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Brain, behaviour
and experience
ten
Chapter
e learning
Cognitiv
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Unit 4
AREA OF
STUDY 1
This chapter explores particular types of learning known as cognitive learning.
It covers:
Learning
• applications and comparisons of learning theories:
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–observational learning (modelling) processes in terms of the role of attention,
retention, reproduction, motivation and reinforcement as informed by Albert
Bandura’s (1961, 1963a, 1963b) experiments with children
– insight learning as informed by Wolfgang Köhler
– latent learning as informed by Edward Tolman
Some key terms you will encounter
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attention
cognitive learning
insight learning
cognitive learning
types of learning that
occur as a result of
mental processes like
attention and memory
latent learning
modelling
motivation
observational
learning
reinforcement
reproduction
retention
The types of learning explored in the previous chapter have focused on an
association between a stimulus and response made by the learner themselves through
their direct interaction with the environment. However, these types of conditioning
do not account for all learning that we are capable of. In fact, much of our learning
actually comes about because we watch and imitate others in our environment, or
gather information to mentally solve a problem. These types of learning are known
as cognitive learning because they occur as a result of mental processes such as
attention and memory. The three types of cognitive learning explored in this chapter
are observational learning, insight learning and latent learning.
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405 . . .
Observational learning
observational
learning a type of
learning that occurs
when a learner
watches and replicates
the behaviours of a
model. Also known as
modelling
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Observational learning (or modelling) is a type of learning that occurs when a
learner watches and replicates the behaviours of a model. This type of learning was
described by a Canadian researcher named Albert Bandura (1925– ), who conducted
numerous studies on the capacity of children to learn in this way.
did you know?
Albert Bandura has been conducting
psychological research and publishing
his findings and theories since the
1950s, and continues to do so today.
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In his 1961 study, Bandura investigated whether
children’s behaviours would be influenced by those they
observed in an adult model. Children aged between three
and five years old were placed in a room with an adult
model and a variety of toys, including an inflatable clown
called a bobo doll. One group of children was exposed to
Figure 10.1 Albert Bandura (1925– )
a model which played quietly with the toys in the room
and ignored the bobo doll. Another group of children was
exposed to a model which played with the toys, then suddenly got up and behaved aggressively towards the bobo
doll (by hitting, kicking and shouting at the doll). In each experimental condition, half the children were exposed
to a model of the same gender, and half were exposed to a model of a different gender. The control group of
children was placed in the room with the toys, but was not exposed to an adult model at all.
The children were then taken out of the room and exposed to a frustrating situation. This was achieved by
putting them in another room with new toys, then telling them that they could not play with the toys as they
were the best ones and were being saved for other children. The children were then taken to a third room, which
included a variety of aggressive and non-aggressive toys, as well as a bobo doll. The children’s behaviours in this
room were watched by the researchers through a one-way mirror, and the number of aggressive behaviours they
exhibited was recorded.
The findings of the study indicated that the children who were exposed to the aggressive model exhibited
around twice as many aggressive behaviours as the children exposed to the non-aggressive model or to no model
at all, who exhibited very few aggressive behaviours. Overall, boys demonstrated more aggressive behaviours
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VCE Units 3 and 4
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than girls in each condition and, in general, children who observed a model of the same gender demonstrated
more aggressive behaviours than those children who were exposed to a model of a different gender.
Figure 10.2 After being exposed to an aggressive model, children also behaved
aggressively towards the bobo doll.
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Bandura wanted to extend his findings to investigate whether different types of models would impact on the
likelihood of a child imitating the model’s behaviour. In his 1963a experiment, children were exposed either to a
real-life adult model behaving aggressively towards the bobo doll, a film of an adult model behaving aggressively
towards the bobo doll, a cartoon model behaving aggressively toward the bobo doll, a model that behaved in a
non-aggressive manner, and no model at all (the control condition). Once again, the children from each group
were exposed to a frustrating situation, and then taken to a room with a variety of aggressive and non-aggressive
toys, as well as a bobo doll. The number of aggressive behaviours exhibited by the children was recorded.
The children exposed to the aggressive cartoon demonstrated the highest amounts of aggressive behaviours,
followed closely by the children who watched the film of the aggressive model and the real-life model. These
children exhibited around twice as many aggressive behaviours as the children who were not exposed to a
model at all. The lowest amount of aggression was demonstrated by the children who had watched the nonaggressive model.
Further to these findings, Bandura also wanted to investigate whether delivering consequences to the
model for their aggression would impact on the children’s behaviour. His 1963b study involved showing
children a film of two adults, Rocky and Johnny. Some of the children were exposed to a film of Rocky
behaving quite aggressively towards Johnny, concluding with Rocky taking all of Johnny’s toys and food
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407 . . .
90
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80
70
60
50
40
30
20
10
0
Real-life
agg. model
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Mean number of aggressive responses
100
Film
agg. model
Cartoon
agg. model
No model
control
Non agg.
model
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Figure 10.3 After being exposed to an aggressive model, children
also behaved aggressively.
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(i.e. being reinforced). Other children watched a similar film of Rocky behaving aggressively, but this film
concluded with Rocky being severely punished for his aggressive behaviour by Johnny. The control condition
involved children not being exposed to a film at all.
The results showed that the children who saw the aggressive model rewarded demonstrated high levels
of aggressive behaviour themselves. Children who saw the aggressive model punished for their aggressive
behaviour demonstrated very few aggressive behaviours overall, and this was similar to the group who were
not exposed to a model at all.
Later studies conducted by Bandura supported these findings, but he also discovered something
interesting happened when the children were offered an incentive or reward for carrying out
the aggressive behaviour. Regardless of whether the children were exposed to models that were
rewarded, punished or received no consequence for their aggressive behaviours, when the
children themselves were rewarded for behaving aggressively, there was very little difference in
the aggression exhibited by children in each of the groups. The number of aggressive behaviours
increased to high levels for all children, and even gender differences were cancelled out, as girls
behaved as aggressively as the boys!
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VCE Units 3 and 4
Activity 10.1
Comprehension questions
1 Define the term ‘cognitive learning’.
2 Define the term ‘observational learning’.
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3 Why is observational learning considered a type of cognitive learning?
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4 Summarise the key findings of Bandura’s 1961, 1963a and 1963b studies.
Key elements of observational learning
Bandura’s studies led him to outline five key elements that make up the observational
learning process. If one of these processes does not occur, then the learner will not
reproduce the behaviour of the model.
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attention an element
of observational
learning, where the
learner must notice the
model’s behaviour and
pay attention to it
Attention
The first element of observational learning is attention, where the learner must
notice the model’s behaviour and pay attention to it. Although this sounds obvious
enough, there are actually several characteristics that determine whether a model
will be attended to. Usually, a learner will pay attention to models that are familiar
to them, are perceived as being similar to them, are considered to have expertise
or knowledge about the behaviour they are exhibiting, are perceived positively,
or who stand out from other potential models. For example, companies often use
celebrities in advertising to sell their products because they want us to see the
celebrity wearing or using the item, so that we might reproduce or imitate their
behaviour. A celebrity can be more effective than a stranger as we are familiar with
who they are and we often perceive them positively (if we admire them for the skills
that made them famous in the first place). This means that we are more likely to
pay attention to the behaviour.
retention an element
of observational
learning, where the
learner must retain or
store in their memory
the behaviour they
noticed the model
exhibiting in the
attention stage
Retention
The second element of observational learning is retention, where the learner must
retain or store in their memory the behaviour they noticed the model exhibiting in
the attention stage. If the learner cannot remember the behaviour or sequence of
behaviours exhibited by the model, then they are unlikely to reproduce it. For example,
if you are watching your grandmother bake a cake, but you cannot remember all of
the different steps that she went through to complete the task, you will be unlikely to
imitate the cake-baking behaviour yourself.
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Study Tip
reproduction
an element of
observational learning,
where the learner must
be capable of imitating
the behaviour
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Reproduction
The third element of observational learning is reproduction, where the learner must
be capable of imitating the behaviour. This means that the learner must be physically
or mentally capable of carrying out the task, and they must perceive themselves as
being able to do it. For example, if your best friend is demonstrating how to play
tennis, but you have an elbow injury that stops you from being able to hold the racquet
correctly, you will not be capable of reproducing the behaviour she has exhibited.
409 . . .
Students often make errors when describing the reproduction stage of
observational learning, as they confuse it with actually carrying out the behaviour.
Remember that observational learning has five elements, and imitating the
behaviour (or reproducing it) will only occur after all five processes occur.
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Motivation
The fourth element of observational learning is motivation, where the learner must
want to reproduce the behaviour. If the learner is not motivated or has no desire to
reproduce the behaviour, then imitation will not occur. If your father is trying to
teach you how to iron your school shirt but you have no desire to actually carry out
the ironing behaviour in the future, then you probably won’t replicate his actions (or
at least, you won’t do so until you have the desire to wear a nicely pressed shirt!).
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Study Tip
Students often make errors when describing the motivation stage of observational
learning, as they confuse it with being motivated to learn. Remember that
learning is already underway, so motivation refers to the desire to imitate or
reproduce the behaviour.
Reinforcement
The fifth and final element of observational learning is reinforcement, where the
likelihood of the learner reproducing the model’s behaviour is strengthened by the
presence of a pleasant outcome, such as a reward. As we saw in Bandura’s studies,
reinforcement can be delivered to the model and still strengthen the behaviour in
the learner. This is known as vicarious reinforcement, and is a common feature of
motivation
an element of
observational learning,
where the learner
must want to reproduce
the behaviour
reinforcement
the process of making
a behaviour more likely
to be repeated in the
future because it is
followed by a pleasant
consequence for the
learner
vicarious
reinforcement
a process in
observational learning
where a pleasant
outcome is delivered to
the model, having the
effect of strengthening
the likelihood of the
learner replicating the
behaviour
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VCE Units 3 and 4
Flow chart of the key elements in
observational learning
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Activity 10.2
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observational learning. However, he also discovered that providing reinforcement to the learner directly is a very
effective way of encouraging the learner to reproduce the behaviour.
Reinforcement can take on a variety of forms. As we have seen, it can be vicarious (delivered to the model as
the learner observes) or direct (given to the learner themselves as an incentive). However, the type of reinforcer
used can also vary greatly in that it can be external (i.e. provided by someone else), such as food, money, praise
or encouragement; or it can be internal, where the learner simply feels good about themselves for having carried
out the behaviour.
Draw a flow chart that identifies the five key elements of observational learning: attention,
retention, reproduction, motivation and reinforcement. For each element, provide a definition
and an example of how the process would occur in an observational learning scenario.
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Activity 10.3
Compare and contrast observational
learning with operant conditioning
Construct a poster that identifies the ways in which observational learning and operant
conditioning are similar and different learning processes. Think about shared elements such as
reinforcement, and different processes such as the vicarious nature of observational learning.
You might like to use a table like the one below.
Differences
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similarities
insight learning a
type of learning often
seen in problem-solving
situations in which there
is a period of thoughtful
mental activity,
followed by a sudden
understanding of a
problem and realisation
of its solution
Insight learning
Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967) was a German psychologist who conducted research
into animal behaviours and learning around the same time Skinner was investigating
operant conditioning. His studies with chimpanzees in the 1920s lead him to describe
a type of cognitive learning he termed insight learning, a type of learning often seen
in problem-solving situations in which there is a period of thoughtful mental activity,
followed by a sudden understanding of a problem and realisation of its solution. This
moment of insight is often referred to as an ‘ah ha’ experience.
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411 . . .
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In one study, Köhler (1925) placed Sultan the
chimpanzee in a room with a banana hanging from the
ceiling, out of Sultan’s reach. The only other object was
a box placed off to the side of the room. When Sultan
entered the room he immediately noticed the banana.
Sultan paced back and forth across the room for several
minutes and then suddenly moved the box underneath
the banana, climbed on top of the box, jumped up and
retrieved the banana.
As you can see, this is quite different behaviour from
the trial and error learning that Thorndike and Skinner
described. Sultan had not made any other significant
attempts at retrieving the banana; instead it appears that
while he was pacing back and forth across the room he was
thinking about the problem and then suddenly realised
the solution and executed it. Likewise, when he was
returned to the room to complete the problem a second
time, he immediately moved the box and retrieved the
banana. Again, this differs from the processes described
by Thorndike and Skinner, as there was no evidence of
a gradual strengthening of behaviour. Rather, once the
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Figure 10.4 Wolfgang Köhler (1887–1967)
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insight had occurred, the behaviour was consistently executed on subsequent trials.
Köhler conducted many similar studies with chimpanzees, and he repeatedly found that when solving
a problem, the chimps often paced around or sat thoughtfully until they were suddenly able to solve the
problem before them; in other words, insight learning had taken place. Think about when you are attempting
to solve a riddle or puzzle. Often, you spend a period of time thinking through the aspects of the puzzle that
you know, trying to identify the key that will unlock the solution, and then suddenly the answer hits you in
an ‘ah ha’ moment, and you experience a realisation of the solution as well as an understanding of the nature
of the problem.
Comprehension questions
Activity 10.4
1 Define the term ‘insight learning’.
2 Why is insight learning a type of cognitive learning?
3 Summarise the findings of Köhler’s (1925) study.
4 Give an example of a time you have had an ‘ah ha’ experience and shown insight learning.
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Latent learning
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PL
Insert AW1006 image of
Edward Tolman
Edward Tolman (1886–1959) was an American psychologist
whose research into rats’ behaviour in a maze provided evidence
for yet another theory of cognitive learning. Tolman (1930)
placed a group of rats into a maze and let them explore it for
a period of time each day for ten days. He also placed another
group of rats into the same maze, but this group could access
food if they reached the end of the maze for each of their trials.
The rats in the first group moved around the maze randomly
during the ten trials. However, (as would be expected) the rats in
the second group learned to run the maze quickly and with few
errors in order to reach the food, not unlike what we might see
in operant conditioning.
In the eleventh trial, Tolman made food available as a reward
for both the rats that had previously been reinforced and those
that had not. He also kept a group of the rats that had not received
any reinforcement as a control group, and they remained without
reinforcement in the eleventh and subsequent trials. Of course,
the rats that had previously been reinforced were still able to run
the maze quickly and with few errors, and the rats who did not
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Figure 10.5 Edward Tolman (1886–1959)
cognitive map
a mental image or
representation
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latent learning
receive a food incentive continued to move unpredictably around the maze. However,
it was the behaviour of the rats that had not previously been reinforced but that were
now able to access a food reward that was really interesting. Tolman found that now
they were being reinforced, these rats were able to run the maze as quickly and with as
few errors as the rats that had been previously reinforced throughout the first ten trials.
Tolman theorised that learning had occurred in the rats that received no
reinforcement in the first ten trials, and he suggested that the rats created cognitive
maps of the maze, a mental image or representation of the maze. When the
reinforcement was presented, the rats then exhibited behaviours that indicated
learning had taken place – but it had obviously occurred prior to the behaviour
being demonstrated. Tolman called this latent learning, a type of learning that has
occurred but has not yet been demonstrated through observable behaviours.
a type of learning
that has occurred
but has not yet been
demonstrated through
observable behaviours
Activity 10.5
Comprehension questions
1 Define the term ‘latent learning’.
2 Why is latent learning a type of cognitive learning?
3 Define the term ‘cognitive map’, with reference to an example not already used in the text.
4 Summarise the findings of Tolman’s (1930) study.
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Chapter
Summary
Cognitive learning
C o g n i t i ve l e a r n i n g
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Observational learning
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• Cognitive learning is a type of learning that occurs as a result of mental processes like attention
and memory.
• Observational learning (or modelling) is a type of learning that occurs when a learner watches and
replicates the behaviours of a model. It includes five key elements: attention, retention reproduction,
motivation and reinforcement.
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• Albert Bandura described the process of observational learning following his key studies on children
imitating the aggressive behaviours demonstrated by adult models on a bobo doll (1961, 1963a
and 1963b).
Insight learning
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• Insight learning is a type of learning often seen in problem-solving situations in which there is a period
of thoughtful mental activity, followed by a sudden understanding of a problem and realisation of its
solution. This moment of insight is often referred to as an ‘ah ha’ experience.
• Insight learning was described by Wolfgang Köhler after a number of studies in which he observed the
problem-solving strategies of chimpanzees.
Latent learning
• Latent learning is a type of learning that has occurred but has not yet been demonstrated through
observable behaviours.
• Latent learning was described by Edward Tolman, who conducted research on rats in mazes. His
findings led him to theorise that the rats created cognitive maps (mental representations) of the maze.
When reinforcement was presented, the rats then exhibited behaviours that indicated learning had
taken place.
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VCE Units 3 and 4
Chapter review
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Choose the correct option.
1 Which of the following is not a type of cognitive learning?
a Modelling
b Operant conditioning
c Insight learning
d Latent learning
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Multiple-choice questions
bservational learning includes five key elements. Which of the following is the correct order of these elements?
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a attention; reproduction; retention; motivation; reinforcement
b attention; retention; reinforcement; motivation; reproduction
c attention; reinforcement; retention; motivation; reproduction
d motivation; attention; retention; reinforcement; reproduction
3
Bandura’s 1961 study found that:
a children hate bobo dolls.
b adults hate bobo dolls.
c children always behave aggressively towards bobo dolls when frustrated.
dchildren will behave aggressively towards a bobo doll when they have been exposed to an adult model
who was also aggressive.
4
Bandura’s 1963a study found that
a the most aggressive children were those exposed to a real-life model.
b the most aggressive children were those exposed to no model.
c the most aggressive children were those exposed to a cartoon model.
d the most aggressive children were those exposed to a film model.
5
Bandura’s 1963b study found that
a children exposed to no model at all were very aggressive.
b children exposed to a model that was rewarded for aggression were very aggressive.
c children exposed to a model that was punished for aggression were very aggressive.
d girls were more aggressive than boys when provided with an incentive.
6
Observational learning shows that reinforcement
a can be delivered to either the model or the learner.
b must be delivered to the learner.
c must be delivered to the model.
d is only effective when it is vicarious.
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2
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Insight learning
a follows the law of effect.
b supported Skinner’s theories about operant conditioning.
c shows behaviour that is strengthened gradually.
d is sometimes referred to as an ‘ah ha’ experience.
8
Insight learning was initially described by
a Köhler.
b Tolman.
c Bandura.
d Skinner.
9
Latent learning
a is another term for cognitive maps.
b shows a gradual strengthening of behaviour through reinforcement.
c shows a sudden display of behaviour when reinforcement is presented.
d shows learning can only take place when reinforcement is presented.
415 . . .
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7
C o g n i t i ve l e a r n i n g
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10 Latent learning was initially described by
a Köhler.
b Tolman.
c Bandura.
d Skinner.
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Short Answer Questions
1 A
aron has passed his test for his Learner’s Permit, and wants to begin learning to drive. His mother
is still too anxious to let him get behind the wheel, so she is trying to teach him by showing him what
to do. Outline how Aaron might learn to drive through the process of observational learning, with
reference to each of the five key elements.
2 How is observational learning related to the process of operant conditioning?
3 What is the difference between insight learning and latent learning?
4 Outline two similarities between insight learning and latent learning.
5 Outline a key characteristic shared by observational learning, insight learning and latent learning.
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