LESSON 6

LEARNING PROCESSES AND ACQUIRING SKILLS

SUMMARY response of a muscle or a gland to
the stimulation of a sense organ.
It is through the process of
These are innate tendencies and
learning that we become
are not acquired through practice.
competent, skilled, perform various
However, instinctive behaviour can
activities and excel in life.
be modified by learning.
Nature of Learning
Basic Experiments in
Learning is a process by which a Learning
certain change or modification in
behaviour occurs. ‘Behaviour’ (a) Learning predictable signals:
refers to any action which may be Classical conditioning
muscular, social, and mental or a It is a form of associative learning
combination of these. as a connection or association
Learning – it refers to a process by between a stimulus and a response
which any relatively permanent is established.
change in behaviour occurs as a It was discovered by a Russian
result of practice and /or scientist Ivan P. Pavlov in 1968.
experience. It is also called Pavlovian /
respondent conditioning.
Important elements of learning
Pavlov presented to the dog a
series of trials in which a tone was
•Learning is a change in behaviour
paired with food. The steps of
•It is a change that takes place through
practice or experience conditioning process are:
•The change must be relatively permanent Procedure Response
or enduring Before Conditioning
Food (UCS) Salivation
It is a thoughtful reaction to a (UCR)
given stimulus and it is different Buzzer (CS) Orienting
from maturation, reflex and response
During conditioning (Acquisition
instinctive behaviour. phase)
Maturation is the development Food + Buzzer Salivation
(UCS) (CS) (CR)
brought about by growth of the
(Repeated pairing of the UCS and CS)
neural and muscular system, while After Conditioning
learning is an outcome of Buzzer (CS) Salivation
stimulating situations. (CR)
UCS- Unconditioned Stimulus;
Instincts are complex patterns of CS- Conditioned Stimulus;
behaviour. Reflex-action is a UCR- Unconditioned Response;
CR- Conditioned Response
direct automatic and immediate

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The essential requirement for the reinforcement, it is also known
conditioning to take place is that as instrumental conditioning.
the two stimuli shall occur
Behaviour which is reinforced is
together.
likely to be repeated.
Generalization- If the same
Pigeon experiment - A hungry
response occurs to two different
pigeon is placed in a box which
stimuli which are somewhat
has a lighted button on the wall. It
similar it is a generalized response.
will peck at the button accidentally
Differentiation- By further and immediately it will get a little
practice, individual can be trained grain. The pigeon eats and then
to differentiate between stimuli. continues its movement in the box.
Extinction- it is used One to make Once again it accidentally pecks
the organism forget a conditioned the button and is reinforced with
response by repeating new food. Finally, the pigeon will stop
substitute stimulus without the random behaviour and will
reinforcement. Like forgetting, simply peck the button to get food
extinction seems to be temporary. as required. The pigeon has
An extinct response is much more learned to peck the button to
quickly relearned when the obtain food.
reinforcement is given than an Applications of Operant
altogether new response. Conditioning
Spontaneous recovery – It is a I. Teaching new material in
tendency of responses to recover schools by means of
spontaneously. It is a kind of programmed learning - a
forgetting in reverse, a tendency to method by which in each
forget the extinction that has correct step the learner is
occurred. Basically, relearning reinforced by response.
occurs very fast, faster than the II. Behaviour modification
initial time to learn. This is techniques for treating
spontaneous recovery. behaviourally disturbed
(b) Learning by consequences: children and adults.
Operant Conditioning Other Forms of Learning
B.F. Skinner speaks of operant Skill Learning - Skill learning
behaviour as voluntary behaviour takes place in three stages –
of an organism.
1. Cognitive stage
In this type of learning, 2. Association stage
reinforcement is dependent on the 3. Automatic execution of the
response of the organism. Since skill
response is instrumental in getting Verbal Learning – The process of
learning language is called verbal

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learning. it involves learning to process no direct reinforcement is
respond to words or with words. It involved.
is acquired through memorising,
Learning Curve
by repeating, recalling and
recognising the material. Methods Learning can be measured by
for Verbal learning- assessing the performance of an
individual on a given task. The rate
a. Serial learning - the learner is
of learning, as normally measured
asked to recall in the way the
by performance, can be
words were presented to him.
represented graphically by placing
b. Free recall – it requires the
the ‘units of practice’ on the X-axis
learner to recall the words
(horizontal axis) and ‘degree of
without regard to their order of
learning’ on the Y-axis (Vertical
presentation.
axis). The degree of learning is
c. Paired associates - the verbal
measured through markers such
material is presented in pairs
as percentage of correct responses,
such as CRAT-BOOK.
amount of time to achieve a goal.
Concept Learning – It involves
both generalization and
differentiation. An individual
learns to distinguish between two
or more stimuli which differ in
some detail. Various words which
are normally used to denote an
object such as house, car, school,
animal, doll and so on are
examples of concepts. Curve A- indicates slow learning
Social learning - learning that is initially, followed by rapid learning
facilitated through social Curve B- illustrating irregular
interactions with other individuals. learning
Certain social responses are
Curve C- Indicating slow learning
reinforced by the society if they are
initially, followed by rapid learning.
acceptable as per the norms of the
society. Factors Influencing
In addition to other mechanisms Learning
social learning involves ‘imitation’ a) Reinforcement – it is anything
of the role models which is a that strengthens a response and
process by which individuals learn increases the probability of its
new behaviour by observing occurrence.
others, also called modelling or
observational learning. In this

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 Types of Reinforcemnet Phenomena related to
Primary - natural or unlearned source of learning
reinforcement, e.g. - food
Preparedness for Learning -
Secondary - learnt or an acquired source of
reinforcement, e.g. – money Every organism is not equally
ready or prepared to learn a given
b) Feedback or knowledge of
response. Organisms are
results- It is another motivational
differentially endowed with
variable. If you are provided with
capability to respond. So, the
knowledge of results or feedback,
possibility and ease of learning is
the efficiency of your learning is
determined by the degree of
increased.
preparedness on the part of
c) Distribution of Practice - In organisms for a given learning
this method, the practice periods task. All organisms are not equally
for a particular task are separated prepared for all responses or
by lengthy rest periods or lengthy associations. This becomes one of
periods of practicing different the key determinants of learning.
activities or studying other
Learning disability - It is a
material, rather than occurring
disorder which leads to difficulties
close together in time.
in reading, writing, speaking, and
d) Whole and Part Learning - doing mathematical exercises.
Whole learning is often considered These problems are found because
as an efficient method to learn the of some problem in the central
task particularly for fast learners nervous system. It may be related
and for short or meaningful to sensory impairment or some
material which is easily memorized kind of mental/physical handicap.
as a whole. But if the content is They may occur in children with
very long it may first be learnt in average or superior intelligence.
parts and then as a whole.
Transfer of Learning
e) Meaningfulness - The more
meaningful the material; the fewer Transfer of learning is the process
the trials or practice sessions are of applying or carrying over the
required to learn it. knowledge, skills, habits, attitudes
or other responses from one
f) Interest and attitudes - a learning situation, in which they
favourable attitude towards the were initially acquired, to a
learning material and sincere effort different learning situation.
to learn and remember it will
enhance learning. If one feels that Types of Transfer of Learning
nothing worthwhile will result from Positive – What one has learnt in
learning something, one’s rate or one subject or a task may facilitate
progress of learning will be poor. learning in another subject or task.
In positive transfer, the carry-over

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of knowledge or skill is beneficial
to future learning.
Negative – There are cases in
which the previous learning
interferes with subsequent
learning. In such cases, the
carryover knowledge or experience
in one task interfere with further
learning. As a result of negative
transfer, performance on one task
may block performance on the
subsequent task.
Zero – In zero transfer, the
performance in the new situation
is neither aided nor hindered by
the past learning.

Do you know?
B.F. Skinner developed an
experimental chamber (called
Skinner box) to study learning
process in rats.
Ivan Pavlov was given Nobel Prize
in 1904 in recognition of his work
on the physiology of digestion.
The concept of Social Learning was
given by Albert Bandura.

Evaluate yourself
1. Describe different types of
learning.
2. What is reinforcement and
how does it influence the
process of learning?
Extend Your Horizon
To learn more about learning
experiments in detail visit:
https://online.king.edu/news/psycho
logy-experiments/

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