Psychology 11
Unit 4 – Human Learning & Thinking
Ch 9 – Principles of Learning
Ch 10 – Learning, Remembering, & Forgetting
Ch 11 – The Process of Thinking
Having completed this unit you will be able to:
• Explain the roles of classical and operant conditioning in learning.
• Understand the relationship between spirant conditioning and punishment.
• Understand the relationship between operant conditioning and programmed learning.
• Understand the relationship between operant conditioning and biofeedback..
• Describe the cognitive approach to learning.
• Identify some factors that may positively affect your ability to learn more.
• Discuss how memory works and why people forget things
• Give a definition of thinking; discuss creative thinking, imagination, and problem solving.
Chapter 9 – Principles of Learning
• This Chapter Presents:
• The roles of classical and operant conditioning in learning
• The relationship between operant conditioning and punishment,
programmed learning, and biofeedback
• The cognitive approach to learning
• Before we begin… what is learning?
• Definition: Learning refers to lasting changes in behaviour that occur as a
result of practice or other past experiences – it usually involves doing
something that you haven’t done before…
Tell me more about this “learning”…
• While learning may involve doing something that you haven’t done
before, it also may involve doing something that you have done
before, but are now doing it in a different way…
• Some examples of learning includes:
• Acquiring and making use of facts (essays & reports)
• Acquiring and using certain skills (riding a bike & looking both ways when you
cross the street)
• *Not all behaviour has to be learned…
• i.e. blinking your eyes when dust gets in them – this is more of a reflex action;
it does not involve previous experience or practice
More of this “Unlearned” Behaviour…
• As we have mentioned, as we develop, certain “changes”
occur…
• i.e. crawling as a baby – is this learned or unlearned?
• While we say “the baby has learned to crawl” truthfully, what has
happened is that the baby’s muscles & nerves have developed
enough to allow for crawling
• The goal of this chapter is to describe the “changes in
behaviour that are not the result of reflexes and are not
primarily due to physical growth.”
First on the list of Learnt Behaviour:
Classical Conditioning
• A famous example of Classical Conditioning involves this welldocumented scenario…
• Ivan Pavlov, a Russian scientist, observed mouth-watering behaviour
when he fed dogs in his laboratory
• He decided to set up an experiment in which the mouth
watering could be replicated by ringing a bell that was
associated with meat powder (mmm mmm good)
• This was a controlled experiment, the dog could not see Pavlov…
• Looked a little something like this…
How did Pavlov’s Dog Drool Happen?
• As mentioned, when placed near the dog, powdered meat caused it to
drool – the drool (salvia) was the unconditioned response (UCR)
• UCR – occurs naturally, no learning needed
• The meat was the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) – the UCS was the normal,
unlearned drool causing agent
• When the dog was given the meat, a bell was rung – this was repeated a
number of times, eventually the meat was not presented but the bell was
still rung… what happened?
• The drool still flowed! What does this mean?
• The bell = Conditioned Stimulus (CS)  Programmed response
• The drool = Conditioned Response (CR)  Learned behaviour
A recap of Pavlov…
Conditioned Response – A learning situation in which certain stimulus brings
forward a response that it did not previously evoke…