Unit-3 : Learning, Memory and Forgetting

Learning
Concept
Learning simply refers to acquiring the ability to do something that we have not done before.
Learning can be defined as the process of changing, developing and maintaining skill,
knowledge, and attitude of people. Learning is often defined as a relatively lasting change in
behavior that is the result of experience. In other word learning is the acquisition of new
behavior or the strengthening or weakening of old behavior as the result of experience.

According to Robert A. Baron, “Learning is any relatively permanent change in behavior (or
behavior potential) resulting from experiences.”

David Myers says, “Learning is a relatively permanent change in an organisms’ behavior due
to experience.”

Thus, learning is the acquisition of habits, knowledge & attitudes. It involves new ways of doing
things and it operates in individuals attempts to overcome obstacles or to adjust to new
situations. It represents progressive changes in behavior. It enables individuals to satisfy
interests to attain goals.
Importance of Learning

“Intellectual growth should commence at birth and cease only at death.” Einstein. It
reflects the importance of learning. Further learning is important because it boosts
confidence, is enjoyable and provides happiness, leads to a better quality of life and helps
boost personal development. The importance of learning is as follows:

 Make life meaningful: Learning is essential to all organisms and without learning, a living
soul is of no use. One who doesn’t understand his environment at least will be dead in
no time.
 Adapt in new environment: Learning helps to adapt to a new environment. If only we
know how to change our ways according to changes in our locale, will we survive. We
have to adapt ourselves every day to new people, places, jobs and relations, only
learning can assist us in this.
 Understand basic necessity: Learning helps us understand basic necessities of life, and
gives us a way of acquiring and mastering them.
Importance of Learning (Cont'd….)

 Improve skills and knowledge: Greater learning can provide you with deeper knowledge
of a subject, which cannot be imparted from bookish education. Managers attempt to
design a learning element to maintain or improve desired levels of skills and knowledge
of employees..
 Behavioral development: Learning can help persons or managers to check the
dysfunctional behavior and boost up functional behaviors by applying new rewards and
interventions.
 Multiple impact: Every activity in organization is influenced by learning. Almost all
dimensions of individual’s behavior or organizational performance such as knowledge,
skills, attitudes, values, personalities, loyalties, job performance are responsive to
learning.
Nature of Learning
• It is universal and continuous process.
• It is a change in behavior. (both positive and negative)
• It is purposeful and goal oriented.
• It is influenced by the learner, stimulus and environmental factors.
• It ranges from simple to complex.
[Link] Perspective / Theories of
Learning
[Link]/Observational learning
[Link] Learning

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Cognitive Theory
Cognitive theory is related to the term cognition which
refers to act of thinking, perception, use of intuition,
experience to gain knowledge. The cognitive theory of
learning was developed by American Psychologist Edward C.
Tolman According to this, learning is not caused by stimulus
response (S-R) interaction rather it is the result of individual's
cognition and environmental cues. It is based on stimulus–
stimulus connection. One stimulus leads to another stimulus.
When an individual's behavior is directed towards objective
they confront different environmental situation and find
their ultimate objectives. So, learning is the consequence of
human brain, or thinking and knowing but not the stimulus
response or response stimulus reaction. 7
a. Social/Observational learning:
 Observational learning occurs
from observing/watching, retaining
(keeping in mind or memory), and
replicating a behavior observed from a
model or executed by other people.
 The theory of social learning states that
behavior such as aggression is learned
through observing and imitating others.

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Albert Bandura and the Bobo-Doll
 The
Experiment Bobo-Doll experiment was
conducted
Bandura in 1961and by
studied patterns Albert
associated
of with aggression. behavior
 Bandura hoped that the experiment would prove
that aggression can be explained, at least in part,
by social learning theory.
 Bandura’s classic study in observational learning
involved having a preschool child in a room in
which the experimenter and a model interacted
with toys in the room in front of the child.
 In one condition, the model interacted with the
toys in a nonaggressive manner, completely
ignoring the presence of “Bobo” doll (a punch-
bag doll in the shape of a clown).
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⚫ In another condition, the model became very
aggressive with the doll, kicking it and yelling at
it, throwing it in the air and hitting it with a
hammer.
⚫ Later, when each child was left alone in the room
and had the opportunity to play with the toys, the
children, who were exposed to the aggressive
model, were beating up on the Bobo-doll in exact
imitation of the model.
⚫ But the children who saw the model ignore the
doll did
not act aggressively toward the toy.
⚫ Obviously, the aggressive children had learned
their aggressive actions from merely watching
the model but no reinforcement was necessary
for their behavior.
⚫ In fact, Bandura began this research to 10
investigate possible links between children’s
Four Elements of Observation Learning:
 Bandura concluded, from his study, that
observational learning required the presence
of four elements. They are:
a. Attention
 To learn anything through observation, the
learner must pay attention to the model.
 For example, a person at a fancy dinner party
who wants to know which utensil to use has
to watch the person who seems to know what
is correct.
 Certain characteristics of models can make
attention more likely. For example, people pay
more attention to those people they perceive 11
as similar to them and to people whom they
b. Memory

⚫ The learner must also be able to retain the

memory of what was done, such as
remembering the steps in preparing a dish that
was first seen on a cooking show.
c. Imitation
⚫ The learner must be capable of reproducing or
imitating the actions of the model.
⚫ For example, a 2-year old child might be able to
watch someone tie shoelaces and might even
remember most of the steps, but his/her chubby
little fingers will not have the dexterity
necessary for actually tying the laces.
⚫ Similarly, a person with extremely weak ankles
might be able to watch and remember how some 12
d. Motivation
⚫ Finally, the learner must have the desire to
perform the action.
⚫ For example, the person who does not have
the interest to attend the fancy dinner might
not care which fork or which knife is the
proper one to use.
⚫ Also, if a person expects a reward because one
has been given in the past or has been
promised a future reward or has witnessed a
model getting a reward, that person will be
much more likely to imitate the observed
behavior.
⚫ Successful models are powerful figures for
imitation, but rarely would we be motivated to 13
b. Insight
Learning:
 Insight is the sudden perception of relationships
among various parts of a problem, allowing the
solution to the problem to come quickly.
⚫Wolfgang Kohler originated a learning theory known
as insightful learning based on “Gestalt Psychology”,
which defines learning as an organized whole rather
than a collection of parts.
⚫A learner, while learning, always perceives the
situation as a whole and after seeing and evaluating
the different relationships takes the proper decision
in an intelligent way. He always responds to the
proper relationship rather than the specific stimuli.
⚫Gestalt psychology used the term ‘insight’ to describe
the perception of the whole situation by the learner
and his intelligence in responding to the proper 14
relationships.
⚫ Insightful learning theory is related to
cognitive learning theory. Kohler performed
his experiments on chimpanzees between
1913 and 1917.
Experiment
 Kohler put the chimpanzee, Sultan, inside a
cage and a banana was hung from the roof of
the cage. A box was also kept in the cage.
When Sultan saw the banana, he tried to
reach it by jumping but could not. Suddenly,
he got an idea/insight and used the box as a
jumping platform by placing it just below the
hanging banana. Later, Sultan also learnt to
reach the banana by placing two boxes- one 15
 In a more complicated experiment, the
banana was placed outside the cage of the
chimpanzee. Two sticks, one longer than the
other, were kept inside the cage. One was
hollow at the end and so that the other could
be inserted into it in order to make a longer
stick. The chimpanzee first tried these sticks
one after the other but failed to reach the
banana. Suddenly he got an insight, and
joined the two sticks together and reached
the banana.

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 According to Kohler, these experiments
showed the role of intelligence and
cognitive abilities like problem-solving.
The chimpanzees reacted intelligently by
i. Identifying the problem,
ii. Organizing their perception, and
iii. Using insight to reach a solution.
 However, insightful learning depends
on the learner’s experience, his
intelligence, initial efforts, learning
situation, and repetition and
generalization. 17
Implications of Insightful Learning
⚫ It has made learning a purposeful and goal-
oriented task. The learner has to be
motivated by arousing his interest and
curiosity in the learning process and he
must have specific aims and purposes of his
learning.
⚫ It emphasizes on viewing the situation as a
whole and then only its parts in the fields of
learning. For example, if a student wants to
memorize a poem, the whole poem should be
presented to him first and after reading it as
a whole, it may be broken into stanzas for its
effective memorization.
⚫ It has contributed much in the field of 18
Characteristics of Insight Learning
i. Insight depends upon the arrangement
of the problem situation. Insight will
come easily if the required
materials and tools are arranged in a
perfect order to perceive the
relationship.
For example, in Kohler’s experiment, Sultan
could solve the problem because he could
see the boxes or the sticks near him.
Human being scan their surroundings, and
mentally manipulate and rearrange
objects in a purposeful arrangement in an 19
[Link] solutions to problems once solved with
insight can be repeated and reused easily.
For example, once Sultan used a stick for
pulling in the bunch of bananas, he will seek
out a stick on the next occasion when a
similar problem is encountered.
[Link] a solution occurs with insight, it can
be applied in new situations.
For example, Sultan did not show any trial
and error attempts when the same type of
problem was encountered. He joined the two
sticks and approached the banana bunch
once the cognitive relationship was
established.
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IV. In insight learning the whole situation
appears to take on a new form, altering
the perception of an individual giving
circumstances a meaningful and
attractive look.
V. Insight appears suddenly and the individual
can establish the relationship between the
objects in new patterns and organizations
adding an emotional touch.
VI. Insight is related to the intellectual level.
Human beings have more insight than
lower animals.
[Link], past experience, familiarity,
and keen observation facilitates
insight learning. 21
[Link] individual rearranges the
disorganized or useless resources in a
meaningful way to accomplish something
in insight learning.
[Link] learning reduces learning time, and
develops a new relationship of the learner to
the problem which is quite common in
human adults.

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Transfer of Learning
What is transfer of learning?
 When skill learned in one task influences the
learning of another task, it is called transfer
of learning or training.
 It can occur in both motor and verbal
learning.
Types of Transfer of Learning
i. Positive transfer
ii. Negative transfer
iii. Zero transfer

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i. Positive transfer
 If learning one skill facilitates the
learning of another skill, we have the
positive transfer effect.
 In positive transfer the influence is
progressive and coordinating to later
learning.
 For example, if a student learns a
multiplication table he/she finds
mathematics easy. Training in computer
or electronics accelerates training in
engineering, physics and so on.

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Positive transfer depends upon several
factors.
⚫ Similarity of contents
⚫ Similarity of techniques
⚫ Similarity of principles
Contents: Knowledge of Nepali language
makes easier to study Hindi language
because of similarity in scripts, language,
and so on. Learning one stanza of a poem
helps to recite and remember another
stanza even if changes occurs.
Techniques: After learning to drive a car an
individual can master the control of a jeep or
other types of vehicles. If a student learns to
apply ‘x’ and ‘y’ formula to mathematics 25
applies the same to other problems of
Principles: When subjects learn to solve
puzzles in our problem often find easy to
solve other similar problems due to
similarity of principles. We apply different
principles to solve our everyday problem
through positive transfer.
ii. Negative transfer
• If learning one skill hampers the
acquisition of another skill we call it
negative transfer.
• This phenomenon is also called ‘habit
interference’.
• Negative transfer creates great difficulty
in future learning of the skill.
• It occurs because what we have learned in
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earlier situations send our thinking in the
⚫ Habit interference occurs in everyday life
situations. If a person drives a right hand
car he/she often has difficulty with a left
hand drive. Like wise, if we apply the
principles of riding bicycle in rowing a boat
we may fall into trap.
⚫ Negative transfer is also seen with verbal
learning. While writing the date we may
continue to write September after
October has arrived. Like wise , we may
continue to remember our former car
number after the purchase of a new car.

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iii. Zero transfer
 When no transfer occurs between two tasks
we call it zero transfer or neutral transfer.
 In zero transfer, the acquisition of skill in
one task neither facilitates learning of
another task nor interferes, such situation
is called zero transfer or no transfer.
 For example, learning mathematics may have
no effect on learning Nepali.

The End

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