Introduction to Learning

1. Introduction to Learning Dr Dinesh Ramoo

2. Introduction to the Course This course will consist of tutorials, assignments and examinations. There is assignments for which you will need to collect experimental data and submit an analysis of the results. There will be class activities from time to time which you will need to complete in class. They will not be given to you outside of class. There will be one mid-term examination and one final examination. The overall grade for this module will be based on the assignments, class activities, mid-term exam and final exam.

3. General Housekeeping Please note that it is your responsibility to attend the classes and to keep track of your attendance. The lecturer will not inform you of your attendance. Less than 70% attendance will make you ineligible to sit for the final examination. It is your responsibility to submit the correct files for assignments. If the files are corrupted they will not be marked. Plagiarism (copying directly from other sources) will not be tolerated.

4. Introduction

5. What is Learning? Almost all human behaviour is learned. Imagine if you suddenly lost all you had ever learned. What could you do? You would be unable to read, write, or speak. You couldn’t feed yourself, find your way home, drive a car, play the bassoon, or “party.” Needless to say, you would be totally incapacitated. (Dull, too!) Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour due to experience (Powell, Symbaluk, & Honey, 2009). Notice that this definition excludes both temporary changes and more permanent changes caused by motivation, fatigue, maturation, disease, injury, or drugs. Each of these can alter behaviour, but none qualifies as learning.

6. Definitions of Learning A change in behaviour as a result of experience or practice. The acquisition of knowledge. Knowledge gained through study. To gain knowledge of, or skill in, something through study, teaching, instruction or experience. The process of gaining knowledge. A process by which behaviour is changed, shaped or controlled. The individual process of constructing understanding based on experience from a wide range of sources.

7. Types of Learning There are different types of learning. Associative learning occurs whenever a person or an animal forms a simple association among various stimuli and/or responses. Humans share the capacity for associative learning with many other species. We will explore two types of associative learning called classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Humans also engage in cognitive learning, which refers to understanding, knowing, anticipating, or otherwise making use of information-rich higher mental processes. More complex forms of cognitive learning, such as learning from written language, are unique to humans and are why our species is called Homo sapiens (from the Latin for man and wise). However, some animals do engage in simpler forms of cognitive learning,

8. Some History Important Figures

9. Some History Socrates Ebbinghaus Thorndike Pavlov Watson Skinner

10. Socrates (469 – 399 BCE) Plato’s Dialogue: Meno. Socrates, Meno, and Gorgias. Socrates knows nothing about virtue; nor has he ever met anyone who does. Meno states that it is impossible for a man to seek either what he knows or what he does not know. For if he knows it, he need not seek it; if he does not know it, he knows not what to look for. • Is virtue the result of teaching and learning (didaskon) or practice (asketon), or does it come to humans by nature (fusei) or in some other way? • It is as if Meno is conducting a multiple choice poll: Tell me, Socrates, can virtue be • taught, or • is it by nature, or • by both, or • none of the above? • Merely by asking questions Socrates brings the slave into understanding.

11. Socrates (469–399 BCE) Socrates introduced a method of learning that is now referred to as piloting. Piloting refers to arriving at answers through one's own power of reasoning. This was used when Socrates was teaching geometry to a young slave boy who knew math but nothing of geometry. He would ask this boy to solve a problem like finding the area of a square. When the boy would get the answer incorrect he would repeatedly question his reasoning by contradicting his logic. The notion that knowledge comes from within was inspired by Socrates and his experiments.

12. Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885/1913) Forgetting over time as indexed by reduced savings (Ebbinghaus, 1885/1913). Learning was first studied in detail by Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885/1913). He carried out numerous studies with himself as the only participant (not a recommended approach!). Ebbinghaus initially learned a list of nonsense syllables lacking meaning. At various intervals of time, he recalled the nonsense syllables. He then re-learned the list. His basic measure of forgetting was the savings method, which involved seeing the reduction in the number of trials during re-learning compared to original learning. Forgetting was very rapid over the first hour after learning but slowed down considerably after that. These findings suggest that the forgetting function is approximately logarithmic.

13. Edward Thorndike (1874–1949) Thorndike introduced a theory of learning now called ‘connectionism’. Thorndike emphasised the role of experience in the strengthening and weakening of stimulus-response connections: ‘Responses to a situation that are followed by satisfaction are strengthened; responses that are followed by discomfort weakened.’ Thorndike proposed that practice also influences stimulus-response connections. His idea that rewards promote learning continues to be a key element of behaviourist theory.

14. Ivan Petrovich Pavlov (1849–1936) Pavlov developed the theory known now as ‘classical conditioning’ through the study of dogs. From his perspective, learning begins with a stimulus-response connection. In this theory, a certain stimulus leads to a particular response.

15. John Broadus Watson (1878–1958) Watson introduced the term ‘behaviourism’ and was an important advocate of the approach in the early part of the twentieth century. Watson called for the use of scientific objectivity and experiment in the psychology of learning. He devised the law of frequency that stressed the importance of repetition: ‘The more frequent a stimulus and response occur in association with each other, the stronger that habit will become.’ He also devised the law of recency: ‘The response that has most recently occurred after a particular stimulus is the response most likely to be associated with that stimulus.’

16. Burrhus F. Skinner (1904–1990) Skinner is probably the best known psychologist in the behaviourist tradition. He identified the theory of operant conditioning. Skinner spoke only about the strengthening of responses, not the strengthening of habits or actions. Skinner used the term ‘reinforcer’ instead of ‘reward’. He was keen to stress the importance of a positive approach to learning involving rewards, but also understood the value of punishment. His most fundamental principle is his law of conditioning: ‘A response followed by a reinforcing stimulus is strengthened and therefore more likely to occur again.’ A second principle was his law of extinction: ‘A response that is not followed by a reinforcing stimulus is weakened and therefore less likely to occur again.’ Skinner’s work was meticulous and methodical, based upon scrupulous scientific observation and measurement. He developed strict schedules of reinforcement in his attempt to codify learning and to establish a pattern of best practice. In his later work, he began to recognise the influence of mental process which had previously been acknowledged by behaviourists.

17. Behaviourism Introduction

18. Behaviourism Most psychologists who study animal learning and behaviour seek simple explanations, such as trial-and error learning, that do not require us to assume complicated mental processes. The behaviourists, who have dominated the study of animal learning, insist that psychologists should study only observable, measurable behaviours, not mental processes. Behaviourists seek the simplest possible explanation for any behaviour and resist interpretations in terms of understanding or insight. At least, they insist, we should exhaust attempts at simple explanations before we adopt more complex ones.

19. Behaviourists • The term behaviourist applies to theorists and researchers with quite a range of views (O’Donohue & Kitchener, 1999). • Two major categories are: • Methodological behaviourists • radical behaviourists.

20. Methodological Behaviourists Methodological behaviourists study only the events that they can measure and observe—in other words the environment and the individual’s actions—but they sometimes use those observations to infer internal events (Day & Moore, 1995). For example, depriving an animal of food, presenting it with very appealing food, or making it exercise increases the probability that the animal will eat, work for food, and so forth. From such observations a psychologist can infer an intervening variable, something that we cannot directly observe but that links a variety of procedure to a variety of possible responses.

21. Intervening Variables Similarly, one could use other observations to infer intervening variables such as thirst, sex drive, anger, and fear. We infer any of these intervening variables from behaviour and never observe them directly. A methodological behaviourist will use such terms only after anchoring them firmly to observable procedures and responses—that is, after giving them a clear operational definition. Many psychological researchers are methodological behaviourists, even if they do not use that term.

22. Radical Behaviourists Radical behaviourists do not deny that private events such as hunger or fear exist. The distinguishing feature of radical behaviourists is that they deny that hunger, fear, or any other internal, private event causes behaviour (Moore, 1995). For example, they maintain, if food deprivation leads to hunger and hunger leads to eating, why not just say that food deprivation leads to eating? What do we gain by introducing the word hunger? According to radical behaviourists, any internal state is caused by an event in the environment (or by the individual’s genetics); therefore, the ultimate cause of any behaviour lies in the observable events that led up to the behaviour, not the internal states. According to this point of view, discussions of mental events are just sloppy language. For example, as B. F. Skinner (1990) argued, when you say, “I intend to . . . ,” what you really mean is “I am about to . . .” or “In situations like this, I usually . . .” or “This behaviour is in the preliminary stages of happening . . . .” That is, any statement about mental experiences can be converted into a description of behaviour.

23. Behaviourism • Behaviourism is a theory of learning focusing on observable behaviours and discounting any mental activity. • Learning is defined simply as the acquisition of new behaviour. • Behaviourists call this method of learning ‘conditioning’. • Two different types of conditioning are described and demonstrated as viable explanations of the way in which animals and humans alike can be ‘taught’ to do certain things. • Classical conditioning • Operant conditioning

24. The Rise of Behaviourism We should understand behaviourism within the historical context in which it arose. During the early 1900s, one highly influential group within psychology, the structuralists, studied people’s thoughts, ideas, and sensations by asking people to describe them. Behaviourists protested that it is useless to ask people to report their own private experiences. For example, if someone says, “My idea of roundness is stronger than my idea of colour,” we cannot check the accuracy of the report. We are not even certain what it means. If psychology is to be a scientific enterprise, behaviourists insisted, it must deal with observable, measurable events—that is, behaviour and its relation to the environment.

25. The Rise of Behaviourism Some behaviourists went to extremes to avoid any mention of mental processes. Jacques Loeb (1918/1973) argued that much of animal behaviour, and perhaps human behaviour as well, could be described in terms of simple responses to simple stimuli—for example, approaching light, turning away from strong smells, clinging to hard surfaces, walking toward or away from moisture, and so forth. Complex behaviour, he surmised, is the result of adding together many changes of speed and direction elicited by various stimuli. Loeb’s view of behaviour was an example of stimulus–response psychology, the attempt to explain behaviour in terms of how each stimulus triggers a response.

26. The Rise of Behaviourism Although the term stimulus–response psychology was appropriate for Loeb, it is a misleading description of today’s behaviourists. Behaviourists believe that behaviour is a product of not only the current stimuli but also the individual’s history of stimuli and responses and their outcomes, plus the internal state of the organism, such as wakefulness or sleepiness (Staddon, 1999). If behaviourists are to deal successfully with complex behaviours, the greatest challenge is to explain changes in behaviour. The behaviourist movement became the heir to a tradition of animal learning research that began for other reasons. Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection inspired many early psychologists to study animal learning and intelligence (Dewsbury, 2000b).

27. The Rise of Behaviourism At first psychologists were interested in comparing the intelligence of various species. By about 1930, however, most had lost interest in that topic because it seemed unanswerable. (A species that seems more intelligent on one task can be less intelligent on another.) Nevertheless, the behaviourists carried forth the tradition of experiments on animal learning, although they asked different questions. If nonhumans learn in more or less the same way as humans do, behaviourists reasoned, then it should be possible to discover the basic laws of learning by studying the behaviour of a convenient laboratory animal, such as a pigeon or a rat. This enterprise was ambitious and optimistic; its goal was no less than to determine the basic laws of behaviour, analogous to the laws of physics.

28. The Assumptions of Behaviourism • Behaviourists make several assumptions (Moore, 1995): • Determinism, • The ineffectiveness of mental explanations, and • The power of the environment to select behaviours.

29. Determinism Behaviourists assume that we live in a universe of cause and effect; that is, they accept the idea of determinism. Given that our behaviour is part of the universe, it too must have causes that we can study scientifically. Behaviour must follow laws, such as “animals deprived of food will increase the rates of behaviours that lead to food.” The goal of behaviourism is to determine more and more detailed laws of behaviour.

30. The Ineffectiveness of Mental Explanations • In everyday life we commonly refer to our motivations, emotions, and mental state. • However, behaviourists insist that such statements explain nothing: • Q: Why did she yell at that man? • A: She yelled because she was angry. • Q: How do you know she was angry? • A: We know she was angry because she was yelling. • Here, the reference to mental states lured us into circular reasoning. Behaviourists, especially radical behaviourists, avoid mental terms as much as possible. B. F. Skinner, the most famous and influential behaviourist, resisted using even apparently harmless words such as hide because they imply an intention (L. D. Smith, 1995). • Skinner preferred simply to describe what the individuals did instead of inferring what they were trying to do.

31. The same insistence on description is central to the British and American legal systems: A witness is asked, “What did you see and hear?” An acceptable answer would be, “The defendant was sweating and trembling, and his voice was wavering.” A witness should not say, “The defendant was nervous and worried,” because that statement requires an inference that the witness is not entitled to make. (Of course, the jury might draw an inference.)

32. The Power of the Environment to Mold Behaviour Behaviours produce outcomes. Eating your carrots has one kind of outcome; insulting your roommate has another. The outcome determines how often the behaviour will occur in the future. In effect our environment selects successful behaviours, much as evolution selects successful animals. Behaviourists have been accused of believing that the environment controls practically all aspects of behaviour.

33. The Power of the Environment to Mold Behaviour The most extreme statement of environmental determinism came from John B. Watson, one of the founders of behaviourism, who said, Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggarman thief—regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary (1925, p. 82). Today, few psychologists would claim that variations in behaviour depend entirely on the environment (or that they depend entirely on heredity, for that matter). Although behaviourists do not deny the importance of heredity, they generally emphasize how the environment selects one behaviour over another, and their explanations of individual differences concentrate on people’s different learning histories.

34. Summary Any Questions?

35. Behaviourism as a Theoretical Orientation Many students dismiss behaviourism because, at least at first glance, it seems so ridiculous: “What do you mean, my thoughts and beliefs and emotions don’t cause my behaviour?!” The behaviourists’ reply is, “Exactly right. Your thoughts and other internal states do not cause your behaviour because events in your present and past environment caused your thoughts. The events that caused the thoughts are therefore the real causes of your behaviour, and psychologists should spend their time trying to understand the influence of the events, not trying to analyse your thoughts.” Don’t be too quick to agree or disagree. Just contemplate this: If you believe that your thoughts or other internal states cause behaviours independently of your previous experiences, what evidence could you provide to support your claim?

36. Summary Methodological and radical behaviourists. Behaviourists insist that psychologists should study behaviours and their relation to observable features of the environment. Methodological behaviourists use these observations to draw inferences about internal states. Radical behaviourists insist that internal states are of little scientific use and that they do not control behaviour. The causes of the internal states themselves, as well as of the behaviours, lie in the environment. The origins of behaviourism. Behaviourism began as a protest against structuralists, who asked people to describe their own mental processes. Behaviourists insisted that the structuralist approach was futile and that psychologists should study observable behaviours. Behaviourists’ interest in learning. Before the rise of the behaviourist movement, other psychologists had studied animal intelligence. Behaviourists adapted some of the methods used in previous studies but changed the questions, concentrating on the basic mechanisms of learning. Behaviourists’ assumptions. Behaviourists assume that all behaviours have causes (determinism), that mental explanations are unhelpful, and that the environment acts to select effective behaviours and suppress ineffective ones.

37. Questions?