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Types Of Learning

The array of learned behaviour includes discrimination learning (where a

subject learns to respond to a limited range of sensory characteristics, such as a

particular shade of coloration), habituation (the cessation of responses to repeated

stimulation), concept formation (the process of sorting experiences according to

related features), problem solving, perceptual learning (the effects of past

experience on sensory perceptions), and psychomotor learning (the development of

neuromuscular

patterns

in

response

to

sensory

signals). Association, conditioning, imitation, insight, and imprinting represent

other types of learning.

Learning theorists from the 17th through the mid-20th century attempted to

develop a scientific proof of certain principles that governed all processes of

learning. Rigorous, “objective” methodology was attempted so that the behaviour

of all organisms could be comprehended under a unified system of laws modeled

on those posited in the physical sciences. By the 1970s, however, flaws and gaps in

these comprehensive theories led many psychologists to conclude that learning

could not be represented by a single universal theory.

The last attempts to integrate all knowledge of psychology into one grand theory

occurred in the 1930s. These were represented in the works of Edwin R.

Guthrie, Clark L. Hull, and Edward C. Tolman. Guthrie reasoned that responses

(not perceptions or mental states) were the central building blocks of learning. Hull

argued that “habit strength,” a result of practiced stimulus-response (S-R) activities

promoted by reward, was the essential aspect of learning, which he viewed as a

gradual process. Tolman portrayed learning as a process that derives from

behaviour. Many of these themes remain vital to contemporary research.

Association is one such theme. Its essence lies in the observation that a

subject perceives something in the environment (sensations) and the result is an

awareness of what is out there (ideas). Associations leading to ideas were said to

include closeness of objects or events in space or time, similarity, frequency,

salience, and attractiveness. Associative learning, the ability of an animal to

connect a previously irrelevant stimulus with a particular response, occurs mainly

through the process of conditioning, in which reinforcement crystallizes new

behaviour patterns. The earliest well-known conditioning experiment was

performed by 19th-century Russian physiologist Ivan Petrovich Pavlov, who

conditioned dogs to salivate to the sound of bells.

S-R theories failed to account for many learned phenomena, however, and

seemed overly reductive because they ignored a subject’s inner activities. Tolman

headed another, less “objective” camp that held that associations involved a

stimulus and a subjective sensory impression (S-S).

Another current theme is that of reinforcement, which accounts for the finding that

a subject’s performance will improve when his or her activities are rewarded. The

theoretical mechanisms of such reinforcement are controversial.

Many psychologists discount any universal applicability of association

theory, saying that other considerations are of greater importance to learning.

Gestalt psychologists, for instance, believe that the key learning processes involve

a restructuring of relationships in the environment, not simply an associative

experience with them. Psycholinguists(those who study the psychological aspects

of language ability) argue that language learning involves too many words and

combinations to be satisfactorily explained by association theory. Instead, they

argue that some basic organizing structure underlies language learning, perhaps an

inherited native “grammar.”

Other major issues of contemporary theories of learning include the role of

motivation in performance; the transfer of training between a task already learned

and one yet to be learned; learning stages; and the processes and nature of recall,

forgetting, and information retrieval or memory. Other scientists are exploring

nonquantifiable concepts such as image, cognition, awareness, and volition.

Physiological Basis Of Learning

The mechanisms of learning and remembering seem to depend on relatively

enduring changes in the nervous system. Apparently the effects of learning are first

retained in the brain by some reversible process, after which a more permanent

neural change takes place. Two types of neurological processes have therefore

been suggested. The short-term function of memory, temporary and reversible,

may be achieved through a physiological mechanism (e.g., synaptic electrical or

chemical change) that keeps the memory trace alive over a limited period of time.

The ensuing, more permanent (long-term) storage may depend on changes in the

physical or chemical structure of neurons; synaptic changes seem to be particularly

important. New studies using positron emission tomography(PET) and magnetic

resonance imaging (MRI) scans may illuminate the physiological basis of learning.