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In this article we will discuss about cognitive learning, insight and latent learning.
Some psychologists view learning in terms of the thought processes or cognition that underlie it, an approach known as cognitive learning theory. Cognitive learning theory suggests that it is not enough to say that people make responses because there is an assumed link between a stimulus and a response due to a past history of reinforcement to the response, instead according to this point of view, people and even animals develop an expectation that they will receive a reinforcer to make a response.
Latent Learning:
Some of the most direct evidence regarding cognitive processes comes from a series of experiments that revealed a type of cognitive learning called latent learning. In this new behaviour it is learned but it is not demonstrated until reinforcement is provided for displaying it.
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In the studies, psychologists examine the behaviour of rats in a maze. In one representative experiment a group of rats was allowed to wander around the maze. Once a day for seventeen days without ever receiving any reward.
These rats made many errors and spent a relatively long time reaching the end of the maze. A second group, however, was always given food at the end of the maze. These rats learned to run quickly and directly to the food box making a few errors.
A third group of rats started out in the same situation as the unrewarded rats but only for the first ten days on the eleventh day a critical experimental manipulation was instituted from that point on the rats in this group were given food for completing the maze. The results of their manipulation were dramatic.
The previously unrewarded rats, who had earlier seemed to wander about aimlessly showed reductions in summing time and declines in error rates such that their performance almost immediately matched that of a group that had received rewards from the start.
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To cognitive theorists, it seemed clear that the rewarded rats had learned the layout of the maze early in their explorations they first never displayed their talent learning until the reinforcement was offered. The rats seemed to develop a cognitive maps of the maze, a mental representation of special locations and direction.
People too develop cognitive map of their surroundings based primarily on particular landmarks when they first encounter a new environment, their maps tend to rely on specific paths. As people become more familiar with an area they develop an overall concept of it which has been called an abstract cognitive map.
Using such a map, they are eventually able to take shortcuts as they develop a broad understanding of the area. Our cognitive maps are often riddled with errors. They are imperfect versions of actual maps. In-spite of the inadequacies, we do develop cognitive maps through latent learning.
Observational Learning: Learning through Imitation:
Another form of cognitive learning is observational learning.
According to psychologist Albert Bandura and his colleagues, a major part of human learning consists of observational learning, which they defined as learning through observing the behaviour of another person called a model. Bandura and his colleagues demonstrated rather dramatically the ability of models to stimulate learning in what is now considered a classic experiment.
Young children saw a film of an adult wildly hitting a 5 feet tall inflatable punching toy called a bobo doll later the children were given an opportunity to play with the bobo doll themselves and they displayed the same kind of behaviour imitating the aggressive behaviour.
Not only negative behaviours are acquired through observational learning. In one experiment, for example, children who we afraid of dogs were exposed to a model playing with a dog. Following exposure observers were considered more likely to approach a strange dog than children who had not viewed the model.
According to Bandura, observational learning takes place in four types:
1. Paying attention and perceiving the most critical features of another person’s behaviour.
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2. Remembering the behaviour
3. Reproducing the action
4. Being motivated to learn and carry out the behaviour and then with successes being reinforced and failures punished, many important skills are learned through observational processes. Observational learning is particularly important in acquiring skills in which shaping is inappropriate.
Insight Learning:
In a typical insight situation a problem is passed, a period follows during which no progress is made and then the solution comes suddenly. A learning curve of insight learning would show no evidence of learning for a time, then suddenly learning would be almost complete.
What has been learnt can also be applied early to other similar situations. Human beings who solve a problem insightfully usually experience good feelings called an “aha” experience, “aha” we say as when we suddenly see the answer to the problems.
In insight learning, the following events occur:
1. The solution comes suddenly after a period during which various response strategies are tried.
2. There is perceptual rearrangement.
3. The solution, once got, can be generalized rather to other similar problems. These are two major characteristics of insight learning’s.
Insight involves a perceptual reorganization of elements in the environment such that new relationship among objects and events are suddenly seen.
Many years ago the German psychologist Wolf Gang Kohler carried out a number of insight experiments on chimpanzees. One of the experiments he conducted was the following.
A chimpanzee was put inside the cage and outside the cage a banana was kept. Inside the cage there was a stick which was too short to reach the food but this stick could be used to reach another longer stick outside the cage, this longer stick could be used to take in the food. In these experiments there was a period of trial and error, with little progress towards a solution.
Then Kohler reported the chimpanzee would suddenly stop what it was doing and visually survey the sticks and the food and then suddenly and smoothly and without any trial and error solve the problem by using the shorter stick to take inside the longer stick which could then be used to get the food.
In addition to the perceptual reorganization of the environment there is often a carry over or transfer of things previously learned to onsite situations. Kohler’s chimpanzee carried over what they already know about sticks and other simple tools to the insight situation.
Transfer of Training or Learning:
Transfer of training or learning occurs when learning of one set of materials influences the learning of another set of material later. For example, driving a new car, the movements and responses in driving a new car will have similarities and differences when compared to movements and responses in driving the old car. The individual has to adapt his old habits and learn new ones.
According to Crow and Crow, transfer of learning means “the carry over of habits, thinking, feeling, working, knowledge and skills from one learning area to another learning area”.
According to Bigger transfer of learning occurs when a person’s learning in one situation influences his learning and performances in other situations.
Forms of Transfer:
1. Positive transfer:
When the learning in one situation facilitates the learner in another situation, we call it as positive transfer. For example, learning to ride bicycle helps to ride bike, etc.
2. Negative transfer:
When learning in one situation hinders the learning in new situation it is called negative transfer. For example, some companies like to take fresh employees to avoid the process of negative learning due to earlier experience. Here earlier experience acts as a hindrance.
3. Zero transfer:
When learning in one situation does not influence the learning in another situation is said to be zero learning. For example, learning to write Kannada won’t influence our learning to write in English.
4. Positive and negative:
Sometimes, previous learning may partly help as well as partly hinder the performance in a new situation. This is called positive as well as negative.