COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY REVIEWER (MIDTERM)

September 28, 2021

MEANING AND NATURE OF LEARNING

• Apruevo 2009

• Define learning as a “relatively permanent change” in a behavior as a result of practice

JOHN B. WATSON

• Learning affects behavior / is a change in behavior

• Learning involves association between environmental stimuli and the individual response

• Learning is a result of conditioning

• The simplest kind of learning is “habituation”

THE EMERGING BEHAVIORAL PSYCHOLOGY AND COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

• The emergence of Behavioral Psychology evolved from Behaviorism

Behavioral Psychology- it deals with theories of learning, that all behaviors are acquired through

conditioning

Cognitive Psychology- it deals with the active mental processing of information

• We synthesize, analyze, interpret and form concepts/ ideas resulting learning.

ORIGIN, NATURE, AND MEANING OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

• “Cognitive” comes from the latin verb cognoscere, meaning “knowing” and “Information”.

• This approach considers the mental processing such as;

-memory, learning, comprehension, problem solving and creativity.

• From this approach it helps contributed in the development of Philosophy, Psychology,

Language, Computer science, Information Technology.

MEANING OF COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY

• Branch of Psychology that focuses on mental/internal state processes and their role in

thinking, feeling and behaving

• Specifically, it concerns in the areas of;

Consciousness, perception, memory, thinking, learning, intelligence, acquisition of

knowledge, comprehension, production of language, problem solving, decision making,

reasoning and creativity.

PRINCIPLE OF ASSOCIATION

(Concept Evolution of learning and Cognition)

ARISTOTLE (384-322 BC)

• Regarded as the Father of Association

• The mind is organized, at least in element, from simple idea to complex ideas, by the principle

of Association

PLATO (427- 347 BC)

• He developed the concept of “similarity and contiguity”.

• Both Plato and Aristotle introduced the concept of “Dualism” which means two concepts,

“mind and matter”.

October 19, 2021

THE INFLUENCE OF PHILOSOPHY IN LEARNING

1. The Philosophy of;

EMPIRICISM

• Knowledge by careful observation (Thomas Hobbies, John Locke, George Berkely, David

Hume, David Hartley, James Mill and Alexander Bain) Knowledge is through observation.

RATIONALISM

Rational- you can reason out, by being logical

Learning can be gain through our reasoning ability

-knowledge via logic and careful reasoning (Francis Bacon, Galileo Galilei, Johannes Kepler, Isaac

Newton, Baruch Spinoza)

JOHN LOCKE (1632-1704)

• Empiricist and Associanist

• He introduced the notion of the association of ideas

• There are no innates inherent ideas

• Mind is a blank tablet, slates/sheet called “Tabula Rasa”

• All knowledge came from experience

PRINCIPLE OF ASSOCIATION

1. Law of Contiguity
• Things and events that occur before close to each other in space and time tend to get

linked together in the mind

2. Law of Similarities

• When a person thinks of something he tends to think of things similar (e.g., orange)

3. Law of Contrast

• Opposite things, persons, events

OLD ASSOCIATIONISM/ CLASSICAL OR PIONEERS OF ASSOCIATION

1. Thomas Hobbes (1588- 1679)

• Thoughts and emotions are caused by the motion due to external stimuli

2. George Berkely (1655-1753)

• Irish Bishop- learning through principle visual and dept perception, (Perception of dept

and distance)

3. David Hume (1711-1776)

• Developed the 3 natural laws;

- The law of Resemblance (Similarity)

- The law of Contiguity (Closeness; Contiguity in time)

- The law of cause and effect (Causality)

4. David Hartley (1705- 1836)

• British physician who stressed on the biological implication of associationism and

formulated a neurophysiological theory about the transmission of ideas

5. James Mill (1773-1836)

• The mind was made up of sensations and ideas

• Ideas were derived from sensation

6. Herbert Spencer (1820-1903)

• Proposed the “Evolutionary Associationism”

• Associations which were made repeatedly are passed along through heredity

7. Alexander Bain (1818-1903)

• He was the proponent of the British school of Empiricism

• He stated that the knowledge is based on sensory experience and not on introspection
8. William Estes (1842-1910)

• He is the forerunner of “functionalism”

• Thoughts and ideas are formed as these complex ideas work together and lead to new

experiences

• He referred to associationism as “Psychology without the soul”

• There’s nothing from with creating ideas; they just arise by associating objects with one

another

MODERN ASSOCIATION

1. Wilhelm Wundt (1832-1920)

• He stablishes the 1st Psychological laboratory in Leipzig Germany since 1879

• He mainly studied sensations and feelings using experimental methods

• Focus also on learning, memory, thinking and perception- lead to the development of

the principles and theories on animal/human learning and cognitive Psychology today

2. Herman Ebbinghaus (1850-1909)

• worked on stimulus response association in learning “Nonsense Syllabus” that became

the first step in investigating learning memory

3. Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• Worked on the neural and glandular bases of digestion in dog’s experiment and won the

novel prize in 1904

• He used associationism in his laboratory experiment on conditioned reflex thus,

discovered the essential principles of Associative Learning

4. Edward L. Thorndike (1874-1949)

• Worked on animal learning

• He developed the most organized theories of learning

• His famous work “theory of connectionism”

• Bonds between stimulus and response take the form of neural connection

• Formulated 4 laws of learning- Readiness, Exercise, Repetition, and Effect

5. John B. Watson (1878-1958)

• Studied man’s learning behavior in terms of stimulus and response (S-R) pattern, habit
formation and habit integration

6. Edwin Guthrie (1886-1959)

• He developed the theory known as “Guthrie Contiguity Theory”

• He stated that when a combination of stimulus element is accompanied by movement,

the movement sequence will occur. (Response/behavior will be repeated once

experience it again) ex. Knife and pork etc. The teacher would say, class get 1/4 sheet

of paper

7. William K. Estes

• Worked on “stimulus sampling theory”

• Learning is viewed as a statistical process involving the selection of stimulus elements,

to predict a behavior.

October 26, 2021

STIMULUS RESPONSE THEORIES

Stimulus Response Theory- learning results from the association of stimulus and response in a

person’s environment.

Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov) - two stimuli are linked to produce a new learned response in

a person or animal

Behaviorism (John B. Watson) - learning results from stimulus and response (S-R) pattern, habit

formation and habit integration. (Experiment on rats)

Connectionism (Edward L. Thorndike) - Strengthening the bonds between stimulus and response.

Learning takes place when the bonds are formed into patterns of behavior. Four laws had emerged;

law of readiness, exercise, repetition and law of effect.

Contiguity Theory (Edwin R. Guthrie) - learning is an associative contiguity in TIME AND SPACE.

Operant Conditioning (Burrhus F. Skinner) - Learning results when a response is followed by a

reinforcer (reward or punishment) then it is conditioned to occur again.

Stimulus Sampling Theory (William K. Estes) - Learning is a statistical process involving the

selection of elements to predict behavior.

Sign Theory Latent Learning (Edward C. Tolman) - Learning results by pursuing “signs” to a goal.

Learning is acquired through meaningful behavior.

Drive Reduction Theory (Clark L. Hull) - Learning is based on the concept of “homeostasis” or body

balance. All motivations arise as a result of biological needs.

Discrimination Learning (Kenneth W. Spence) - Learning using environmental cues to signal the

negative or positive reinforcement.

November 09, 2021

COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORIES

COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORIES- are principles used in understanding learning.

• Behavior can be drawn from mental processes

Cognitivism or Cognitive Psychology- It focuses on active mental processing of information which

is responsible to mental construction. Thinking, memory, and problem solving can be studied.

Knowledge can be seen as “Schema” or symbolic mental construction. Thus, learning is defined as

change in a learner’s schemata.

Edward Thorndike

• Learning is connectionism. Association is linking one idea to another. (Mental construct).

Functional analysis of response (R) in response to the context of stimulus (S).

• He proposed that learning “S-R connection” was neural in nature

• He stressed that artificial intelligence is a function of the number of connections learned

Edward C. Tolman

• He explained that rats in his experiment develop a “Cognitive Map” of their environment. They

learned where different parts of the environment are situated in relation to one another. The

concept of “cognitive map” is what he called “mental map”.

Max Wertheimer, Kurt Koffka, and Wolfgang Kohler (Insight learning)

• Stressed on the internal thinking process rather than observing overt behavior.

• People perceive things differently depending on their experiences and interests, on how stimuli

are arranged, and how people “fill in” the missing information.

• Gestalt Learning theories emphasized “perception”, “insight” and “meaning” as the key

elements of learning.

Jean Piaget’s Cognitive development and “Schema” theories

• Proposed that one’s internal cognitive structures change as a result of developmental changes
in the nervous system and as a result of a variety of experiences and the environment.

• He contributed theories in intelligence, and “schemata” in cognitive learning.

David Ausubel’s Subsumption theory

• Concerned with how individuals learn large amounts of meaningful materials from

verbal/textual presentations in a school setting.

• He stressed the use of advance organizers. (Programming Criteria)

Lev Vygotsky’s Sociocultural Theory

• Believe in the value of social interaction in learning. Learning is seen as an interactive and

interpersonal activity.

Jerome Bruner’s Theory

• He was influenced heavily by both Jean Piaget and Lev Vygotsky.

• He believed that learning is an active process in which learners construct new ideas/concepts

based on their current/past knowledge and develop their cognitive structure (schema)

Albert Bandura’s Cognitive Social Learning Theory

• It stressed that people learn from one another, by observation, imitation, and modeling.

INSIGHT LEARNING, PROBLEM SOLVING, AND TRANSFER OF LEARNING

Insight Learning- refers to a sudden realization of a spontaneous occurrence in a learning process

after knowing the whole situation.

Insight can be described in the ff:

Epiphany- the gradual awareness of the solution to the problem.

Eureka- known as “AHA MOMENT” or “I have found it”, It is a sudden awareness of the solution after

perceiving the whole situation.

Problem Solving- is a mental state process of finding a solution to a problem.

Transfer of Learning- it is the application of skills, knowledge, or attitude that were learned in one

situation to another situation.

Negative transfer- transfer impaired the behavior.

Positive transfer- helpful or beneficial to another situation.

Zero transfer- you learn something but you did not applied.

THEORY OF TRANSFER OF LEARNING:

Theory of Identical Element- common elements are present.

Theory of Formal discipline- transfer is done in schools.