Chapter 7 Introduction

7Learning

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  • Classical Conditioning: One Thing Leads to Another

    • The Development of Classical Conditioning: Pavlov’s Experiments
    • The Basic Principles of Classical Conditioning
    • Conditioned Emotional Responses: The Case of Little Albert
    • THE REAL WORLD Understanding Drug Overdoses
    • A Deeper Understanding of Classical Conditioning

  • Operant Conditioning: Reinforcements from the Environment

    • The Development of Operant Conditioning: The Law of Effect
    • B. F. Skinner: The Role of Reinforcement and Punishment
    • The Basic Principles of Operant Conditioning
    • CULTURE & COMMUNITY Are There Cultural Differences in Reinforcers?
    • A Deeper Understanding of Operant Conditioning
    • HOT SCIENCE Dopamine and Reward Learning in Parkinson’s Disease

  • Observational Learning: Look at Me

    • Observational Learning in Humans
    • Observational Learning in Animals
    • Neural Elements of Observational Learning

  • Implicit Learning: Under the Wires

    • Cognitive Approaches to Implicit Learning
    • Implicit and Explicit Learning Use Distinct Neural Pathways

  • Learning in the Classroom

    • Techniques for Learning
    • Testing Aids Attention
    • Control of Learning

JENNIFER, A 45-YEAR-OLD CAREER MILITARY NURSE, served 19 months abroad during the Iraq war, including 4 months in a hospital near Baghdad, where she witnessed many horrifying events, including numerous deaths and serious casualties. Jennifer worked 12- to 14-hour shifts, trying to avoid incoming fire while tending to some of the most gruesomely wounded cases.

This repetitive trauma took a toll on Jennifer, and when she returned home, it became evident that she had not left behind her war experiences. Jennifer thought about them repeatedly, and they profoundly influenced her reactions to many aspects of everyday life. The previously innocent sound of a helicopter approaching, which in Iraq signaled that new wounded bodies were about to arrive, now created in Jennifer heightened feelings of fear and anxiety. She regularly awoke from nightmares concerning her Iraq experiences. Jennifer was “forever changed” by her Iraq experiences (Feczer & Bjorklund, 2009). And that is one reason why Jennifer’s story is a compelling, though disturbing, introduction to the topic of learning.

During the 4 months that she served at a prison hospital near Baghdad during the Iraq war, Jennifer learned to associate the sound of an arriving helicopter with wounded bodies. That learned association had a long-lasting influence on her.
AP Photo/John Moore

Much of what happened to Jennifer after she returned home reflects the operation of a kind of learning based on association. Sights, sounds, and smells in Iraq had become associated with negative emotions in a way that created an enduring bond, so that encountering similar sights, sounds, and smells at home elicited similarly intense negative feelings.

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Learning involves the acquisition of new knowledge, skills, or responses from experience that results in a relatively permanent change in the state of the learner. This definition emphasizes three key ideas: Learning is based on experience, learning produces changes in the organism, and these changes are relatively permanent.

learning

The acquisition of new knowledge, skills, or responses from experience that results in a relatively permanent change in the state of the learner.

Think about Jennifer’s time in Iraq, and you’ll see all of these elements: Experiences such as the association between the sound of an approaching helicopter and the arrival of wounded bodies changed the way Jennifer responded to certain situations in a way that lasted for years.

Learning can also occur in much simpler, nonassociative forms. You are probably familiar with the phenomenon of habituation, a general process in which repeated or prolonged exposure to a stimulus results in a gradual reduction in responding. If you’ve ever lived near a busy highway, you’ve probably noticed the sound of traffic when you first moved in. You probably also noticed that after a while, you ignored the sounds of the automobiles in your vicinity. This welcome reduction in responding reflects the operation of habituation.

habituation

A general process in which repeated or prolonged exposure to a stimulus results in a gradual reduction in responding.

How might psychologists use the concept of habituation to explain the fact that today’s action movies tend to show much more graphic violence than movies of the 1980s, which in turn tended to show more graphic violence than movies of the 1950s?
© Pictorial Press Ltd/Alamy
Paramount Pictures/Photofest

Habituation occurs even in simple organisms, such as the sea slug Aplysia that you met in the Memory chapter: When lightly touched, the sea slug withdraws its gill, but the response gradually weakens after repeated light touches. Aplysia also exhibits another simple form of learning known as sensitization, which occurs when presentation of a stimulus leads to an increased response to a later stimulus. For example, after receiving a strong shock, Aplysia shows an increased gill withdrawal response to a light touch. In a similar manner, people whose houses have been broken into may later become hypersensitive to late-night sounds that wouldn’t have bothered them previously.

sensitization

A simple form of learning that occurs when presentation of a stimulus leads to an increased response to a later stimulus.

Although these simple kinds of learning are important, in this chapter, we’ll focus on more complex kinds of learning. As you’ll recall from the Psychology: Evolution of a Science chapter, the behaviorists insisted on measuring only observable, quantifiable behavior and dismissed mental activity as irrelevant and unknowable. Behaviorists argued that learning’s “permanent change in experience” could be demonstrated equally well in almost any organism: rats, dogs, pigeons, mice, pigs, or humans. But there are also some important cognitive considerations (i.e., elements of mental activity) that need to be addressed in order to understand the learning process. In this chapter, we’ll first discuss two major approaches to learning: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. We’ll then see that some important kinds of learning occur simply by watching others and also that some kinds of learning can occur entirely outside of awareness. Finally, we’ll discuss learning in a context that should matter a lot to you: the classroom.

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