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Learning

From Tilcayo Cats, the lean encyclopaedia by Tilcayo Knowledge Systems
Tilcayo Cats original · British Bees · Sources and editorial assessment · Originals retention rule

Learning, in psychology, is hard to define exactly, but most specialists agree that it is "a process of change that occurs as a result of an individual's experience".[1] Psychologists study learning in adults, school children, other mammals, reptiles and even insects. They are interested both in the process of learning and in its product: the long-term changes in behaviour that result from experience.[1]

For example, when a raccoon learns to open a dustbin, one question is how it gains the skill; another is how often it comes back afterwards and how success or failure affects its visits.[1]

Learning and performance

Psychologists distinguish performance, the change in behaviour that can be measured, from learning, the process underneath it. In "latent learning" experiments in Edward Tolman's laboratory, rats allowed to explore a maze without any reward learned the route quickly once a reward was introduced, showing that they had learned more than their behaviour had shown. In the same way, a student may know more than he or she shows in an exam.[2]

Habituation

One of the simplest kinds of learning is habituation, defined as "a decrease in the strength of a response after repeated presentation of a stimulus that elicits the response".[3] Someone staying near a rifle range may jump at the first shot but less at each one after, until they no longer react.[3] Habituation lets an animal ignore the many unimportant things it meets again and again, saving time and energy. In one study, rats hid for less time on each day they were exposed to a collar carrying the smell of a cat.[4]

Habituation follows some general rules seen in many species. It is gradual; the response recovers if the stimulus is held back for a while; it happens faster the second time; and weak stimuli are habituated to faster than strong ones.[5] Habituation also carries over to similar stimuli, a fact developmental psychologists use to find out which things babies treat as alike.[6]

Conditioning

In classical conditioning, studied by Ivan Pavlov, a neutral stimulus comes to produce a response after being paired with another stimulus, as when dogs salivate at a tone that has been followed by food. This kind of behaviour is "elicited" by a stimulus.[7]

Learning from the results of one's actions was first studied systematically by Edward Thorndike, who timed cats escaping from puzzle boxes to reach food.[8] He stated the Law of Effect: a response followed by a satisfying result becomes linked to the situation and is more likely to happen again.[9] B. F. Skinner later developed this into the study of operant behaviour, so called because it operates on the environment and is guided by its consequences, such as a rat pressing a lever for food.[7] Skinner also studied schedules of reinforcement, the patterns in which rewards are given; he discovered one of them after delivering a food pellet only once a minute because he was running out of pellets.[10]

Learning and behaviourism

For about its first fifty years, behaviourism was almost the same thing as the psychological study of learning, especially in animals, so the histories of the two share "many of the same stars".[11]

See also

== References ==

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Mazur, James E. (2017). Learning and Behavior (8th ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 2. ISBN 978-1-138-68994-7. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  2. ↑ Staddon, John (2014). The New Behaviorism (2nd ed.). New York: Psychology Press. p. 27. ISBN 978-1-84872-688-8. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Mazur, James E. (2017). Learning and Behavior (8th ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-138-68994-7. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  4. ↑ Mazur, James E. (2017). Learning and Behavior (8th ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-138-68994-7. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  5. ↑ Mazur, James E. (2017). Learning and Behavior (8th ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 42. ISBN 978-1-138-68994-7. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  6. ↑ Mazur, James E. (2017). Learning and Behavior (8th ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 43. ISBN 978-1-138-68994-7. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Staddon, John (2014). The New Behaviorism (2nd ed.). New York: Psychology Press. p. 40. ISBN 978-1-84872-688-8. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  8. ↑ Mazur, James E. (2017). Learning and Behavior (8th ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 114. ISBN 978-1-138-68994-7. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  9. ↑ Mazur, James E. (2017). Learning and Behavior (8th ed.). New York: Routledge. p. 115. ISBN 978-1-138-68994-7. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  10. ↑ Staddon, John (2014). The New Behaviorism (2nd ed.). New York: Psychology Press. p. 41. ISBN 978-1-84872-688-8. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  11. ↑ Staddon, John (2014). The New Behaviorism (2nd ed.). New York: Psychology Press. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-84872-688-8. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
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