to you and no need to be learnt, you need to find water when you are thirsty for example, it is an instinct that you already have. Conditioned reinforcer is something that you have to deal with in order to get what you want. For example, there is a sound signals the rat about the coming food, so anytime it gets hungry, it has to find a way to activate that sound again. But how long would the behavior last when reinforcers disappear? The answer is it ends about the same time when the learner notices the reinforcers disappearance. The rat will no longer press the button when it knows there would be no food coming out.
Reinforcement schedules: the reinforcers appear in ratio or interval and may be fixed or variable. Fixed-ratio schedules strengthen conduct after a certain number of reactions. Variable ratio schedules strengthen behavior after uncertain number of reactions. (Myers, 249) Fixed interval schedules strengthen behavior after a certain time, and variable interval schedules strengthen behavior after unforeseeable time.
Punishment decreases the behavior and diminishes the recurrence of conduct. Punishment can also be positive or negative. Positive punishment happens when you do something wrong and get something you dislike. For example, you go to school late and you receive a detention. Negative punishment happens when you do something wrong and your favorite thing is taken away from you, for example you go home late at night and your phone is taken away for a day.
Cognitive learning is a type of learning where the learner make observation through life time experiences. Biological, psychological and sociocultural influences take crucial roles in this process of learning. It also includes learning through observation. A classic example of observational learning is to learn through modeling – watch and mimic the behaviors of other people. Albert Bandura, 91 years old, is a psychologist of social science in Psychology at Stanford University. Noticing how children like to mimic the adults, he is famous for conducting an experiment with the Bobo doll. His experiment shows that when a kid watches an adult playing with the Bobo doll aggressively by throwing, kicking, beating, screaming, etc… the child will imitate the actions and come up with even more violent ideas like shooting the bobo with a gun or beating the doll with a stick. Meanwhile other kids watch the adult playing with the bobo respectively and gently will mimic and play with the doll more peacefully. This founding is really important to the behavioral development of children. It would be ideal if the parents avoid fighting or playing movies with violent contents before children and also engage your kids in peaceful activities.
Two others study of learning:
10,000 hours of deliberate practice: K. Anders Ericsson is a Swedish Psychologist age 70, an expert in psychology at Florida State University. He has studied that famous performers all over the worlds have all put their effort in deliberate practice for at least 10,000 hours before they master what they are doing. Deliberate practice includes effortful, organized working, concentrating on decreasing your failings and mistakes, always driving yourself to progress. (Stafford, 2015) This study also shows that innate talent only contributes a small part of success and the main factor leading to success is the practice of deliberate.
Inside the brain of the chess masters: Adriaan de Groot (1941 – 2016), a psychologist and a chess master of Dutch. Curious in the difference of memory of a chess players and ordinary people, he conducted a research and found out that the chess players can memorize all the motif of the chess board and positions of the pieces just through a look because they have been focused and practice the game for many times. Otherwise, the chess masters’ memory is no more special than anyone else.
To sum up, learning is an important process of development and knowing this helps us in training pets or educate kids in soft ways and still be able to help them to behave well.
References:
Cognitive Learning Theory – Using Thinking to Learn. (n.d.). Retrieved January 09, 2017, from https://explorable.com/cognitive-learning-theory
Famous Psychologists: B.F. Skinner. (n.d.). Retrieved January 09, 2017, from http://www.psychologistanywhereanytime.com/famous_psychologist_and_psychologists/psychologist_famous_b_f_skinner.htm
Ivan Pavlov. (n.d.). Retrieved January 09, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivan_Pavlov
K. Anders Ericsson. (n.d.). Retrieved January 09, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._Anders_Ericsson
Myers, D. G. (2008). Exploring psychology. New York: Worth.
Sadowski, K. (2014, May 07). The Difference Between Positive and Negative Punishment. Retrieved January 09, 2017, from http://nspt4kids.com/parenting/the-difference-between-positive-and-negative-punishment/
Stafford, T. (2015, December 12). The science of learning: five classic studies. Retrieved January 09, 2017, from https://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/dec/12/the-science-of-learning-five-classic-studies