Learning how learning is learnt-study week 7

Howdy people.

What a week it's been!! For some misdemeanor that I may or may not have committed during the progression of my youth, the higher powers decided to inflict the vilest form of gastroenteritis upon both me and my offspring meaning that this weeks study efforts have been strained. However, I somehow managed between bouts of nausea and general fatigue to finish off this weeks study although to be honest I didn't do as thorough a job as usual as this chapter (chapter 3) is an exam chapter and so I will have to go back over it in more detail when the time comes to get stuck into revision. I'm really hoping that it will make more sense to my delicate brain!

And I've only just got over the flu-I must have cocked up big time somewhere!

Anyway-this week was all about learning. As well as all of chapter 3 and the commentary, study week 7 of the workbook had to be completed as part of the core study, with DVD 1 (observation) and the 'Learning Language' clip from the DVD-ROM making up the optional study component.

The chapter concentrated on three perspectives of learning: The comparative approach (or behaviourism), the cognitive perspective and the socialcultural perspective. I shall tackle each one separately, but again i've only briefly skimmed this chapter and as yet haven't made any notes so there may well be huge holes in my knowledge (well, more so than usual!).

Learning: Acquiring new knowledge or skills.
Like evolution, learning allows individuals to adapt in order to cope better with their environment, although this occurs over the lifespan of the individual rather than over the millions of years lifespan of evolution. The different perspectives have different theories which may lead to different questions and ultimately research and methodology. But this does not mean that one is ultimately right and the rest wrong, but that there may be many different types of learning and they perspectives just provide differing insights.

Comparative Approach.

Studying non-human animals and extrapolating the findings to other species-ie humans. Linked to behaviourism, most closely related to John Watson (click name for Wiki link!). Advocates of behaviourism believe that psychology should be a scientific study of behaviour, without making inferences into mental processes as these cannot be scientifically proven. Watson also believed that too much emphasis was placed on innate behaviour and not on the effect of our environments on our behaviour.

Classical conditioning.

Experiment designed by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936).

1. Dog is given food (unconditional stimulus, UCS) and as a reflex salivates (unconditional response, UCR).
2. A contingency is formed between the UCS and a neutral stimulus (NS), in this case a bell by delivering both at the same time.
3. In time, the dog salivates when the NS is present, even when there is no UCS. The NS now becomes the CS (conditional stimulus) and the reflex evoked by the CS is known as the CR (conditional response).

And this is the bare bones (geddit? dogs, bones? Never mind) of the process known as classical conditioning!

Now our friend Mr Watson liked this approach-the data was measurable and quantifiable and could be wrapped up nicely with a little bow, with no need for second guessing what the dog was thinking. He applied this study to humans, in the case of poor little Albert who Watson conditioned to be petrified of rats-I won't even go into the ethical implications for this!!

These days, people believe that there is more than one type of change going on during the process of conditioning. For example, could the dog not only be mindlessly and unconsciously drooling at the sound of a bell, or could he actively be thinking 'wicked, it's dinner time now', forming an expectancy? Hirsch, 1974; Mishkin et al, 1984; and Toates, 1998 all believed this to be the case.

Operant (instrumental) conditioning.

Where the behaviour of the participant (ie rat) is instrumental to the outcome of the conditioning. Burrhus Frederick Skinner devised the skinner box

A rat is placed in the skinner box and when he presses the lever he is rewarded with a pellet of food. When the frequency of the lever pressing behaviour (or the operant behaviour) increases, the food is positive reinforcement for that behaviour (in other words, it makes the rat more likely to push the lever!). This is also known by behaviourists as the Law of effect, which states that a response which results something favourable (ie, food) will be learned. Also included in instrumental conditioning is negative reinforcement, whereby something negative is prevented by the behaviour-for example, a harsh noise being switched off when the lever is pressed, and also punishment, in the case of the rat we could say that the harsh noise occurred only when the rat pressed the level-this would make the rat less likely to press it. During operant conditioning it is also possible for animals to display discrimination by emitting the operant behaviour in the presence of one stimulus (ie a green light) but not in the presence of another stimulus (ie a red light). Operant conditioning has been used to various ways, including behaviour modification (via positive reinforcement). Skinner, however, was also very adamant that punishment should not be used in this way as it is unethical and ineffective.

Many people believe that it is inaccurate to report human behaviour as merely a consequence of responses controlled by the environment, with no consideration of any other processes of thought which may be occurring. Tolman (1932) created on alternative study whereby a rat was placed in a simple maze with one possible route, the food being placed in goal box which was to the right. The rat was then placed in another map with several different routes, with the straight on route blocked. It was suggested that, without any internal inferences, the rat would just try to go straight on to get to the food as he had done in the first instance. However, the rat would often go through a route that was towards the right, suggesting that the rat was learning to get the food via 'something in the head' as well as just stimuli responses. Goldman et al (1973) also suggested that the animals formed an expectancy for food, as they measured the stress levels of the rats when they did not receive the response that they usually received for their actions (ie no food or less food than normal. The same thing happens to me when I expect there to be chocolate in the fridge and I get there to realise that i've already eaten it. My stress levels go through the roof).

Cognitive Perspective

• Compared to computers due to similar processing of information-received via senses and processed and used to guide behaviours.
• Can describe what occurs in the mind at both a functional (what the mind does) and a process (how the mind does is) level with no need to explain the physical workings of the brain.
• Brain scanning and imaging is increasing being used in cognitive psychology.

Category learning.

Learning that occurs when people are able to categorise entities. Categories enable us to make sense of the world around us, to make plans and predictions.

Bruner et al (1956): Emphasized the importance of hypothesis testing in category learning. Bruner devised a study whereby participants were shown a variety of cards (see pg 192) and were shown one card in particular. They were then asked to pick all the other cards in the same category. The participants developed hypotheses to try to find the right category (ie all cards in this category have three borders) and when each hypothesis was disproved they moved onto another until they found the correct one (known as successive scanning, sort of like a trial and error). However, this method of hypothesis testing was slow and difficult as, although one property may be correct on the card (ie three crosses) it does not mean that the hypothesis was correct. A more successful method is conservative focusing which involves eliminating whole classes of hypotheses by choosing a card which only differed from the previous choice in one way-ie the example in the book states that if the original card had three clear crosses and a single border, and next card chosen may contain three clear crosses and a triple border. If the researcher said that this new card is not in the same category, then all cards with three borders can be discounted. People using conservative focusing learned categories more quickly than those who used successive scanning.

In this study, Bruner used artificial stimuli which had little or prior associations, so that participants' previous knowledge would not interfere with the study. However, the study therefore lacks ecological validity as it does not explain category learning in a more natural setting-natural categories, whose attributes are all linked together for a specific reason and these links and any prior knowledge we have may affect the way we learn categories. Murphy and Allopenna (1994) devised a study whereby participants has to learn categories where each member of the category had lots of attributes in common so could all be linked to the same theme. They found that people did learn categories where the members had lots of attributes in common much quicker due to their prior knowledge.

Jerry Fodor and Noam Chomsky, philosopher and linguist respectively, believed that categories simply cannot be learned because this knowledge is innate (nativism) as opposed to being learned through the senses like Bruner believed (empiricism). They believed that this knowledge most be innate due to the induction problem-basically, although we may think we know something based on our past experience, we have no way of knowing what's going to happen in the future-something may well come along and blow everything that we think we know out of the water, therefore we can not guarantee that the hypotheses that we generate are correct. Any evidence created by empirical studies may later be shown to be wrong. Obviously, many think that this position is extremely far fetched and just plain wrong. One way to balance this situation is to suggest that the type of learning suggested by people in both the nativist and empiricism camp are different-the former suggesting that things are not learned but merely recalled, with no fundamental change to conceptual abilities, and the latter suggesting that there is a complex process going on in the head, involving information processing and changes in behaviour.

Sociocultural perspective

Looks at how our mental processes are influenced and effected by our cultural settings. Suggests that learning involves the use of tools that exist in interpersonal relationships and therefore are embedded in our culture. For example, the use of computers or language that we have available to use are dependant on our cultural setting and affects our learning capabilities. Remember the pen guy from a few weeks back? Yeah, the pen is another tool. Lol.

Saljo (1999) - Tools not only mean physical tools and technologies but also psychological tools such as language. Learning is mediated, or indirect, buffered by the tools that we have at our disposal, and how we 'take up' or appropriate these tools also play a part in how we learn.

The distribution of power within cultures also plays a part-ie access to computers in schools is decided by the powers that be who rule the purse strings and decide how many computers to have etc. Also, the classroom environment in which the children learn also affects learning. See Keogh et all (2000) on pg 205 for an example. Studying learning in this way enables psychologists to help learners to make the most of their skills and surroundings.

Social interactions play a large part in the human experience and, again, language is an important tool in learning, and studies have been conducted to find out which types of interactions are central to learning. These studies can be done in various ways-recording interactions and coding the dialogue and analysing it quantitatively, or analysing it's meaning for themes etc qualitatively (see Mercer pg 207). Language and its meaning is constructed through its origins and the culture in which it is created. For psychologists, how we use language is as important as what the language means.

Enculturation-when people adopt the relevant language in accordance with their cultural context-for example schools and universities may have their own systems and jargon which, in turn, affects how students within these institutions learn. The Jackson quote on page 211 is a good example of this. This is why some children may fail in school-they cannot make sense of the environment and the cultural norms encapsulated within it.

Ok-that's taken me ages and now i'm going cross-eyed lol! Note to self: Read the next chapter properly!! I'm registered to start SD226 in feb but to be honest i'm seriously considering cancelling it because I can't see myself being able to devote enough time to each course to be able to get a decent grade. I think i'm going to stick doing 60 points at a time until my youngest starts preschool, otherwise I simply don't have the time. But at the same time I really want to do it and get it out the way. Decisions decisions!

Until next time!!

Candyflee xxx