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Compare behaviourist and cognitive explanations of learning, using evidence and
examples from both fields.
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The word learning has the definition as the process by which relatively permanent changes
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occur in behavioural potential as a result of experience. Learning can also be referred to as the
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process of adaptation of behaviour to experience, and memory refers to the permanent record
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that underlines this adaptation.
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Learning is central to behaviourist conception, unlike cognitive who research a lot about
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memory and how our memory encodes, stores and retrieves. I feel both are as equally
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important as each other. We can look at both side to the argument, we will start with
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behaviourist. There are two kind of basic learning processes that exist: Operant and
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Paviovian.
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Behaviourism is an approach to psychology that emphasizes casting theories in terms of
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external behaviour rather than discussing the internal mechanisms responsible for the
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behaviour. Behaviourism was approached in the turn of the 20th century in the U.S.A.
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Behaviourist such as Pavlov researched the development theories with no reference to what
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might be happening in the mind. Pavlov theory was about conditioned reflex; he started this
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study by putting meat powder in a dog’s mouth and measured the salivation which is now
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known as classical conditioning. This type of learning was that if you get use to the conditions
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and as soon as the condition is introduced to you, you automatically react as it comes into
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view as you have become use to it and therefore you know what is going to happen.
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Ebbinghaus established experimental methodologies for studying memory phenomena, such
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as the retention curve and the learning curve. Ebbinghaus conducted an experiment that
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practising data, showing the total number of trials needs to master a set of lists as a function
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of the number of days of practice. This was quite important as he tested humans instead of
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animals and showed that it was possible for this type of experiment to be conducted.
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Another interesting theory is the learning curve which is a crucial activity in a human culture.
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The learning curve presents some of the most famous skill, as the skill is more practised; the
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skill undergoes dramatic changes, including great reductions in cognitive involvement. For
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example if you revise for a test a week before the test continuously until the test it is likely
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that you will remember more, as you encode, store and retrieve. Were as if you revise a day
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before, your brain has not had the chance to practise storing the information. This is based on
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operant conditioning which has 3 concepts: rein forcer, operant and discrimination. Extinction
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occurs when there is a negative contingency between the conditioned stimulus and the
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unconditioned.
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Thorndike was also a behaviourist who studied learning, but studied a rather different
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situation then Pavlov. Thorndike thought that a stimulus- response bond would be formed
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whenever reinforcement followed emission of the response in the presence of the stimulus.
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Thorndike’s experimental apparatus, called a puzzle box. He put a hungry cat in a box with
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some food outside. If the cat hit the loop of wire, the door would fall open and the cat could
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escape and eat the food.
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Tolman was a behaviourist but did not agree with the way the psychologist were conducting
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their experiments. Tolman argument came at a cognitive point that behaviour was best
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understood as a response to a goal, and that is when he came with a model called the
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cognitive map. One of Tolman finds have made the most impact upon me that “it is not
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behaviour that is learned but rather knowledge that can be used to guide behaviour”. For
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instance a footballer found that shooting the ball in to the opponent’s box would lead to them
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scoring a goal, and maybe wining the game. The cognitive map is the mental representation of
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the layout of objects and routes in a given space that an organism can use to guide the captive
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to be released.
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In the 1950’s cognitivism and behaviourist as psychologist began to shift, cognitive thought
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that behaviourist had created too simple a picture of human cognition. Cognitive psychologist
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where similar some what with behaviourist because they both began studying learning, but
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were they differed was that the cognitive psychologist did so in the guise of so called memory
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experiments on humans were as behaviourist would conduct their experiments on animals.
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So this divided the two into behaviourally orientated studies of animals and cognitively
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oriented of human memory.
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Cognitivism positions the complex mental process played in shaping human behaviour, and
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much of the field shifted to studying these mental process. Cognitive came up with a theory
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that memory is the record of the experience that underlies learning. John Watson had a very
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different view from cognition he claimed that “there is no such thing as memory and that
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people just learned the way of behaving”.
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Much more recent research has had the behaviourist having a more cognitive orientation
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when testing animal learning and vicea-virsa that cognitive have had a more behaviouristic
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learning theory in research on human memory.
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In conclusion there are a lot of similarities and differences in the way behaviourist and
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cognitive explain learning. Their most obvious difference is the way they conduct
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experiments and what they are concentrating on. Behaviourists conduct their experiments on
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animals and learning through behaviour, where as cognitive conduct their experiments on
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humans and concentrate on the memory side of learning. But each is not without its criticism.
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Reference
Thorndike, E.L. (1968). Human learning. New York: Johnson Reprint Crop. (original work
published 1928-1929)
Tolman, E.C. (1967). Purposive behaviour in animals and men. New York: Irvington.
(Original work published 1932)
Leahey, T.H. (2001). Learning and Cognition. Texas: R.R. Donnelly & Sons Co. (Original
work published 1980)