LEARNING

PSYCHOLOGY
 U C T I O N
I N T R O D
INTRODUCTION
At the time of birth every human baby is equipped with the capacity to make a limited
number of responses. These responses occur reflexively whenever appropriate stimuli
are present in the environment. As the child grows and matures, s/he becomes
capable of making diverse types of responses. These include identifying the images of
some persons as one’s mother, father or grandfather, using a spoon when eating food,
and learning how to identify alphabets, to write, and to combine them into words.
S/he also observes others doing things in specific environmental conditions, and
imitates them. Learning names of objects such as book, orange, mango, cow, boy, and
girl, and retaining them is another important task. As one grows older, one observes
many events or objects, and learns their distinct features. Objects are categorised as
‘furniture’, ‘fruits’, and so on. One also learns to drive a scooter or a car, to
communicate with others effectively, and to interact with others. It is all due to
learning that a person becomes hard working or indolent, socially knowledgeable,
skilled, and professionally competent. Each individual manages her or his life and
solves all kinds of problems because of the capacity to learn and adapt.
 U R E O F
NAT
A R N I N G
LE
NATURE OF LEARNING
IT REFERS TO A SPECTRUM OF CHANGES THAT TAKE PLACE
AS A RESULT OF ONE’S EXPERIENCE. LEARNING MAY BE
DEFINED AS “ANY RELATIVELY PERMANENT CHANGE IN
BEHAVIOUR OR BEHAVIOURAL POTENTIAL PRODUCED BY
EXPERIENCE”.
CHANGES DUE TO PRACTICE AND EXPERIENCE, WHICH ARE
RELATIVELY PERMANENT, ARE ILLUSTRATIVE OF LEARNING.
FEATURES OF LEARNING
• The first feature is that learning always involves some kinds of experience. We experience an event occurring in a
certain sequence on a number of occasions. If an event happens then it may be followed by certain other events.
For example, one learns that if the bell rings in the hostel after sunset, then dinner is ready to be served.
• Behavioural changes that occur due to learning are relatively permanent. They must be distinguished from the
behavioural changes that are neither permanent nor learned. For example, changes in behaviour often occur due
to the effects of fatigue, habituation, and drugs. Suppose you are reading your textbook of psychology for
sometime or you are trying to learn how to drive a motor car, a time comes when you will feel tired. You stop
reading or driving. This is a behavioural change due to fatigue, and is temporary. It is not considered learning.
• Learning involves a sequence of psychological events. This will become clear if we were to describe a typical
learning experiment. Suppose psychologists are interested in understanding how a list of words is learned. They
will go through the following sequence : (i) do a pre-test to know how much the person knows before learning,
(ii) present the list of words to be remembered for a fixed time, (iii) during this time the list of words is processed
towards acquiring new knowledge, (iv) after processing is complete, new knowledge is acquired (this is
LEARNING), and (v) after some time elapses, the processed information is recalled by the person. By comparing
the number of words which a person now knows as compared to what s/he knew in the pre-test, one infers that
learning did take place. Thus, learning is an inferred process and is different from performance. Performance is a
person’s observed behaviour or response or action.
 AD I G M S OF
PAR
LEAR N I N G
PARADIGMS OF LEARNING
• The simplest kind of learning is called conditioning. Two types of conditioning
have been identified. The first one is called classical conditioning, and the
second instrumental/operant conditioning

• In addition, we have:
• observational learning
• cognitive learning
• verbal learning
• concept learning
• skill learning
 AS S I C AL
CL
D I T I O N I N G
C ON
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
This type of learning was first investigated by Ivan P. Pavlov. He was primarily interested in the physiology of digestion.
During his studies he noticed that dogs, on whom he was doing his experiments, started secreting saliva as soon as they
saw the empty plate in which food was served. As you must be aware, saliva secretion is a reflexive response to food or
something in the mouth. Pavlov designed an experiment to understand this process in detail. He again used dogs.
In the first phase, a dog was placed in a box and harnessed. The dog was left in the box for some time. This was repeated a
number of times on different days. In the meantime, a simple surgery was conducted, and one end of a tube was inserted in
the dog’s jaw and the other end of the tube was put in a measuring glass. In the second phase of the experiment, the dog
was kept hungry and placed in harness with one end of the tube ending in the jaw and the other end in the glass jar. A bell
was sounded and immediately thereafter food (meat powder) was served to the dog. The dog was allowed to eat it.
For the next few days, everytime the meat powder was presented, it was preceded by the sound of a bell. After a number of
such trials, a test trial was introduced in which everything was the same as the previous trials except that no food followed
sounding of the bell. The dog still salivated to the sound of the bell, expecting presentation of the meat powder as the bell
had come to be connected with it. This association between the bell and food resulted in acquisition of a new response by
the dog, i.e. salivation to the sound of the bell. This has been termed conditioning.
You may have noticed that all dogs salivate when they are presented with food. Food is thus an Unconditioned Stimulus
(US) and salivation which follows it, an Unconditioned Response (UR). After conditioning, salivation started to occur in the
presence of the sound of the bell. The bell becomes a Conditioned Stimulus (CS) and saliva secretion a Conditioned
Response (CR). This kind of conditioning is called classical conditioning. The procedure is illustrated in Table 6.1. It is obvious
that the learning situation in classical conditioning is one of S–S learning in which one stimulus (e.g., sound of bell) becomes
a signal of another stimulus (e.g., food). Here one stimulus signifies the possible occurrence of another stimulus.
DETERMINANTS OF CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
1. Time Relations between Stimuli :
The classical conditioning procedures, discussed below, are basically of four types based on the
time relations between the onset of conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US).
The first three are called forward conditioning procedures, and the fourth one is called backward
conditioning procedure. The basic experimental arrangements of these procedures are as follows:
a) When the CS and US are presented together, it is called simultaneous conditioning.
b) In delayed conditioning, the onset of CS precedes the onset of US. The CS ends before the end
of the US.
c) In trace conditioning, the onset and end of the CS precedes the onset of US with some time gap
between the two.
d) In backward conditioning, the US precedes the onset of CS.

2. Type of Unconditioned Stimuli :

The unconditioned stimuli used in studies of classical conditioning are basically of two types, i.e.
appetitive and aversive.
Appetitive unconditioned stimuli automatically elicits approach responses, such as
eating, drinking, caressing, etc. These responses give satisfaction and pleasure.
On the other hand, aversive US, such as noise, bitter taste, electric shock, painful
injections, etc. are painful, harmful, and elicit avoidance and escape responses.

3. Intensity of Conditioned Stimuli :

This influences the course of both appetitive and aversive classical conditioning.
More intense conditioned stimuli are more effective in accelerating the acquisition
of conditioned responses. It means that the more intense the conditioned stimulus,
the fewer are the number of acquisition trials needed for conditioning.
 OP E R A N T /
INSTR U M E N T A L
CON D I TIO N I N G
OPERANT/INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING
This type of conditioning was first investigated by B.F. Skinner. Skinner studied occurrence
of voluntary responses when an organism operates on the environment. He called them
operants. Operants are those behaviours or responses, which are emitted by animals and
human beings voluntarily and are under their control. The term operant is used because
the organism operates on the environment. Conditioning of operant behaviour is called
operant conditioning.
Skinner conducted his studies on rats and pigeons in specially made boxes, called the
Skinner Box. A hungry rat (one at a time) is placed in the chamber, which was so built that
the rat could move inside but could not come out. In the chamber there was a lever, which
was connected to a food container kept on the top of the chamber. When the lever is
pressed, a food pellet drops on the plate placed close to the lever. While moving around
and pawing the walls (exploratory behaviour), the hungry rat accidentally presses the lever
and a food pellet drops on the plate. The hungry rat eats it. In the next trial, after a while
the exploratory behaviour again starts.
As the number of trials increases, the rat takes lesser and lesser time to press
the lever for food. Conditioning is complete when the rat presses the lever
immediately after it is placed in the chamber. It is obvious that lever pressing is
an operant response and getting food is its consequence.

In the above situation the response is instrumental in getting the food. That is
why, this type of learning is also called instrumental conditioning. Examples of
instrumental conditioning abound in our everyday life. Children who want to
have some sweets in the absence of their mother learn to locate the jar in which
mother hides the sweets for safekeeping and eat it. Children learn to be polite
and say ‘please’ to get favours from their parents and others. One learns to
operate mechanical gadgets such as radio, camera, T.V., etc. based on the
principle of instrumental conditioning. As a matter of fact human beings learn
short cuts to attain desired goals or ends through instrumental conditioning.
DETERMINANTS OF OPERANT
CONDITIONING
Operant or instrumental conditioning is a form of learning in which behaviour is learned,
maintained or changed through its consequences. Such consequences are called reinforcers. A
reinforcer is defined as any stimulus or event, which increases the probability of the occurrence
of a (desired) response. A reinforcer has numerous features, which affect the course and
strength of a response.
*they include its types – positive or negative
*number or frequency
*quality – superior or inferior
*schedule – continuous or intermittent (partial).
All these features influence the course of operant conditioning. Another factor that influences
this type of learning is the nature of the response or behaviour that is to be conditioned. The
interval or length of time that lapses between occurrence of response and reinforcement also
influences operant learning.
 C E B E T W E E N
D I FFE R E N
N D O P E RA N T
CLASS I C AL A
N D I T I ON I NG
CO
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLASSICAL AND
OPERANT CONDITIONING:
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING OPERANT CONDITIONING

• Response is Involuntary • Response in Voluntary

• Goal is to make a response occur again

• Goal is to create a new response

• Association: Response and Consequence

• Association: CS + US

• Time of Action: Reinforcement has to be

• Time of Action: CS must come immediate(after the response
before US occurrence
 LE A R N I N G
KE Y
C E S S E S
PR O
KEY LEARNING PROCESSES
When learning takes place, be it classical or operant conditioning, it involves the occurrence of
certain processes. These include reinforcement, extinction or non-occurrence of learned
response, generalisation of learning to other stimuli under some specifiable conditions,
discrimination between reinforcing and non-reinforcing stimuli, and spontaneous recovery.
Reinforcement is the operation of administering a reinforcer by the experimenter. Reinforcers
are stimuli that increase the rate or probability of the responses that precede.
Extinction means disappearance of a learned response due to removal of reinforcement from
the situation in which the response used to occur. If the occurrence of CS-CR is not followed by
the US in classical conditioning, or lever pressing is no more followed by food pellets in the
Skinner box, the learned behaviour will gradually be weakened and ultimately disappear.
When a learned response occurs or is elicited by a new stimulus, it is called generalization. In
the absence of the mother the child locates the jar and obtains the sweets. This is also an
example of generalisation.
Discrimination is a response due to difference. For example, suppose a child is
conditioned to be afraid of a person with a long moustache and wearing black clothes.
In subsequent situation, when s/he meets another person dressed in black clothes
with a beard, the child shows signs of fear. The child’s fear is generalised. S/he meets
another stranger who is wearing grey clothes and is clean-shaven. The child shows no
fear. This is an example of discrimination.
Occurrence of generalisation means failure of discrimination.
Spontaneous recovery occurs after a learned response is extinguished. Suppose an
organism has learned to make a response for getting reinforcement, then the response
is extinguished and some time lapses. It has been demonstrated that after lapse of
considerable time, the learned or CR recovers and occurs to the CS. The amount of
spontaneous recovery depends on the duration of the time lapsed after the extinction
session. The longer the duration of time lapsed, the greater is the recovery of learned
response. Such recovery occurs spontaneously.
 AT I ON AL
OBS E RV
A R N I N G
LE
OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING
In observational learning observers acquire knowledge by observing the model’s behaviour, but
performance is influenced by model’s behaviour being rewarded or punished.

In order to understand the nature of observational learning we may refer to the studies conducted by
Bandura. In one of his well-known experimental study, Bandura showed a film of five minutes duration to
children. The film shows that in a large room there are numerous toys including a large sized ‘Bobo’ doll.
Now a grown-up boy enters the room and looks around. The boy starts showing aggressive behaviour
towards the toys in general and the bobo doll in particular. He hits the doll, throws it on the floor, kicking it
and sitting on it. This film has three versions. In one version a group of children see the boy (model) being
rewarded and praised by an adult for being aggressive to the doll. In the second version another group of
children see the boy being punished for his aggressive behaviour. In the third version the third group of
children are not shown the boy being either rewarded or punished. After viewing a specific version of the
film all the three groups of children were placed in an experimental room in which similar toys were
placed around. The children were allowed to play with the toys. These groups were secretly observed and
their behaviours noted. It was found that those children who saw aggressive behaviour being rewarded
were most aggressive; children who had seen the aggressive model being punished were least aggressive
Children observe adults’ behaviours, at home and during social ceremonies and
functions. They enact adults in their plays and games. For instance, young
children play games of marriage ceremonies, birthday parties, thief and
policeman, house keeping, etc. Actually they enact in their games what they
observe in society, on television, and read in books.
Children learn most of the social behaviours by observing and emulating adults.
The way to put on clothes, dress one’s hair, and conduct oneself in society are
learned through observing others. It has also been shown that children learn
and develop various personality characteristics through observational learning.
Aggressiveness, prosocial behaviour, courtesy, politeness, diligence, and
indolence are acquired by this method of learning.
 G N I T I VE
CO
LEAR N I N G
COGNITIVE LEARNING
Some psychologists view learning in terms of cognitive processes that underlie
it. They have developed approaches that focus on such processes that occur
during learning rather than concentrating solely on S-R and S-S connections, as
we have seen in the case of classical and operant conditioning. Thus, in cognitive
learning, there is a change in what the learner knows rather than what s/he
does. This form of learning shows up in insight learning and latent learning.
INSIGHT LEARNING
In a normal experiment on insight learning, a problem is presented, followed by a
period of time when no apparent progress is made and finally a solution suddenly
emerges. In insight learning, sudden solution is the rule. Once the solution has
appeared, it can be repeated immediately the next time the problem is confronted.
Kohler demonstrated a model of learning which could not be readily explained by
conditioning. He performed a series of experiments with chimpanzees that involved
solving complex problems. Kohler placed chimpanzees in an enclosed play area where
food was kept out of their reach. Tools such as poles and boxes were placed in the
enclosure. The chimpanzees rapidly learned how to use a box to stand on or a pole to
move the food in their direction. In this experiment, learning did not occur as a result of
trial and error and reinforcement, but came about in sudden flashes of insight. The
chimpanzees would roam about the enclosure for some time and then suddenly would
stand on a box, grab a pole and strike a banana, which was out of normal reach above
the enclosure. The chimpanzee exhibited what Kohler called insight learning – the
process by which the solution to a problem suddenly becomes clear.
LATENT LEARNING
Another type of cognitive learning is known as latent learning. In latent learning, a new
behaviour is learned but not demonstrated until reinforcement is provided for displaying it.
Tolman made an early contribution to the concept of latent learning. To have an idea of latent
learning, we may briefly understand his experiment. Tolman put two groups of rats in a maze
and gave them an opportunity to explore. In one group, rats found food at the end of the maze
and soon learned to make their way rapidly through the maze. On the other hand, rats in the
second group were not rewarded and showed no apparent signs of learning. But later, when
these rats were reinforced, they ran through the maze as efficiently as the rewarded group.
Tolman contended that the unrewarded rats had learned the layout of the maze early in their
explorations. They just never displayed their latent learning until the reinforcement was
provided. Instead, the rats developed a cognitive map of the maze, i.e. a mental representation
of the spatial locations and directions, which they needed to reach their goal.
 E AR N I N G
VE R B AL L
VERBAL LEARNING
Verbal learning is different from conditioning and is limited to human
beings. Human beings, as you must have observed, acquire knowledge
about objects, events, and their features largely in terms of words.
Words then come to be associated with one another.
Psychologists have developed a number of methods to study this kind
of learning in a laboratory setting. Each method is used to investigate
specific questions about learning of some kind of verbal material. In
the study of verbal learning, psychologists use a variety of materials
including nonsense syllables, familiar words, unfamiliar words,
sentences, and paragraphs.
 METHODS USED IN STUDYING VERBAL
LEARNING
• 1. Paired-Associates Learning : This method is similar to S-S conditioning and S-R learning. It is used in learning
some foreign language equivalents of mother tongue words. First, a list of paired-associates is prepared. The first
word of the pair is used as the stimulus, and the second word as the response. Members of each pair may be from
the same language or two different languages.
• 2. Serial Learning : This method of verbal learning is used to find out how participants learn the lists of verbal
items, and what processes are involved in it. First, lists of verbal items, i.e. nonsense syllables, most familiar or least
familiar words, interrelated words, etc. are prepared. The participant is presented the entire list and is required to
produce the items in the same serial order as in the list. In the first trial, the first item of the list is shown, and the
participant has to produce the second item. If s/he fails to do so within the prescribed time, the experimenter
presents the second item. Now this item becomes the stimulus and the participant has to produce the third item
that is the response word. If s/he fails, the experimenter gives the correct item, which becomes the stimulus item
for the fourth word. This procedure is called serial anticipation method. Learning trials continue until the
participant correctly anticipates all the items in the given order
• 3. Free Recall : In this method, participants are presented a list of words, which they read and speak out. Each word
is shown at a fixed rate of exposure duration. Immediately after the presentation of the list, the participants are
required to recall the words in any order they can. Words in the list may be interrelated or unrelated. More than
ten words are included in the list. The presentation order of words varies from trial to trial. This method is used to
study how participants organise words for storage in memory. Studies indicate that the items placed in the
beginning or end of the lists are easier to recall than those placed in the middle, which are more difficult to recall.
DETERMINANTS OF VERBAL LEARNING
• The most important determinants are the different features of the verbal material to be learned.
They include length of the list to be learned and meaningfulness of the material.
• Meaningfulness of material is measured in several ways. The number of associations elicited in a
fixed time, familiarity of the material and frequency of usage, relations among the words in the
list, and sequential dependence of each word of the list on the preceding words, are used for
assessing meaningfulness.
• The more time it takes to learn the list, stronger will be the learning.
• If participants are not restricted to the serial learning method and are allowed to give free recall,
verbal learning becomes organisational.
• Verbal learning is usually intentional but a person may learn some features of the words
unintentionally or incidentally. In this kind of learning, participants notice features such as
whether two or more words rhyme, start with identical letters, have same vowels, etc. Thus,
verbal learning is both intentional as well as incidental.
 LE AR N I N G
CON CE P T
CONCEPT LEARNING
The world, in which we live, consists of innumerable objects, events and living beings. These objects
and events are different in their structures and functions. One of the many things human beings have
to do is to organise the objects, events, animals, etc., into categories so that within the category,
objects are treated as equivalent even though they are different in their features. Such
categorisations involve concept learning.
What is a Concept?
A concept is a category that is used to refer to a number of objects and events. Animal, fruit, building,
and crowd are examples of concepts or categories. It may be noted that the terms, concept and
category, are interchangeably used. A concept is defined as ‘a set of features or attributes connected
by some rule’.
A feature is any characteristic or aspect of an object or event or living organism that is observed in
them, and can be considered equivalent to some features observed or discriminated in other objects.
Properties like colour, size, number, shape, smoothness, roughness, softness, and hardness are called
features.
A rule is an instruction to do something. Keeping in view the rules that are used in defining concepts,
psychologists have studied two types of concepts : artificial concepts and natural concepts or
categories.
Artificial concepts are those that are well defined and rules connecting the features are
precise and rigid. In a well-defined concept the features that represent the concept are both
singly necessary and jointly sufficient.
On the other hand, natural concepts or categories are usually ill-defined. Such concepts
include biological objects, real world products, and human artefacts such as tools, clothes,
houses, etc.
Let us take the example of the concept of a square. It is a well-defined concept. It must have
four attributes, i.e. closed figure, four sides, each side of equal length, and equal angles. Thus
a square consists of four features connected by a conjunctive rule. In order to understand
various rules for creating well defined concepts.
There are 16 cards having two shapes - square and triangle, two shades pink and grey, signs
of cross on top or bottom, and small circle on right side or left side. With the help of these
cards one can create a number of concepts by using different rules. The set of features that
are connected by some rule are called relevant features. The features that are not included
in the rule are considered to be irrelevant features. For example, there are four features —
shape, shade, cross or no cross on the top, and circle on the right or left side. In creating a
conjunctive concept by using two features one may use shape and side as the relevant ones,
and leave out two others as irrelevant.
 LE AR N I N G
S K I LL
SKILL LEARNING

Nature of Skills
A skill is defined as the ability to perform some complex task
smoothly and efficiently. Car driving, airplane piloting, ship
navigating, shorthand writing, and writing and reading are examples
of skills. Such skills are learned by practice and exercise. A skill
consists of a chain of perceptual motor responses or as a sequence of
S-R associations.
PHASES OF SKILL ACQUISITION
Skill learning passes through several qualitatively different phases. With each
successive attempt at learning a skill, one’s performance becomes smoother and less
effort demanding. In other words, it becomes more spontaneous or automatic.
When the level of performance stands still, it is called performance plateau. Once
the next phase begins, performance starts improving and its level starts going up.
One of the most influential accounts of the phases of skill acquisition is presented by
Fitts. According to him, skill learning passes through three phases, viz. cognitive,
associative and autonomous. Each phase or stage of skill learning involves different
types of mental processes.
In the cognitive phase of skill learning, the learner has to understand and memorise
the instructions, and also understand how the task has to be performed. In this
phase, every outside cue, instructional demand, and one’s response outcome have
to be kept alive in consciousness.
The second phase is associative. In this phase, different sensory inputs or stimuli
are linked with appropriate responses. As the practice increases, errors decrease,
performance improves and time taken is also reduced. With continued practice,
errorless performance begins, though, the learner has to be attentive to all the
sensory inputs and maintain concentration on the task.
Then the third phase, i.e. autonomous phase, begins. In this phase, two important
changes take place in performance: the attentional demands of the associative
phase decrease, and interference created by external factors reduces. Finally,
skilled performance attains automaticity with minimal demands on conscious
effort.
Transitions from one phase to the other clearly show that practice is the only
means of skill learning. One has to keep on exercising and practicing. As the
practice increases, improvement rate gradually increases; and automaticity of
errorless performance becomes the hallmark of skill. That is why it is said that
‘practice makes a man perfect’.
TR A N S F E R O F
L EAR N I N G
TRANSFER OF LEARNING
The term transfer of learning is often called transfer of training or transfer effect. It refers
to the effects of prior learning on new learning. Transfer is considered to be positive if the
earlier learning facilitates current learning. It is considered to be negative transfer if new
learning is retarded. Absence of facilitative or retarding effect means zero transfer.
It must be noted that in the study of transfer effect, a distinction is made between general
transfer and specific transfer. It is now a well-known fact that prior learning always leads to
positive general transfer. It is only in specific transfer that transfer effects are positive or
negative, and in some conditions there is zero effect, though in reality, due to general
transfer, zero transfer is theoretically untenable.
General (Generic) Transfer:
General transfer is not clearly conceptualised and defined in its details. However, prior
learning predisposes one to learn another task in a better manner. The learning of one task
warms-up the learner to learn the next task more conveniently.
You must have seen a cricketer going to the pitch to take her/his position near the
wicket. The cricketer walks by jumping on one foot then on the other. S/he moves
her/his two hands holding the bat sideways to loosen up. When you write answers
while appearing at the examination, your writing is slow and sitting position awkward
for efficient writing. However, you get warmed up after having written two or three
pages. Your speed increases and your body gets well adjusted to the writing task. This
continues until the writing of the last answer is over. After some time, warm-up effect
disappears. Warm-up effect lasts over one session of learning. Only in that session one
can learn two or more tasks.
Specific Transfer:
Whenever an organism learns something, it consists of a series of stimulus-response
associations. Any task can be understood as a chain of discriminable stimuli, each of
which has to be associated with a specific response. Specific transfer means the effect
of learning of task A on learning of task B. The learning of task A may make the
learning of task B easier or more difficult or have no such effect. Such transfers depend
on similarity-dissimilarity between the initial learning task and the second task.
 A C T O R S
F
LI TA T I N G
FA C I
A R N I N G
LE
FACTORS FACILITATING LEARNING
A)Continuous vs Partial Reinforcement:
In the context of learning, two kinds of schedules namely continuous and partial have been
found very important.
In continuous reinforcement the participant is given reinforcement after each target
response. This kind of schedule of reinforcement produces a high rate of responding.
However, once the reinforcement is withheld, response rates decrease very quickly, and
the responses acquired under this schedule tend to extinguish.
In such schedules where reinforcement is not continuous, some responses are not
reinforced. Hence, they are called partial or intermittent reinforcement. There are several
ways in which one might reinforce responses according to an intermittent schedule. It has
been found that partial reinforcement schedules often produce very high rates of
responding, particularly when responses are reinforced according to ratio.
B)Motivation:
Motivation is a mental as well as a physiological state, which arouses an organism to act for
fulfilling the current need. In other words, motivation energises an organism to act
vigorously for attaining some goal. Such acts persist until the goal is attained and the need is
satisfied. Motivation is a prerequisite for learning. Why does a child forage in the kitchen
when the mother is not in the house? S/he does so because s/he needs sweets to eat for
which s/he is trying to locate the jar in which sweets are kept. During the course of foraging
the child learns the location of the jar.

C) Preparedness for Learning:

The kinds of S-S or S-R learning an organism can easily acquire depends on the associative
mechanism it is genetically endowed with or prepared for. A particular kind of associative
learning is easy for apes or human beings but may be extremely difficult and sometimes
impossible for cats and rats. It implies that one can learn only those associations for which
one is genetically prepared.
 THE LEA R N E R :
LE AR N I N G S T Y LE S
LEARNING STYLES
Learning style may be defined as ‘a learner’s consistent way of responding to and using stimuli in the
context of learning’. In other words, it is ‘the way in which each learner begins to concentrate,
processes, and retains new and complex information’.
Learning styles are mainly derived from Perceptual Modality, Information Processing, and Personality
Patterns. A brief description of these approaches are given below:
1. Perceptual Modality are biologically-based reactions to the physical environment. It refers to the
preferences of persons through which they take in information such as auditory, visual, smell,
kinesthetic, and tactile.
2. Information Processing distinguishes between the way we are structured to think, solve problems,
and remember information. This may be thought of as the way we process information. For example,
active/reflective, sensing/intuitive, sequential/global, serial/simultaneous, etc.
3. Personality Patterns are the way we interact with our surroundings. Each one of us has a preferred,
consistent, and distinct way of perceiving, organising, and retaining information. This approach
focuses on understanding how personality affects the way people interact with the environment, and
how this affects the way individuals respond to each other within the learning environment.
 LE A R N I N G
DI S AB I LI T I E S
LEARNING DISABILITIES
There is a source of obstacle in the continuance of education that is called . It
makes school learning, i.e. acquisition of knowledge and skills too difficult to
grapple with. Such children also fail to move forward in their learning activities.
Learning disability is a general term. It refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders
manifested in terms of difficulty in the acquisition of learning, reading, writing,
speaking, reasoning, and mathematical activities. The sources of such disorders are
inherent in the child.
It may occur in conjunction with physical handicaps, sensory impairment, mental
retardation, or without them.
If it is not remedied, it may continue throughout life and affect self-esteem,
vocation, social relations, and daily living activities.
Symptoms of Learning Disabilities:
There are many symptoms of learning disabilities. They become manifest in different combinations
in children who suffer from this disorder irrespective of their intelligence, motivation, and hard work
for learning.
1. Difficulties in writing letters, words and phrases, reading out text, and speaking appear quite
frequently. Quite often they have listening problems, although they may not have auditory defects.
Such children are very different from others in developing learning strategies and plans.
2. Learning-disabled children have disorders of attention. They get easily distracted and cannot
sustain attention on one point for long. More often than not, attentional deficiency leads to
hyperactivity, i.e. they are always moving, doing different things, trying to manipulate things
incessantly.
3. Poor space orientation and inadequate sense of time are common symptoms. Such children do
not get easily oriented to new surroundings and get lost. They lack a sense of time and are late or
sometimes too early in their routine work. They also show confusion in direction and misjudge right,
left, up and down.
4. Learning-disabled children have poor motor coordination and poor manual dexterity. This is
evident in their lack of balance, inability to sharpen pencil, handle doorknobs, difficulty in learning
to ride a bicycle, etc.
5. These children fail to understand and follow oral directions for doing things.
6. They misjudge relationships as to which classmates are friendly and which ones are
indifferent. They fail to learn and understand body language.
7. Learning-disabled children usually show perceptual disorders. These may include
visual, auditory, tactual, and kinesthetic misperception. They fail to differentiate a call-
bell from the ring of the telephone. It is not that they do not have sensory acuity. They
simply fail to use it in performance.
8. Fairly large number of learning-disabled children have dyslexia. They quite often fail
to copy letters and words; for example, they fail to distinguish between b and d, p and q,
P and 9, was and saw, unclear and nuclear, etc. They fail to organise verbal materials.

It must be noted that learning disabilities are not incurable. Remedial teaching methods
go a long way in helping them to learn and become like other students. Educational
psychologists have developed appropriate techniques for correcting most of the
symptoms related to learning disabilities.
 I C A T I O N S OF
APPL
LEA R N I N G
PR I N C I P LE S
APPLICATIONS OF LEARNING PRINCIPLES
• Contemporary psychologists have developed techniques and procedures based on the principles of
classical and operant conditioning, social learning, verbal learning, concept learning, and skill learning for
improving many aspects of life. We can have a glimpse of the applications of learning principles in four
areas, i.e. organisations, in treatment of maladjustive behaviours, in rearing children, and school learning.

• In organisations, a number of problems such as absenteeism, frequent medical leave, indiscipline, and lack
of proper skills pose serious problems. Applying the principles of learning may solve these problems. At
the end of every third month, name slips of employees, not being absent on a single working day are
placed in a drum. Four to five per cent of the names are randomly drawn and they are given attractive
rewards for not being absent on a single working day. Such rewards have been found to reduce
absenteeism. With a view to improving discipline, managers start functioning as models for employees, or
employees are placed under such model managers.

• Based on the principles of learning, a number of therapeutic procedures have been developed to modify
maladaptive and socially incapacitating habits and behaviours. In these procedures, the principle of
extinction is employed. adults who exhibit irrational and unfounded fear with accompanying avoidance
behaviour, implosive therapy and flooding are used. To help those suffering from excessive anxieties and
fears, the technique of systematic desensitisation is used. In order to eliminate habits that are undesirable and injurious
for health and happiness, aversion therapy is used. The therapist arranges things in such a way that occurrence of
maladjustive habits generates painful experiences and to avoid them clients learn to give them up. For example, alcohol
is paired with an emetic drug (which induces severe nausea and vomiting) so that nausea and vomiting become a
conditioned response to alcohol. Persons suffering from excessive shyness and having difficulties in interpersonal
interactions are subjected to assertive learning. . There are persons who lose mental peace with accelerated rate of
breathing, loss of appetite, and rise in blood pressure at the slightest provocation. In such cases psychotherapists give
biofeedback treatment.

• Educational objectives are decided after analysing the instructional tasks and fitting them into various types of
learning such as S-S or S-R, verbal, observational, and skill learning. Students are told what they have to learn and
appropriate practice conditions are provided. Students are made active participants in the acquisition of information,
meaning, and correct responses. Teachers act as models and mentors for students to emulate them with a view to
promote appropriate social behaviours and personal habits.

• The principles of learning are best applied in child rearing provided both the parents are aware of the principles of
learning. By using the classical conditioning procedure children are made to learn necessary signs of danger and
safety. The behaviour of children can easily be modified and shaped through the use of operant conditioning
procedure. By using rewards judiciously parents can make children enthusiastic learners. As models and mentors,
parents make children socially skillful, duty oriented and resourceful.
TH E E N D
EFFORTS BY:
*KAUSHIKI NAYAK
*YASHIKA YADAV
*MANASVI GUPTA
*MUSKAN CHAUHAN

CLASS: XI-B