Learning

Learning is “Any relatively permanent

change in
behaviour or behavioural potential
change produced
by experience”
In other words
“Learning is the relatively permanent
change in a
person’s knowledge or behaviour due to
experience.This definition has three
components: 1) theduration of the
change is long-term rather than short-
term; 2) the locus of the change is the
content andstructure of knowledge in
memory or the behaviourof the learner;
3) the cause of the change is the
learner’s experience in the environment
rather than
fatigue, motivation, drugs, physical
condition orphysiologic intervention.”

–From Learning in Encyclopaedia of

Educational
Research, Richard E. Mayer
Learning and Habituation
Habituation is one of the simplest and
most commonform of learning and it
occurs when repeatedexposure to a
stimulus decreases an
organism'sresponsiveness to the
stimulus.”
Habituation involves a stimulus with
noassociation, while conditioning
involves a stimuluswith an association.
For example - imagine that you are
studying with thetelevision playing in the
background. The TV mightbe distracting
at first, but habituation allows you
toeventually tune out the noise and focus
on what youare trying to learn.
Learning and Maturation
Relationship between Learning and
Maturation
Learning and maturation are intertwined
processes.In fact, it is maturity that
facilitates learning. Whenyou are
teaching something to a person, it is
alwaysimportant to make sure that
person has achieved thenecessary
mental maturity required for that lesson.
Difference BetweenLearning and
Maturation
Learning is the process of acquiring
knowledge,skills, and behaviours through
experience, trainingand education. In
contrast, maturation is the processof
becoming mature or developed, both
mentallyand physically. Thus, this is the
fundamentaldifference between learning
and maturation.
Moreover, learning is mainly a mental
process,whereas maturation is both
mental and physicaldevelopment.
Another difference between learning and
maturationis that learning happens
through experience,practice, training, or
education, while maturationoccurs
through individual growth.
 While learning happens because of
external stimuli,maturation does not
need any external stimuli.

Classical Conditioning (Ivan. Pavlov)

Classical conditioning is a type of learning
that had amajor influence on the school of
thought in psychologyknown as
behaviourism. Classical conditioning is
alearning process that occurs through
associationsbetween an environmental
stimulus and a naturallyoccurring stimulus.

The most famous example of classical

conditioningwas conducted by Pavlov on
dogs who salivated inresponse to a bell tone.
Pavlov showed that when a bellwas sounded
each time the dog was fed, the dog
learnedto associate the sound with the
presentation of the food.
John Watson proposed that the process of
classicalconditioning was able to explain all
aspects of humanpsychology.
Everything from speech to emotional
responses wassimply patterns of stimulus
and response. Watson deniedcompletely the
existence of the mind or
consciousness.Watson believed that all
individual differences inbehaviour were due
to different experiences of learning.
Pavlov’s Experiment
Pavlov conducted his Experiment on a dog.
He conducted this experiment in three
phases.

Phase 1. Before Conditioning

The dog was placed in a box and harnessed.

A simple surgery was conducted and one
end of the tube was inserted in the dog’s jaw
and the other end of the tube was put in the
measuring glass.
During this phase of the processes, the
unconditionedstimulus (UCS) food results in
an unconditionedresponse (UCR) salivation.
For example, presenting food (the UCS)
naturally andautomatically triggers a
salivation response (the UCR).In the before
conditioning phase, an
unconditionedstimulus is paired with an
unconditioned response. Aneutral stimulus is
then introduced.
 Phase 2. During Conditioning
In the second phase the dog was kept
hungry andplaced in harness with one
end of the tube ending thein the jaw and
the other end in the glass. A bell
wassounded and immediately thereafter
food (meatpowder) was served to the
dog. For next few daysevery time the
meat powder was presented, it
waspreceded by the sound of the bell.
After a number of such trials, a test trial
wasintroduced in which everything was
the same as theprevious trails except
that no food followed thesounding the of
the bell.
The dog still salivated to the sound of the
bell. Thisassociation between bell and
food resulted inacquisition of new
response by the dog. this has
beentermed as conditioning.
The during conditioning phase
involves pairing aneutral stimulus with an
unconditioned stimulus.Eventually, the
neutral stimulus becomes theconditioned
stimulus.
Phase 3. After conditioning
After conditioning the food salivation started
to occur in
the presence of the sound of the bell. The
bell becomes
the conditioned stimulus (CS) and saliva
secretion a conditioned response (CR).
The learning situation in classical
conditioning is one of S-S learning.
In the after-conditioning phase, the
conditionedstimulus alone triggers the
conditioned response.

Key Terms:
➢ Unconditioned
stimulus (UCS) -
➢ automatically
produces an innate,
➢ unlearned reflex
response
➢ Unconditioned
Response (UCR)-
 ➢ Conditioned
Response- a learned
physical
Determinants of classical reflex
conditioning
1.Time Relations between stimuli: In
classicalconditioning the first three are
called ForwardConditioning Procedures
and the fourth one is calledBackward
conditioning.
The basic arrangeme of these
nts
I.Simultaneous Conditioning: When the CS
and USare presented together. It is
effective to acquire CRbut requires
greater number of trials.
II.Delayed Conditioning: The onset of CS
precedes theonset of US. The CS ends
before the end of the US.It is most
effective way of acquiring CR.
III.Trace Conditioning: The onset and the end
of the CSprecedes the onset of US with
some time gapbetween the two. It is
effective but requires greaternumber of
trials.
IV.Backward conditioning: The US precedes
the onset of CS. It is least effective way to
acquire CR.
2.Type of unconditioned stimuli: The
unconditionedstimuli used in studies of
classical conditioning areof two types:
Appetitive and aversive.
Appetitiveunconditioned stimuli elicit
approach responsessuch as eating,
drinking and caressing etc.
These responses give satisfaction and
pleasure.according to researches it is
slower and requiresgreater number of
trials. But aversive stimuli e.g.Noise,
bitter taste etc. classical conditioning
isestablished in one, two or three trials
because it ispainful.

3. Intensity of conditioned stimuli: This

influencesthe course of both appetitive
and aversive classicalconditioning. More
intense conditioned stimuli aremore
effective in accelerating the acquisition
ofconditioned responses, e.g.: The more
intense theconditioned stimulus, the
fewer are the number ofacquisition
trials needed for conditioning.

By. Dr Farah (NET, PHD in Psychology)

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