CLASS XI PSYCHOLOGY — CHAPTER 5: LEARNING

1. INTRODUCTION

Learning is one of the most important processes responsible for human development and
behaviour.

From birth, individuals gradually learn:

 to identify people and objects,

 to speak and communicate,

 to read and write,

 to use tools,

 to interact socially,

 to solve problems,

 to acquire skills,

 and to adapt to their environment.

Learning enables a person to become knowledgeable, skilled, socially competent and

professionally competent.

Key idea

Learning helps an individual adapt to the environment and acquire new behaviours, knowledge
and skills.

Learning takes place through experience and practice and can occur in simple as well as complex
forms.

Major forms of learning

1. Classical Conditioning

2. Operant/Instrumental Conditioning

3. Observational Learning

4. Cognitive Learning

5. Verbal Learning

6. Skill Learning
2. NATURE OF LEARNING

Definition

Learning may be defined as:

“Any relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential produced by

experience.”

This definition contains three important ideas:

1. Learning involves change

There is some change in behaviour or behavioural potential.

2. Change is relatively permanent

The change should not be temporary.

3. Change occurs due to experience

Practice and experience produce learning.

Learning ≠ Temporary Behavioural Change

Not every change in behaviour is learning.

Changes due to fatigue

If a student stops studying because they are tired, the change is temporary.

Changes due to drugs

Drugs, alcohol or sedatives may temporarily alter behaviour.

Habituation

When a person is repeatedly exposed to a stimulus, their response may gradually decrease.

Example: Initially, loud wedding music may disturb you, but after continuous exposure, you may
stop responding to it.

These changes are not considered learning.

 Learning is an Inferred Process

Learning cannot always be directly observed.

Psychologists infer learning from performance.

Learning

The relatively permanent change acquired through experience.

Performance

The actual observable behaviour or response.

Example:

A student memorises a poem → Learning

The student recites the poem in class → Performance

The teacher infers that learning has occurred from the student's performance.

Therefore:

Learning is inferred from performance but is not the same as performance.

Important Characteristics of Learning

 Learning involves experience.

 Learning produces a relatively permanent change.

 Learning can involve behaviour or behavioural potential.

 Learning is different from performance.

 Learning can occur through different processes.

 Learning helps individuals adapt to their environment.

 Learning can occur through practice, observation, association and cognitive processes.

3. PARADIGMS OF LEARNING

A paradigm of learning refers to a particular method or framework through which learning is

understood.
 The textbook discusses six major forms:

Type Main Idea

Classical conditioning Learning through association between stimuli

Operant conditioning Learning through consequences of behaviour

Observational learning Learning by observing others

Cognitive learning Learning through mental/cognitive processes

Verbal learning Learning words and verbal material

Skill learning Learning complex activities through practice

4. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Meaning

Classical conditioning was first systematically investigated by Ivan P. Pavlov.

It is a form of learning in which an organism learns an association between two stimuli.

It is therefore also called stimulus-stimulus (S-S) learning.

Pavlov's Experiment

Pavlov was originally studying digestion in dogs.

He noticed that dogs began salivating when they saw the plate in which food was served.

Before Conditioning

Food → Salivation

 Food = Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

 Salivation = Unconditioned Response (UR)

The response occurs naturally without prior learning.

During Conditioning

Bell + Food → Salivation

The bell is repeatedly presented immediately before food.

After Conditioning

Bell → Salivation

The dog now salivates merely on hearing the bell.

 Bell = Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

 Salivation = Conditioned Response (CR)

Important Terms

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

A stimulus that naturally produces a response.

Example: Food

Unconditioned Response (UR)

A naturally occurring response to the US.

Example: Salivation to food

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

Previously neutral stimulus that acquires the capacity to produce a response after conditioning.

Example: Bell

Conditioned Response (CR)

Learned response to the conditioned stimulus.

Example: Salivation to bell

Easy Memory Trick

US → UR = Natural

CS → CR = Learned

Everyday Examples

Example 1: Food

Seeing a delicious dish may make you salivate or feel hungry because it has become associated with
eating.

Example 2: Balloon

A child naturally fears a loud noise. If a balloon repeatedly bursts with a loud noise, the child may
later fear the balloon itself.

Thus, the balloon becomes a CS, while fear becomes the CR.

DETERMINANTS OF CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

The speed and strength of classical conditioning depend upon several factors.

1. Time Relations Between CS and US

There are four major procedures.

A. Simultaneous Conditioning

CS and US are presented together.

CS + US

Example:
Bell and food presented simultaneously.

B. Delayed Conditioning

The CS begins before the US and continues until the US begins.

CS → US

This is the most effective form of conditioning.

 C. Trace Conditioning

The CS begins and ends before the US begins, leaving a time gap.

CS → gap → US

It requires more trials than delayed conditioning.

D. Backward Conditioning

The US occurs before the CS.

US → CS

Acquisition of the response is very rare.

Exam point

Most effective: Delayed conditioning

Least effective/rare: Backward conditioning

2. Type of Unconditioned Stimulus

Two types:

Appetitive US

Produces approach, pleasure or satisfaction.

Examples:

 Food

 Water

 Caressing

Appetitive conditioning is generally slower.

Aversive US

Produces pain, avoidance or escape.

Examples:
 Loud noise

 Electric shock

 Painful injection

 Bitter taste

Aversive conditioning can develop in one, two or three trials, depending upon intensity.

3. Intensity of Conditioned Stimulus

A more intense CS generally produces faster conditioning.

Greater intensity of CS → fewer trials required for acquisition.

5. OPERANT / INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING

Meaning

Operant conditioning was first investigated by B.F. Skinner.

An operant is a voluntary response emitted by an organism that operates upon the environment.

Learning occurs because the behaviour is followed by a consequence.

Behaviour → Consequence → Future behaviour changes

Skinner Box Experiment

Skinner placed a hungry rat inside a specially designed box.

The box contained:

 a lever,

 food container,

 food pellets.

Initially, the rat explored the box.

Accidentally, it pressed the lever and food appeared.

 After repeated trials, the rat learned to press the lever more quickly.

Eventually:

Lever pressing → Food

Therefore:

 Lever pressing = Operant response

 Food = Consequence/Reinforcer

Why is it called Instrumental Conditioning?

The response acts as an instrument for obtaining a desired consequence.

Example:

Child says "please" → receives favour.

The polite behaviour becomes more likely because it produces a desired consequence.

DETERMINANTS OF OPERANT CONDITIONING

Operant conditioning depends mainly upon the consequences of behaviour.

1. Type of Reinforcement

Positive Reinforcement

A pleasant stimulus is provided following a response and strengthens that response.

Examples:

 Praise

 Food

 Money

 Medal

 Grades

 Status
 Example:

Student studies → receives praise → studies more.

Negative Reinforcement

An unpleasant stimulus is removed or avoided following a response, increasing that response.

Examples:

 Wearing woollen clothes to avoid cold.

 Wearing a seat belt to avoid injury or fine.

VERY IMPORTANT:

Negative reinforcement ≠ punishment

Negative reinforcement increases behaviour.

Punishment suppresses/reduces behaviour.

Remember:

Reinforcement → increases behaviour

Punishment → decreases/suppresses behaviour

2. Number, Amount and Quality of Reinforcement

Number

How many times reinforcement is provided.

Amount

How much reinforcement is provided.

Quality

How desirable or valuable the reinforcer is.

Generally:

Increase in number + amount + quality of reinforcement → acceleration of operant conditioning.

3. Schedules of Reinforcement

A reinforcement schedule refers to the arrangement of reinforcement during conditioning trials.

Continuous Reinforcement

The desired response is reinforced every time it occurs.

Example:

Every time a student completes homework → teacher gives praise.

Advantage

Produces a high rate of responding.

Disadvantage

When reinforcement stops, behaviour tends to extinguish quickly.

Intermittent / Partial Reinforcement

The response is reinforced only sometimes.

Example:

A student receives praise only occasionally for answering correctly.

Important finding

Partial reinforcement produces greater resistance to extinction.

This is called the:

Partial Reinforcement Effect

4. Delayed Reinforcement

The effectiveness of reinforcement decreases when there is a long delay between behaviour and
reinforcement.

Therefore:

Immediate reinforcement is generally more effective than delayed reinforcement.

 Example:

A child is more likely to prefer a small reward immediately after completing a task than a larger
reward much later.

KEY LEARNING PROCESSES

1. Reinforcement

Reinforcement is the operation of providing a reinforcer.

A reinforcer is any stimulus/event that increases the probability of the preceding response.

Primary Reinforcer

Biologically important and related to survival.

Example: Food for a hungry organism.

Secondary Reinforcer

Acquires reinforcing value through experience.

Examples:

 Money

 Praise

 Grades

2. Extinction

Extinction refers to the disappearance or weakening of a learned response when reinforcement is

removed.

Classical conditioning:

CS is repeatedly presented without US.

Bell → No food

Salivation gradually disappears.

Operant conditioning:
Response is no longer reinforced.

Lever pressing → No food

Response gradually decreases.

3. Generalisation

Generalisation occurs when a learned response occurs in response to stimuli similar to the original
stimulus.

Example:

A child conditioned to fear a person with a long moustache and black clothes may also fear another
person with a beard and black clothes.

Generalisation = response to similarity

4. Discrimination

Discrimination is the ability to respond differently to stimuli that are different.

Example:

The child fears the person in black clothes but does not fear a clean-shaven person wearing grey
clothes.

Discrimination = response to difference

Quick comparison

Generalisation Discrimination

Similarity Difference

Similar stimuli produce similar responses Different stimuli produce different responses

Failure of discrimination Ability to differentiate

 5. Spontaneous Recovery

After a learned response has been extinguished, it may reappear after some time has passed.

This is called spontaneous recovery.

Extinction → Rest period → CR reappears

The longer the time interval after extinction, the greater the amount of spontaneous recovery may
be.

6. Learned Helplessness

Learned helplessness was demonstrated by Seligman and Maier.

Dogs first experienced unavoidable shocks and had no opportunity to escape.

Later, when an escape opportunity was provided, they failed to attempt escape.

This behaviour was called learned helplessness.

In humans

Repeated experiences of failure may result in:

 reduced persistence,

 poor performance,

 giving up easily,

 feelings of helplessness.

CLASSICAL VS OPERANT CONDITIONING

Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning

Investigated by Pavlov Investigated by Skinner

Involves reflexive responses Involves voluntary responses

Stimulus controls response Organism controls response

 Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning

S-S learning Response-consequence learning

US is controlled by experimenter Reinforcer depends on organism's response

Organism is relatively passive Organism is active

CS and US are clearly defined CS is not directly defined

Example: salivation to bell Example: lever pressing for food

6. OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING

Observational learning occurs through observing the behaviour of others.

It is also called:

 Imitation

 Modelling

 Social learning

The learner observes a model and may later reproduce the behaviour.

Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

Albert Bandura showed children a film in which an adult model behaved aggressively towards a
Bobo doll.

Three groups observed different consequences:

1. Model was rewarded

2. Model was punished

3. Model was neither rewarded nor punished

Findings

Children who saw the aggressive model being rewarded showed the greatest aggression.

Children who saw the model being punished showed the least aggression.

Conclusion

People can acquire knowledge through observation, but their performance is influenced by
whether the model is rewarded or punished.

Examples

Children learn through observing:

 parents,

 teachers,

 friends,

 celebrities,

 television characters,

 social media personalities.

They may learn:

 politeness,

 aggression,

 courtesy,

 diligence,

 social behaviour,

 appearance and grooming.

7. COGNITIVE LEARNING

Cognitive learning focuses on mental processes involved in learning.

 Unlike conditioning, where emphasis is placed on S-R or S-S connections, cognitive learning involves
a change in what the learner knows.

Two major forms discussed are:

1. Insight Learning

2. Latent Learning

A. Insight Learning

Associated with Wolfgang Köhler.

Experiment

Köhler studied chimpanzees.

Food was placed beyond their reach, while boxes and poles were available.

The chimpanzees eventually realised that they could:

 stand on boxes,

 use poles,

 combine available objects,

to reach the food.

The solution appeared suddenly.

Definition

Insight learning is learning in which the solution to a problem suddenly becomes clear.

Characteristics

 Sudden solution

 Not simply trial-and-error

 Involves understanding relationships

 Solution can be repeated

 Can be generalised to similar situations

 B. Latent Learning

Associated with Edward Tolman.

In latent learning:

A behaviour is learned but is not demonstrated until reinforcement is provided.

Maze Experiment

Tolman placed rats in a maze.

One group received food and learned the maze.

Another group received no reward and showed little apparent learning.

When reinforcement was later provided, the previously unrewarded rats quickly navigated the
maze.

This suggested that they had already learned the maze but had not demonstrated it.

They developed a:

Cognitive map

A cognitive map is a mental representation of spatial locations and directions.

8. VERBAL LEARNING

Verbal learning refers to learning involving words and verbal material.

It is particularly important for human beings because people acquire knowledge about objects,
events and their characteristics through words.

Materials used include:

 nonsense syllables,

 familiar words,

 unfamiliar words,

 sentences,

 paragraphs.
Methods of Studying Verbal Learning

1. Paired-Associates Learning

Two words are presented as a pair.

One acts as the stimulus and the other as the response.

Example:

GEN → LOOT

The learner must remember the response word associated with the stimulus.

Learning continues until the learner can correctly produce all responses without errors.

2. Serial Learning

The learner is presented with a list and must reproduce the items in the same order.

The learner gradually learns the sequence.

A method used is called:

Serial Anticipation Method

3. Free Recall

A list of words is presented.

The participant must recall the words in any order.

Research shows that words at the beginning and end of lists are easier to recall than words in the
middle.

Determinants of Verbal Learning

Important factors include:

1. Length of the list

Longer lists require more learning time.

2. Meaningfulness
 Meaningful material is easier to learn.

Meaningfulness depends upon:

 familiarity,

 frequency of usage,

 associations,

 relationship among words,

 sequential dependence.

3. Organisation

People tend to organise material while learning and recalling it.

4. Total Time Principle

A fixed amount of time is necessary to learn a fixed amount of material, regardless of how that time
is divided into trials.

Category Clustering

Bousfield demonstrated that when words from different categories are presented randomly, people
tend to recall words category-wise.

For example:

Animals → professions → vegetables → names

This is called category clustering.

Verbal learning can be:

Intentional → deliberately learning material

Incidental → learning some features unintentionally

9. SKILL LEARNING

Meaning of Skill

A skill is:
 The ability to perform a complex task smoothly and efficiently.

Examples:

 Driving

 Piloting

 Navigation

 Reading

 Writing

 Shorthand

Skills are acquired through practice and exercise.

Phases of Skill Acquisition — Fitts

Fitts proposed three stages:

1. Cognitive Phase

The learner:

 understands instructions,

 memorises instructions,

 understands how the task should be performed,

 consciously attends to cues and outcomes.

Example: A beginner learning to drive consciously remembers when to use the clutch, brake and
accelerator.

2. Associative Phase

The learner begins connecting stimuli with appropriate responses.

With practice:

 errors decrease,

 performance improves,
 time required decreases.

The learner still needs concentration.

3. Autonomous Phase

The performance becomes increasingly automatic.

There is:

 reduced attentional demand,

 reduced interference,

 minimal conscious effort.

Easy Memory Trick:

C→A→A

Cognitive → Associative → Autonomous

Performance Plateau

Sometimes performance stops improving temporarily between stages.

This temporary stable level is called a:

Performance Plateau

Performance improves again when the learner moves to the next phase.

10. FACTORS FACILITATING LEARNING

The textbook discusses several general factors.

1. Reinforcement Schedule

Continuous reinforcement

 Reinforcement after every correct response.

 High initial responding.

 Faster extinction when reinforcement stops.

Partial reinforcement

 Only some responses are reinforced.

 Produces greater resistance to extinction.

2. Motivation

Motivation is a mental and physiological state that energises an organism to act towards a goal.

It is considered a:

Prerequisite for learning.

The more motivated a person is, the more effort they are likely to put into learning.

Types of Motivation

Intrinsic Motivation

Learning because the activity itself is enjoyable or satisfying.

Example: Studying psychology because you genuinely enjoy the subject.

Extrinsic Motivation

Learning to achieve some external goal.

Example: Studying to obtain good grades.

Remember:

Intrinsic = Interest from within

Extrinsic = External goal/reward

3. Preparedness for Learning

Preparedness refers to the biological readiness of an organism to learn particular associations.

Different species have different learning capacities because of their biological characteristics.

Some associations are:

 easy to learn,

 difficult to learn,

 or sometimes impossible to learn.

Preparedness Continuum

Easy to learn ← Preparedness → Impossible/difficult to learn

Some tasks lie in the middle and can be learned only with considerable effort and persistence.

11. LEARNING DISABILITIES

Meaning

Learning disability is a general term referring to a heterogeneous group of disorders involving

difficulties in acquiring:

 learning,

 reading,

 writing,

 speaking,

 reasoning,

 mathematical abilities.

The textbook states that these difficulties are presumed to originate from problems in the
functioning of the central nervous system.

Important Point

Learning disabilities may occur in children with:

 average intelligence,

 superior intelligence,

 adequate sensory-motor systems,

 adequate learning opportunities.

 Therefore:

A learning disability does not necessarily mean low intelligence.

If not addressed, it may affect:

 self-esteem,

 vocation,

 social relationships,

 daily living activities.

Symptoms of Learning Disabilities

1. Difficulties in Reading, Writing and Speaking

The child may experience difficulty with:

 writing letters,

 writing words,

 reading,

 speaking,

 listening,

 developing learning strategies.

2. Attention Difficulties

Children may:

 get distracted easily,

 have difficulty sustaining attention,

 show hyperactivity.

3. Poor Space and Time Orientation

 They may:

 get lost in unfamiliar surroundings,

 confuse directions,

 have difficulty distinguishing right and left,

 misjudge time.

4. Poor Motor Coordination

They may have difficulty with:

 balance,

 sharpening pencils,

 handling objects,

 riding a bicycle,

 manual tasks.

5. Difficulty Following Oral Directions

They may have difficulty understanding and following spoken instructions.

6. Social Perception Difficulties

They may find it difficult to:

 understand relationships,

 identify friendly versus indifferent classmates,

 interpret body language.

7. Perceptual Disorders

These may involve:

 visual perception,

 auditory perception,

 tactile perception,

 kinesthetic perception.

The child may have normal sensory acuity but difficulty using sensory information effectively.

8. Dyslexia

Dyslexia is particularly associated with difficulties in reading and processing written/verbal

material.

Examples include difficulty distinguishing:

 b/d

 p/q

 P/9

 was / saw

Remedial Measures

Learning disabilities are not necessarily incurable.

The textbook highlights the importance of:

Remedial teaching methods

Educational psychologists have developed appropriate techniques to correct or reduce many

symptoms associated with learning disabilities.