4.1 Introduction to Learning

Key Researchers

• Ivan Pavlov - classical conditioning
• John Watson - classical conditioning
• Edward Thorndike - operant conditioning
• Albert Bandura - observational learning
• Edward Tolman - latent learning
• Wolfgang Kohler - insight learning
• B.F. Skinner - operant conditioning

Three Types of Learning

Image Courtesy of Verywell Mind.

• Classical Conditioning describes a process in which the environment presents an organism with a stimulus, which causes the organism to react in a certain way. The stimulus causes a response. Responses in classical conditioning are involuntary or reflexive.
• Example: When a puff of air is blown into one’s eyes💨 (stimulus), the person blinks (response). 
• Operant Conditioning begins with the organism performing a voluntary behavior (i.e., non-reflexive), which leads to the environment reacting in a certain way (i.e., providing a consequence, which could be pleasant or unpleasant). This consequence, in turn, influences the likelihood of the organism performing the task again.
• Example: When the student completed his homework, he received a dollar from his parents 💵 This led him to do his homework more often 💯
• Observational Learning, as the name suggests, is learning by observing. Put another way, when a person sees another person doing that behavior, the one who is watching might try to imitate the behavior. One could model voluntary or involuntary, reflexive behaviors to another. 
• Example: When the student saw her friends say a certain catchphrase over the course of several weeks, she found herself saying the same phrase.

Learning Phenomena

• learned helplessness - feeling of futility resulting from the inability to avoid repeated events (operant conditioning)
• taste aversion - dislike of certain food due to association with painful stimulus form the past (classical conditioning)
• superstitious behavior - partial reinforcement schedule developing a superstition (operant conditioning)

Biological Constraints