Learning
The term learning is one of those concepts whose meaning is crystal clear until
one has to put it in actual words. “Learning is when you learn something.”
“Learning is learning how to do something.” A more useful definition is as
follows: Learning is a process by which experience produces a relatively enduring
change in an organism’s behaviour or capabilities. The term capabilities
highlights a distinction made by many theorists: “knowing how” versus “doing.”
For example, experience may provide us with immediate knowledge, but in
science we must measure learning by
actual changes in performance. The term behaviour means the way in which an
animal or person behaves in response to a particular situation or stimulus. For
example, if a student misbehaves in class and gets punished for it he/she will
not misbehave in class again and the way he/she behaves in class will change.
The process of learning is continuous which starts right from the time of birth of
an individual and continuous till the death. We all are engaged in the learning
endeavours in order to develop our adaptive capabilities as per requirements of
the changing environment.
TYPES OF LEARNING
During the early part of the twentieth century, a number of psychologists
became increasingly interested in turning psychology into a more scientific
endeavor. They argued, psychology needed to study only those things that
could be measured and quantified. A number of different learning theories
emerged to explain how and why people behave the way they do. The learning
theories are centred on the environmental influences on the learning process.
Such environmental influences include associations, reinforcements,
punishments, and observations. The types of learning are as follows:
1. Classical Conditioning
Classical conditioning (also known as Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) is
learning through association and was discovered by Pavlov, a Russian
physiologist. In classical conditioning an organism learns to associate two stimuli
(e.g., a song and a pleasant event), such that one stimulus (the song) comes to
elicit a response (feeling happy) that originally was elicited only by the other
stimulus (the pleasant event). In simple terms, two stimuli are linked together
to produce a new learned response in a person or animal. The most famous
example of classical conditioning was Pavlov's experiment with dogs, who
salivated in response to a bell tone. Pavlov showed that when a bell was
sounded each time the dog was fed, the dog learned to associate the sound
with the presentation of the food. A classical CS, conditional stimulus (e.g., the
bell) does not merely elicit a simple, unitary reflex. Pavlov emphasized salivation
because that was the only response he measured. But his bell almost certainly
elicited a whole system of responses that functioned to get the organism ready
for the upcoming US, unconditioned stimulus (food). For example, in addition to
salivation, CS (such as the bell) that signal that food is near also elicit the
secretion of gastric acid, pancreatic enzymes, and insulin (which gets blood
glucose into cells). All of these responses prepare the body for digestion.
2. Operant Conditioning
Operant conditioning, sometimes referred to as instrumental conditioning, is a
method of learning that employs rewards and punishments for behavior.
Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a
consequence (whether negative or positive) for that behavior. Operant
conditioning research studies how the effects of a behavior influence the
probability that it will occur again. For example, when lab rats press a lever
when a green light is on, they receive a food pellet as a reward. When they
press the lever when a red light is on, they receive a mild electric shock. As a
result, they learn to press the lever when the green light is on and avoid the red
light. But operant conditioning is not just something that takes place in
experimental settings while training lab animals. It also plays a powerful role in
everyday learning. Reinforcement and punishment take place in natural settings
all the time, as well as in more structured settings such as classrooms or therapy
sessions.
3. Observational Learning
Observational learning is a component of Albert Bandura’s Social Learning
Theory (Bandura, 1977), which posits that individuals can learn novel
responses via observation of key others’ behaviors. Observational learning
does not necessarily require reinforcement, but instead hinges on the
presence of others, referred to as social models. Social models are typically
of higher status or authority compared to the observer, examples of which
include parents, teachers, and police officers. In the example above, the
children who already know how to play the game could be thought of as
being authorities—and are therefore social models—even though they are
the same age as the observer. By observing how the social models behave,
an individual is able to learn how to act in a certain situation. Other
examples of observational learning might include a child learning to place
her napkin in her lap by watching her parents at the dinner table, or a
customer learning where to find the ketchup and mustard after observing
other customers at a hot dog stand.