Read Chapter 7.
What really is learning? From a psychological science perspective does it really have to do with how you probably think of learning (education, studying, etc)? How has your understanding of learning changed since reading this chapter?
From your reading, which topic(s) are most interesting to you?
What was the most surprising or memorable thing you learned about in this reading?
Provide a list of psychological terms that you used in your comment at the bottom of your post.
Write your response in Word or other word processor, and SAVE IT. Then, click on 'comments' right below the title of this blog post and above the picture. You will be prompted to log in. Once logged on, you can copy and paste your assignment into the box and submit.
Explore!
human skinner box http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8z2WnC93N64
rat skinner box http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQtDTdDr8vs
phobias http://kusleika.com/breakfast/wp-content/uploads/2010/12/beafraid.jpg
Teacher Spends Two Days as a Student
Learning is defined by the book as a lasting change caused by an experience, and I always have thought of it explicitly as the type of learning that one might encounter in school. It never once occurred to me that it could be defined as something else; it has always been about the simple accumulation of knowledge in a capacity that allows humans to use this knowledge, in a way that helps further education and discovery. However, now that I have read about this wider definition of learning and all the ways it can be applied and used, it makes sense. I’ve heard of many of the theories, terms, and methods used in the book, and by this new definition, it is easy to see that they can be categorized as learning. To the question of whether this new definition even applies to the traditional definition of learning, I would say yes. School and education certainly falls under the category of lasting change caused by an experience, because the knowledge learned there has an effect for a lifetime (or so we hope). This falls under the psychological definition perfectly, proving that school learning can be directly linked to other types of learning in terms of category. My understanding of learning has changed due to this chapter, not in a way that has changed my original understanding per se, but more in a way that has expanded upon my first idea of learning.
The topic that most interested me was the topic regarding learning disabilities. Because I am an education major, this chapter was interesting from the get-go because it specifically related to my course of study. What really thrilled me, though, was the section on learning disabilities, because I am certain to encounter these when I have students of my own to teach. I am constantly looking to learn more about this, because I would like to be as prepared as possible for how to best help my students to learn. This section helped me learn more about certain learning difficulties students may have, and that can better help me to understand what school is like for them, and what I can do as a teacher to help them. I also appreciated this section because I have coworkers with certain learning disabilities that were discussed in the book, and this chapter helped me to understand why certain tasks can be harder for them, which could be helpful for the future.
The most memorable thing I learned about in my reading was the section on Pavlovian conditioning. It’s something I had heard discussed before, due to the prevalence of it in pop culture and TV, but I always enjoy learning details about things I’ve only heard mentioned before. The section was a bit longer than I believed was warranted, but it was interesting to hear the topic discussed in depth. I will use this memorable experience when I am attempting to train any pets I may have in the future, as I’m sure it will come in handy.
experience
knowledge
learning
learning disabilities
Pavlovian conditioning
The textbook defines learning as “a lasting change caused by experience.” From a psychological science perspective, learning comes from a change in the synapse, the connection between neurons. This occurs when there is strong, repetitive stimulation. There are two major categories of learning: associative learning and nonassociative learning. These types of learning differ because one requires forming associations between stimuli and the other does not. The book talks a lot about how learning is quite often done unintentionally or because of conditioning. This greatly differs from the traditional sense of learning that people think about. However, the traditional forms of learning such as learning in a classroom or learning by studying still fit into this psychological science definition of learning. Experiencing stimuli associated with certain information many times improves the change that you learn the information either for a short or long period of time. The repeated stimuli you experience in class and in your studying changes the synapses creating learning.
My view of learning changed greatly in the course of this chapter and I found it very surprising how many types of learning there are. Like most people, when I think of learning the first thing I think of is school education learning. However, this highly associative learning is not the only learning that humans do. I learned that we also learn through habituation and sensitization, both things that happen very passively and without our knowledge most of the time. The huge role of classical conditioning and operant learning in learning also greatly surprised me because it made me aware of how trained we become because of the way that we learn. We spend a lot of our time learning about how to behave and act and this all happens because of classical conditioning and operant learning. Since reading this chapter I have become very aware of the type of learning I do and have also thought about how I actually learned the things that I now know. It is very hard to pinpoint how I first learned a specific behavior.
The thing that I found most interesting in this chapter was the section on factors that facilitate learning. According to the book, timing, context, awareness, and attention are all very important to our learning. I enjoyed the section on timing because it reinforced the idea that cramming does no benefit. This is something that I definitely believe to be very important and I try to stress this to my friends. Trying to cram before a test doesn’t allow enough time between learning trials to make it actually stick and it also leads to sleep deprivation. It’s much more beneficial to study in short increments over a period of a time and to get enough sleep. The thing I didn’t know, however, was that the place where you learn makes a difference as well. Studying in the same place is better for learning the information that will be on a test coming up, but studying in different places is better for long term memory. This is known as the context effect.
Vocabulary: learning, synapse, neurons, associative learning, nonassociative learning, stimuli, habituation, sensitization, classical conditioning, operant learning, context effect
Learning is the lasting change caused by experience as stated by my Psych textbook. From a psychological science perspective I do not think that learning has to do with just education and studying. Look at someone who just has their high school or GED diploma, they may not make the same amount of money as someone with a college background, but sometimes they're the ones with more experience in the world. They’re the ones who have learned from life lessons, taught others what they have learned, and could give better ideas than an engineer. Not only this, but parents teach their children at a young age life lessons that sometimes I think people just take for granted; teaching a child right from wrong, teaching gender differences, and showing that it is alright to have a disability. This chapter talked more about something that I am passionate about and I really took something from it.
One of the most interesting topics for me was operant conditioning. I liked that it talked about the good and the bad. Going into talking about law of effect and why people do that reminded me of children and how much they will push just to see how far you will let them go especially when they are in their early to late adolescent period. While talking about reinforcement and positive and negative punishment.
The most interesting thing to me was the fact that there are so many different types of learning. I learned that classical and operant conditioning play key roles in how a person is trained to become who they are because of the way that they learn, usually without their own knowledge. We spend a lot of time as a society learning how to behave and act that many do not seem to realize that it is a learned behavior. Another thing I found interesting was facilitate learning. Especially the section on timing because it talked about the fact that cramming before anything does not help you. I found it important and I appreciated the reasoning behind because I used to do this in high school and do perfectly fine, but I do not do this in college because it is of no benefit to me. Plus the leading to sleep deprivation is not really a good thing and I have found that studying a little everyday from the notes taken in class and from my textbooks help to prepare me for the upcoming tests that I have in my college classes.
What was memorable to me was the term learned helplessness. I did not realize that there was a term for when a spouse who is being abused refuses to leave their significant other. I never knew quite the term to put to it and find that learned helplessness sounds much better than the exaggerated speech that I have heard on the news before. But at the same time I hear on that same news station, “Why didn’t the spouse leave the aggressor?” Making it seem as if it is the victim's fault instead of the perpetrators fault and I see that as wrong no matter the scenario.
Vocabulary: learning, operant conditioning, classical conditioning, learned behavior, learned helplessness
The broad definition of learning found in the book is a lasting change caused by experience. This chapter looked into this concept in more detail. In turn, there were two broad ways in which people learn, either knowing that we are learning or not knowing we are learning. These concepts are called associative learning and non-associative learning respectively.
Going off of the definition of learning that the book gave and the supporting evidence from the rest of the chapter, I can say that I had not thought of learning in quite this detail before. From a psychological science perspective learning is a lot more complex and encompasses way more than just getting an education or studying for an exam. Psychologists, in my opinion, look at the ways we learn in a school setting but also throughout the different experiences we have in our daily lives that lead us to form conclusions and behave in a certain way that we may otherwise not have behaved in had we not had that experience. This could range from learning how to brush our hair from watching our parents(modeling) to learning how to avoid certain stimuli that result in negative consequences. To me, the ideas of education and studying are just one piece of the puzzle of how people learn for psychological scientists. After reading this chapter there are so many ways we learn whether we are aware of it or not.
My understanding of the process of learning and how different people learn has changed drastically after reading this chapter. Before reading, I thought learning was the art of stuffing as much information into our brains as they could hold. I had heard of the concepts of making sure not to cram before a test and getting plenty of sleep but I had no idea of the increased benefits that repetition and adequate amounts of sleep could really do. Now, I look forward to switching up my habits in order to study more effectively. This chapter really helped me to understand how my brain functions when it is learning something and how I can use this knowledge to encourage it to learn even more.
The most memorable thing that I learned about in this reading coincides with the idea of getting a good amount of sleep and the amount of repetition it takes to fully grasp a concept. In the middle of this section the author talked about the context effect. This concept explored the need to switch up where you study in order to retrieve the information learned in more than one environment. This idea was completely new to me and I found it fascinating. I have often felt like the information I needed for a test was right on the tip of my tongue so I would imagine myself in the area in which I studied to try to remember the information needed. I had no idea this is why I did that. Now I have a term to describe this and a way to combat the need to do this in the future. I will be studying in more than one place from now on!
Vocabulary: associative learning, non-associative learning, modeling, learning, context effect, sleep, repetition
I always thought of learning from more of an educational standpoint- memorizing and studying new concepts you would apply in later courses and sometimes in the real world. However, learning from a psychological science perspective is so much more than that. The book defines learning as “a lasting change caused by experience.” Scientists define a change as a behavioral response, and that is what they study in labs. However, in real life, learning something new doesn’t necessarily lead to a change in behavior.
Learning can be divided into two categories. Nonassociative learning is the simplest kind, and is so simple that even animals with simple nervous systems, such as slugs, experience it. Nonassociative learning is so simple because it does not involve connecting two stimuli, but just involves one sensory cue and the individual’s modification of behavior following an encounter with such a cue. Nonassociative learning in itself has two types: sensitization and habitation. Sensitization occurs when an individual experiences a strong stimuli (such as a loud noise) and then responds in an unusually sensitive way to any similar stimuli that follow. Habituation is just the opposite, as it occurs when an individual is repeatedly subjected to the same stimuli and their response decreases in sensitivity over time.
The second category of learning is associative, and most learning in creatures with complex nervous system is associative. Associative learning does involve connecting at least two different stimuli. Associative learning also has two types: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is the more passive form, and it involves presenting the individual with an unconditioned stimulus that will cause an automatic unconditioned response. The US is followed by a conditioned stimulus, and eventually the individual will respond to it in the same way, thereby developing a conditioned response. Operant conditioning is the more active form, in which the individual actively chooses to behave in a way that will be rewarded, or presented with a reinforcer, and will not result in a punishment. Operant conditioning can be used to correct preexisting behaviors or to create new behaviors through a process called shaping.
Some types of learning, however, cannot be explained by changes in behavior. Spatial navigation learning and insight learning both involve forming connections between stimuli, but there is no behavior before or after to study to find an actual change. Observational learning is another example, where there is a change in behavior but not a direct experience by the individual. It takes place when an individual observes the actions and subsequent results of another, and decides, if the results are positive and rewarding, to mimic the behavior.
I found this entire chapter to be extremely interesting. I had always thought of learning as something boring, but it is so involved and complex! By the new definitions of learning, I learn a lot more each day than I thought I did. The factors that facilitate learning were really interesting and memorable to me. I always like to space out my studying, and I hate cramming the night before. Now I realize that I’ve been doing things the right way all along! Another memorable tidbit I picked up was the section on learned helplessness. I’ve come in contact with a few certain people who had this “victim mentality,” and were very passive and didn’t fight for anything. They also happened to be previous victims of childhood abuse and neglect. It was interesting to learn that there is a correlation between past abuse and this behavior, and it helped me to understand their actions more.
Terms: learning, nonassociative learning, sensitization, habituation, associative learning, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, reinforcer, punishment, shaping, spatial navigation learning, insight learning, observational learning, learned helplessness
Learning is defined by the textbook as a lasting change caused by experience. As far as psychological science goes, the definition doesn’t exactly match up with how I view education. People learn a lot from school, but when you ask someone to define school they may say something about classes, teachers, textbooks, tests and papers. This doesn’t line up with the psychological definition because this type of learning has more to do with memorization than with experience. In a history class, you may have to memorize lists of dates and accomplishments of historical figures. Many people might struggle with this, but it would be different if they had been alive in that time period to witness (or, more aptly, experience) those accomplishments or events firsthand. The chapter briefly glossed over memorization, stating that we would learn about it in the next chapter, so I’m interested to see how my concept of learning vs. memorization changes then. School to me also includes learning through social interaction and cooperation with peers and instructors. This seems to be much closer to the psychological definition of learning, because we as humans pick up on social cues and learn from each interaction with other humans.
I was really interested in the section on classical conditioning. The first time I heard of Pavlov was several years ago. I was sitting in a booth in the Maid-Rite in my hometown eating lunch with my family. Every time somebody entered or left the restaurant, my brother’s head would whip around and he would check to see if it was an “in” or an “out”. This was because he spent four years working there during high school. Even though it had been a year or two since he had actually worked there, he had been conditioned to check the door. I learned a little bit about Pavlov and his conditioning experiments that day, but it was interesting to read about it in more detail. I thought he was crazy at the time, but I went on to work at the same Maid-Rite and have the same conditioned response to the same conditioned stimulus. Regardless of if a customer was entering or leaving, the bell indicated that there was work to be done (orders to be taken if they were entering, tables to be wiped if they were leaving). I never forgot about Pavlov’s dogs, because I was fascinated with how quickly I was conditioned.
Terms: Learning, classical conditioning, conditioned stimulus, condition response
Learning does not just happen in a classroom it happens everywhere. Although the first thing that came to my mind when I think of the word learning I automatically associated the concept of learning to an educational environmental. The textbook defines learning as “a lasting change caused by experience”. With learning there are various factors that aid in learning; these include timing, awareness, attention, and sleep. Also there are different types of learning. For example observational learning is learning that occurs without much training, but rather is learning by observing another person’s behavior. An example of this type of learning is when you first learned how to cook. While some people use cook books, simple foods like scrambled eggs don’t require one; we learned how to cook scrambled eggs by watching someone cook them first. While observational learning applies to everyone, I think that it is most beneficial to those who are younger. As children grow up they learn to do things by watching their parent’s behaviors. The learning that we typically associated with a classroom setting is different from that of learning from a psychological science perspective. From this view point, learning is much more complex and covers a wide array of areas not just learning done in an educational setting. While we often think of studying for an exam or listening to a lecture as learning, it is only part of the whole concept of learning.
One topic that I found to be interesting from this chapter is operant conditioning. Operant conditioning by definition is “a form of associative learning whereby behavior is modified depending on it consequences”. I have never heard of this aspect of learning before but it is definitely interesting to read about and know that almost everyone has experienced some sort of operant conditioning. I particularly like to see and understand how it all works and how it varies on the type organism. With this idea there are positive and negative reinforcement and punishment. It is a simple concept to understand at the surface layer but there is certainly much more in depth, information.
From this chapter, one thing that surprised me is the idea of spatial learning in taxi drivers. Since this was the first time that I have ever heard of the idea of spatial learning I assumed that everyone was capable of about the same amount. It turns out that taxi drivers are much better at this than those who haven’t been through taxi training. The hippocampus of taxi drivers is slightly higher than regular people but like any kind of learning, the more practice a person has, the better they get.
Vocabulary: Learning, observational learning, associative learning, spatial navigation learning, hippocampus, and positive/negative reinforcement
Learning, as described by the course textbook, is a lasting change caused by experience. There are different types of learning such as associative and nonassociative learning. Associative learning is a change that occurs as a result of the linking of two or more stimuli. An example of this process would be learning the words of a song in conjunction with the tune. This happens all of the time without us even realizing it. Think about it, have you ever found yourself humming along to a song that you are certain you don't know the words to? That is because we are learning it without having any awareness of it. While associative learning involves connecting stimuli, nonassociative learning happens without a person connecting two or more stimuli. Within nonassociative learning there is habituation and sensitization. Habituation happens when the senses begin to respond less strongly to repeated stimuli. Sensitization is an increase in a response. An example of this is when you are watching a horror movie and a zombie jumps out which startles you. You are likely to be easily startled again due to the sensitization process.
All of this different learning is interrelated with the common perspective of psychological science. Many people think of learning as sitting in class and listening to lectures, studying from a textbook, or things along those lines. Learning is actually much more than that and it has been described in great deal in this chapter. Something the textbook talks about is context effect. This term refers to the idea that if a person studies in one room alone, they will often think of that room when trying to remember information they learned in it. I know this has happened to me when taking an exam before. If a person studies in more than one place however, they are able to retain long term memory of that information. Where a person studies then, can impact their learning. Therefore, we can see how our common perception of learning and learning as it is defined in this textbook are connected.
A topic I enjoyed reading about was the learning disabilities. I thought it was really interesting to read this section of the chapter because it is always nice to understand that not everyone learns in the same way or is even capable of the same learning abilities. I think it would be extremely difficult to have trouble reading, speaking, or even with processing math information. I can't imagine the challenges students who have those disabilities face every day. I also was intrigued by the attention disorders because they are not learning disabilities per se, but they are very closely related. This part of the section was significant to me because I hear all the time of people who have newly diagnosed attention disorders. While I do believe that there are clearly cases of attention disorders I think that many people, children especially, are being misdiagnosed every day. In my opinion, there are too many parents who want children that are more calm and will give them medication as long as it will quiet them. I think this outlook is wrong and should be changed immediately. Also, this results in numerous cases of Ritalin and Adderall abuse in adolescent culture. With the rise in availability, it is becoming all too easily accessible by many sleep deprived students looking for a little extra oomph.
Vocabulary Terms: associative learning, nonassociative learning, stimuli, awareness, habituation, sensitization, context effect, perception, learning disability, attention disorder
Learning is defined in the most general sense of the word as a lasting change caused by experience and it has far reaching branches not associated with the mainstream type of learning you would come to think of with education and study. Animals for example can learn in some ways just like human beings in ways such as classical and operant conditioning. A classic example of classical conditioning which is also used in the book is Pavlov’s dog experiment. After a while of being fed by lab assistance that would walk in through the door, the dog would not only salivate when food was brought to him, but also when the door opened and the lab assistant came in. This association with the door and salivary reflexes proves classical conditioning. In humans, phobias and fear conditioning are another form of classical conditioning. Operant conditioning also occurs with both animals and humans and is classified by using either reinforcement or punishment as a means to modify behavior. They used an example of a puzzle box in which a cat would have to press a lever to release the door and be fed and as they did this, the cat get faster and faster about pulling the lever resulting in operant conditioning. Learned helplessness is a type of operant conditioning in which a person becomes less and less able to try to escape an almost inescapable punishment.
I never realized just how extensive learning was and how many categories there were. Classical and operant conditioning are both sub-groups of Associative Learning which is only one of two categories with the latter being Nonassociative learning. This involves habituation and sensitization. I think it’s fascinating just how many categories there were and there were some forms of learning that I never thought of learning such as insight learning which involves a sudden eureka moment to solve a problem and find the solution. I thought of this more as intuition or just using learned technique in a different context instead of learning, but it makes sense to fit under types of learning.
Some points that the chapter touched on that I thought were interesting were how phobias were linked to classical conditioning. I never knew a lot about phobias and how they came about until I read this chapter. I knew that it was a regularly irrational fear of something or someone, however I didn’t know that it is usually conditioned into you through fear conditioning. I also found reading about Spatial Navigation Learning to be interesting. I found that this sort of learning happens to me all the time especially when I first started going to UNI and getting a map of the campus engrained into my head. I also found the sprinkling of study tips within the reading to be both interesting and helpful and I will definitely start trying to put some of those into place.
I came across some surprising thoughts such as the fact that Pavlov’s dog experiment was not originally to discover classical conditioning but just to discover how salivary reflex behavior in digestion.
Terms:
classical conditioning
Pavlov
Spatial Navigation Learning
phobias
fear conditioning
intuition
insight learning
Nonassociative Learning
Associative Learning
Classical conditioning
Operant conditioning
learned helplessness
Learning is a lasting change that is brought on by experience. Most of the things I think of as learning isn’t psychological learning. Psychologically, learning is something that changes a behavior and usually involves some kind of reinforcement, and most of the time the learning I think about deals with understanding facts in order to understand concepts. Also, when I am in class most of the time, I am listening to a lecture which has nothing to do with “learning” because I am not being reinforced with a punishment or a reinforcer for by behavior. I now understand that learning is more about reinforcing a behavior instead of trying to cram facts into my mind. But psychological learning can happen after a test when I am either rewarded for my hard work and studying, or punished with a bad grade after not studying.
It was very interesting to learn about the experiments that Pavlov conducted on his dogs. For one thing, I always enjoy it when an experiment reveals a previously unknown phenomena; for example, how Pavlov was originally trying to learn more about saliva’s role in digestion and then he noticed a pattern and started to pursue that instead. I also thought it was interesting to read about using operant conditioning to teach new behaviors. I liked reading about how giving a reward or punishment for certain behaviors can help adjust behavior. After reading this, I was able to notice how my percussion teachers sometimes use operant conditioning during my lessons. And eventually, I can use operant conditioning on my own students in the future.
The most surprising thing I read about in this chapter was learned helplessness. I was surprised specifically by the rats who had no obstacles to escape and they chose to stay in the cage where they were being shocked. It would be very interesting to learn about it more in depth from a neurological standpoint. I was also surprised by how active the brain is while video games are being played. I was not aware that there was actually neuron construction even in a virtual spatial environment.
Learning
Punishment
Reiforcer
Operant Conditioning
Learned helplessness
I’ve always thought of learning as an activity that an individual can do in a variety of different ways. Facts can be learned, things can be memorized, skills can be taught, and to me, that was what learning was. My understanding of learning did not line up with the text on what learning is at least on a scientific level. What learning really is, is a change to the brain caused by a new experience. There are two key types of learning, Nonassociative, which is based on one stimulus, and Associative, which is when your brain puts two or more stimuli together and perceives a relationship between them. Within Associative learning, there is Conditioning. Conditioning is like training. The brain associates different things that usually go together in order to be better prepared for possible future events. What’s really cool to me about this process is that it can be manipulated!
Conditioning is how dogs are trained, its how animals survive in the wild. It’s how our ancestors would know that winter was coming and it’s how Jim Halpert got Dwight Schrute to stick his hand out for a tic tac every time Jim would reboot his computer in “The Office.”
Reading about the Skinner experiments was very prominent for me. Another amazing parallel between humans and animals that makes me think about how “connected” we all are. Rats can learn the same way we can. It’s always strange to me to be able think about my thoughts and abilities being very similar to those of others. It seems that the more I learn about the brain, the less individual I tend to feel. Not in a bad way either, just in a way that makes me aware of those around me.
Nonassociative, stimulus, Associative, perceives, manipulated, Conditioning