Latent Learning:

The word latent means hidden and thus latent learning is learning that occurs but is not
evident in behaviour until later, when conditions for its appearance are favourable.

In one experiment, Tolman and Honzik (1930), three groups of rats were run through a
complex maze on 17 consecutive days. One group received no food reinforcement upon
reaching the end of the maze and performed poorly throughout the experiment. The second
group always received reinforcement and continued to improve throughout the study. The
third group did not receive reinforcement for the first 10 days but were always reinforced for
the last 7 days. This group did poorly the first 10 days but as soon as the second group that
was always reinforced. Tolman argued that this third group had learned the maze but had not
shown it until motivated. These rats showed latent learning. Tolman concluded that the rats
had developed cognitive or mental representation of the maze.

Observational Learning:

According to psychologist Albert Bandura and colleagues, a major part of human learning
consist of observational learning, which they define as learning through observing the
behaviour of another person.

In a classic experiment, young children saw movie of an adult wildly hitting a tall inflatable
punching toy. Later the children were given the opportunity to play with the toy themselves,
the displayed the same kind of behaviour in some cases mimicking the aggressive behaviour
almost identical.