Learning

DEFINITION OF LEARNING• Learning is one of those concept whose meaning is

crystal clear until one has to put it in actual words "Learning is when you learn something."

• Learning is any relatively permanent change in behaviour brought about by experience or practice.

• Relatively permanent means that when people learn anything, some part of their brain is physical changed to record what they have learned. This is actually process of memory, for without the ability to remember what happens, people cannot learn anything. Research suggests strongly that once people learn something, it is always present somewhere in memory (Barsalou, 1992). They may be unable to "get" to it but it's there.

Association in Learning/ Theories

• Association: linking two events or stimuli that occur together in space or time. Early theories of learning were based on principles of association.– Classical Conditioning– Operant Conditioning

Classical Conditioning• Ivan Pavlov..

– Learning that results from pairing two events in the environment.

– Learn to associate a neutral event with another event or stimulus from the environment.

Classical Conditioning

• Studying the digestive system in his dogs, Pavlov had built a device that would accurately measure the amount of saliva produced by the dogs when they were fed a measured amount of food. Normally, when food is placed in the mouth of any animal, the salivary glands automatically start releasing saliva to help with chewing and digestion. This is a normal reflex (involuntary** response) in both animals and humans. The food causes a particular reaction, the salivation. A stimulus can be defined as any object, event, or experience that causes a response, the reaction of an organism. In the case of Pavlov's dogs, the food is the stimulus and salivation is the response.

Classical Conditioning

• Pavlov and Salivating Dogs• When first annoyed and then intrigued Pavlov was that his

dogs began salivating when they weren't supposed to be salivating. Some dogs would start salivating when they saw the lab assistant bringing their food, others when they heard clatter of the food bowl from the kitchen, and still others when it was the time of day they were usually fed. Pavlov spent the rest of his career studying what eventually he termed classical conditioning, learning to make a reflex response to a stimulus other than the original, natural stimulus that normally produces it.

Before Conditioning

During Conditioning

After Conditioning

Conditioning Process

• Studying the digestive system in his dogs, Pavlov had built a device that would accurately measure the amount of saliva produced by the dogs when they were fed a measured amount of food. Normally, when food is placed in the mouth of any animal, the salivary glands automatically start releasing saliva to help with chewing and digestion. This is a normal reflex (involuntary** response) in both animals and humans. The food causes a particular reaction, the salivation. A stimulus can be defined as any object, event, or experience that causes a response, the reaction of an organism. In the case of Pavlov's dogs, the food is the stimulus and salivation is the response.

• Pavlov and Salivating Dogs : When first annoyed and then intrigued Pavlov was that his dogs began salivating when they weren't supposed to be salivating. Some dogs would start salivating when they saw the lab assistant bringing their food, others when they heard clatter of the food bowl from the kitchen, and still others when it was the time of day they were usually fed. Pavlov spent the rest of his career studying what eventually he termed classical conditioning, learning to make a reflex response to a stimulus other than the original, natural stimulus that normally produces it.

• Elements of Classical Conditioning : Neutral Stimulus : Stimulus that has no effect on the desired response.

• Unconditional stimulus (UCS) a naturally occurring stimulus that leads to an involuntary response (food).

• Unconditional response (UCR) a naturally occurring stimulus that leads to an involuntary response.

• An involuntary response to a naturally occurring or unconditional stimulus (salivation).

• Conditioned Stimulus (CS) : Stimulus that become able to produce a learned reflex response by being paired with the original unconditional stimulus.

• Conditioned Response (CR) : Learned reflex response to conditioned stimulus.

Principles of Classical conditioning :

• Acquisition : the process by which an organisms learns an association in classical conditioning is known as acquisition (UCS).

• Stimulus Generalization : The tendency to response to a stimulus i.e. only similar to the original conditioned stimulus with the conditioned response.

• Stimulus Discrimination :- The tendency to stop making a generalized response to a stimulus i.e. similar to the original conditioned stimulus because the similar stimulus is never paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

• Extinction : The disappearance or weakening of a learned response following the removal or absence of the unconditioned stimulus.

• Spontaneous Recovery : The reappearance of learned response after extinction has occurred.

Classical Conditioning• Classical Conditioning Terms:

• Two parts: response (action that takes place)

stimulus (cause of action)

• Response: salivation

• Stimulus: food, bell/tone

• How do we differentiate between food/salivation and bell/salivation?

Classical Conditioning• Classical Conditioning Terms

• Food and salivation:

• a. Unconditioned Stimuli and Response– UCS (food) & UCR (salivation)– occurs naturally, automatically, unconditionally. – NOT learned, like reflex

Classical Conditioning Classical Conditioning Terms

• Bell and Salivation:

• Conditioned Stimuli and Response

– CS (tone/bell) & CR (salivation)

– originally NEUTRAL stimulus, that, after being paired with UCS, triggers CR.

– learned, NOT automatic.– not naturally occurring.

Operant Conditioning/ Instrumental learning

• B.F. Skinner: Operant Conditioning:Learning that relies on associating behavior

with its results or consequences.Defined as “operant” – animal is operating on

environment – not passive like CC.Highlights importance of reinforcement &

punishment in learning.

Operant Conditioning - Skinner

The response is made first, then reinforcement follows.

• In Operant Conditioning also referred to as instrumental conditioning – organism learns to engage in certain behaviour because of the effects of that behaviour. In Operant Conditioning organisms engage in operant behaviour that result in desirable consequences.

Instrumental Conditioning : Trial & Error learning.

EXPERIMENT ON CATS• Thorndike set up a problem that he called a puzzle box which he

used to study the learning in cats. The box was closed but it had a door which could only be opened by performing an apparently unconnected activity like pulling a string. Thorndike watched the cats gradually learn how to get out of the box by 'trail-and-error' learning. As the cat moved about in the box, trying to escape, sooner or later it would accidentally pull the string, and the door would open. When the cat was put into the box again, the time between it being put in and finally pulling the string would gradually get shorter, until eventually the cat would pull the string as soon as it was put in the box. According to Thorndike, through trial and error the cat had learned the "correct" response, which brought it the satisfaction of escape. The cat's escape served as a reward that strengthened or "stamped in" the correct response : other responses, which brought no reward, were eventually "stamped out".

Skinner Box• Like Thorndike's 'puzzle box', Skinner developed a piece of

equipment for studying learning. This is called the 'Skinner box', and is an attempt to reduce all those things that might affect learning in different ways, down to almost nothing, so that the actual learning can be studied in detail.

• Skinner experiment, a hungry animal (usually a laboratory set) is put into the box. Because it is hungry, it is very active, and wanders around the box, exploring. As it wanders, at some point it accidentally presses the lever, and a pallet of food is delivered to the chute. Often, the rat does not find the food immediately, but it does eventually. Very gradually, the rat builds up a connection between pressing the lever and getting the food reward, in the same way that Thorndike's cats learned to let themselves out of the box. When the animal is pressing the lever frequently, and examining the food delivery chute after lever-pressing, then we know that it has 'learned' the activity.

Operant Conditioning

Procedure• a. Shaping:

Conditioning procedure that uses reinforcers to guide behavior closer to desired behavior.– successive approximations

• b. Reinforcer:Anything that increases the frequency of the preceding response or strengthens behavior.

Operant Conditioning

• b. Reinforcers

i. Positive reinforcers: strengthens response by presenting stimulus after response.

ii. Negative reinforcers: strengthens response by removing an aversive stimulus after a response.

iii. Punishment: strengthens response by presenting negative stimulus after a response.

Primary & Secondary Reinforcers

Schedules of reinforcement

• Continuous

• Intermittent

• Ratio

• Interval

Fixed - ratio Fixed -interval

Variable- ratio Variable- interval

• Fixed Interval Schedule : On a fixed-interval schedule, rewards come the first response that is made after a specified time has elapse. An animal on this schedule tends to stop after it gets a reward, waiting until near the time that it estimates a reward is due before it responds again.

• Variable Interval Schedule : In a variable-interval schedule, organisms are rewarded for their first response after a variable period of time has elapse since the last reward. On such a schedule, rewards may follow the first response after 2 minutes, then 30 seconds, then 6 minutes, then 10 seconds, and so on.

• Fixed Ratio Schedule : In a fixed ratio schedule, reinforcement is provided after a fixed number of correct responses has been made. The rat is reinforced according to a set pattern –for example, every fifth response, or every twentieth. A schedule of FR 6 would mean that the rat was reinforced after every sixth response.

• Variable Ratio Schedule : In a variable ratio schedule, reinforcement is provided after a variable number of correct responses has been made. In a 10 : 1 variable ratio schedule, the mean number of correct responses that would have to be made before a subsequent correct response should be reinforced is 10, but the ratio of correct responses to reinforcements might be allowed to vary from, say, 1:1 to 20:1 on a random basis. Animals on variable-ratio schedule are rewarded after a random number of responses since the last reward.

Insight Learning

• An insight is a sudden recognition of relationships that leads to the solution of a complex problem. Kohler's research included two classic experiments.

Experiment No. 1• In one, the "box problem" a tantalizing bunch of

bananas hung after the ceiling, beyond the grasp of chimpanzee. No obvious tools such as sticks could be used to reach the bananas, but some wooden boxes lay on the floor.

Experiment No. 2• One Stick problem : In another experiment, Kohler

closed Sultan in a cage. In which Sultan could move a little in his cage. Bananas were placed at a distance which were clearly visible from the cage. A stick was placed in the cage by which the bananas could be pulled, but Sultan could not reach to bananas by his hands. For sometime, he played with the stick and tried to take the bananas by his hands suddenly he had insight and he pulled the bananas with the help of stick and was successful in has target.

SOCIAL LEARNING THEORYAlbert Bandura

• Social learning theory combines and integrates both behaviouristic and cognitive, behavioural, and environmental determinants. This theory agrees with some part of behavioural and cognitive theories but finds that these theories do not explain the processes and elements therein fully. It posits that learning can also take place via vicarious or modeling.

MODELLING PROCESSES

• The vicarious or modeling process essentially involves observational learning. Learning does not result from discrete stimulus- response- consequence connections. Instead , learning can take place through imitating others, called role models. For example, Bandura, who has contributed a lot to the development of social learning theory, has observed that most of the behaviours that people display are learned either deliberately or inadvertently, through the influence of the examples.

According to social learning theory, leaning occurs in two steps:

1. The person observes how others act and then acquires a mental picture of the act and its consequences (reward and punishment)

2. The person acts out the acquired image and if the consequences are positive, he will tend to do it again. If the consequences are negative, the person will not do it again.

MODELLING APPLICATIONS.

• Modelling has some practical applications in developing desirable behaviours in the organizations. People behave not necessarily according to the prescribed mode of behaviour but they engage in the types of behaviour which are demonstrated by their seniors. Here, the role of practice is more important than precept. Luthans and Kreitner have suggested a modeling strategy to improve organizational performance which has the following steps.

1. Precisely define the goal or target behaviour that will lead to performance improvement.

2. Select the appropriate model and modeling medium (for example, a live demonstration, a training film or a videotape).

3. Make sure the employee is capable of meeting the technical skills requirements of the target behaviour.

4. Structure a favourable learning environment which increases the probability of attention and reproduction.

5. Model the target behaviour and carry out supporting activities, such as role playing; clearly demonstrate the positive consequences of the modeled target behaviour.

Sachin Tendulkar• Role Model for

Young Cricketers

Indra Nooyi• Role Model for Young

Executives