Meaning and nature of learning

Learning is a key process in human behaviour. All living is learning. If we compare the
simple, crude ways in which a child feels and behaves, with the complex modes of adult
behaviour, his skills, habits, thought, sentiments and the like- we will know what difference
learning has made to the individual.

The individual is constantly interacting with and influenced by the environment. This
experience makes him change or modify his behaviour in order to deal effectively with it.
Therefore, learning is a change in behaviour, influenced by previous behaviour. As stated
above the skills, knowledge, habits, attitudes, interests and other personality characteristics
are all the result of learning.

Learning is defined as “any relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a result
of practice and experience”. This definition has three important elements.

Learning is a key process in human behaviour. All living is learning. If we compare the
simple, crude ways in which a child feels and behaves, with the complex modes of adult
behaviour, his skills, habits, thought, sentiments and the like- we will know what difference
learning has made to the individual. Learning is defined as “any relatively permanent change
in behaviour that occurs as a result of practice and experience”. This definition has three
important elements.
● Learning is a change in behaviour—better or worse
● It is a change that takes place through practice or experience, but changes due to
growth or maturation are not learning
● This change in behaviour must be relatively permanent, and it must last a fairly long
time

Theories of learning

1. Trial and Error Learning Theory

This theory was developed by an American psychologist EL Thorndike (1874-1949). He
argues that learning takes place through trial and error methods. According to him, learning
is a gradual process where the individual will make many attempts to learn. The essence of
this theory is-as the trials increase, the errors decrease.

This is possible because of association formed between sense impressions and impulses to
action. Such an association comes to be known as a ‘bond’ or a ‘connection, because it is
these bonds or connections which become strengthened or weakened in making and
breaking of habits. According to this theory when an individual is placed in a new situation,
he makes a number of random movements. Among them, those which are unsuccessful are
eliminated and the successful ones are fixed.

Thorndike studies the character of trial and error learning in a number of experiments on
cats-using a box which he called ‘puzzle box’.

2. Classical conditioning

This method of conditioning got its name from the fact that it is a kind of learning situation
that existed in the early classical experiments of Ivan P Pavlov.

Pavlov designed an apparatus to measure the quantity of saliva produced in response to

food. At the beginning of his experiment Pavlov noted that no saliva flowed when he rang
the bell. He then trained the dog by sounding the bell, and shortly afterwards presenting
food.

After the sound of the bell had been paired with food a few times, he tested the effects of
the training by measuring the amount of saliva that flowed when he rang the bell and did
not present food. He found that some saliva was produced in response to the sound of the
bell alone. He then resumed the training-paired presentation of bell and food a few times
and then tested again with the bell alone.

As the training continued, the amount of saliva on tests with the bell alone increased. Thus,
after training the dog’s mouth watered-salivated- whenever the bell was sounded. This is
what was learned; it is the conditioned response.

3. Operant Conditioning
This method of conditioning was developed by an American psychologist BF Skinner. This
theory is also known as ‘Instrumental conditioning’, because the animals use certain
operations or actions as instruments to find solutions.

Skinner conducted his famous experiment by placing a hungry rat in a box called after his
name ‘Skinner box’. This box contained a lever and a food tray in a corner of the box. It was
so arranged, that the animal was free to move inside the box, but pressing on the lever
would get the animal a pallet of food in the tray as reinforcement. As the animal learnt the
pressing of the lever would give some food, it repeated the responses very rapidly. This
rapid increase in pressing the lever is the indication of the animal conditioned to get food.
Reinforcement which is the most important aspect of this experiment is divided into two
types: positive reinforcement is used in reward training. Negative reinforcement-like
punishment is used to stop undesired responses or behaviours.

4. Learning by Insight:
According to Gestalt theory—perception of a situation as a ‘whole’ gives better
understanding than the sum total of its parts. That is, the situation viewed as a whole will
definitely look different from that, viewed through its parts.

Kohler conducted his most famous experiments on chimpanzees- called Sultan. Insight
occurs, when the individual sees in a flash, the solution to his problem or difficulty. It is not
blind or stupid learning. It is an intelligent way of learning. On many occasions people try to
size up the situation, things and arrive at a conclusion. With experience man is able to solve
problems better and sooner.

He exercises his discrimination ability in solving problems, and learning becomes a matter of
insight rather than of trial and error. Archimedes’s example of’ Aha’ experience (eureka)
explained in creative thinking is the appropriate example for occurrence of insight.

5. Learning by Imitation
It is the simplest method of learning. Many of our day-to-day activities are learnt by
imitating others. For example, the way we eat, drink, walk, talk, dress, etc, are all learnt by
imitating others. We observe and watch what and how other people do certain activities
and imitate them.

Psychologists like Miller and Dollard have tried to show that the tendency to imitate is itself
a learned response and if reinforced, the individual will be more likely to continue to
imitate.

Memory

Explicit Memory
When we assess memory by asking a person to consciously remember things, we are
measuring explicit memory. Explicit memory refers to knowledge or experiences that can be
consciously remembered. It refers to the firsthand experiences that we have had.

Implicit Memory
Implicit memory refers to knowledge that we cannot consciously access. It is nevertheless
exceedingly important to us because it has a direct effect on our behaviour. Implicit memory
refers to the influence of experience on behaviour, even if the individual is not aware of
those influences.

● Procedural memory allows us to perform complex tasks, even though we may not be
able to explain to others how we do them. There is no way to tell someone how to
ride a bicycle; a person has to learn by doing it. The idea of implicit memory helps
explain how infants are able to learn.
● A second type of implicit memory is classical conditioning effects, in which we learn,
often without effort or awareness, to associate neutral stimuli with another stimulus,
which creates a naturally occurring response.
● The final type of implicit memory is known as priming, or changes in behaviour as a
result of experiences that have happened frequently or recently. Priming refers both
to the activation of knowledge and to the influence of that activation on behaviour.

Stages of Memory: Sensory, Short-Term, and Long-Term Memory

Sensory memory
Sensory memory refers to the brief storage of sensory information. Sensory memory is a
memory buffer that lasts only very briefly and then, unless it is attended to and passed on
for more processing, is forgotten.

● Visual sensory memory is known as iconic memory and lasts for milliseconds.
● Auditory sensory memory is known as echoic memory. In contrast to iconic
memories, which decay very rapidly, echoic memories can last as long as 4 seconds.

Short-Term Memory
Most of the information that gets into sensory memory is forgotten, but information that
we turn our attention to, with the goal of remembering it, may pass into short-term
memory. Short Term memory (STM) is the place where small amounts of information can be
temporarily kept for more than a few seconds but usually for less than one minute.

Ways to prevent decay of information:

● Maintenance rehearsal is the process of repeating information mentally or out loud

with the goal of keeping it in memory. We engage in maintenance rehearsal to keep
something that we want to remember in mind long enough to write it down, use it,
or potentially transfer it to long-term memory.
● Chunking is the process of organising information into smaller groupings (chunks),
thereby increasing the number of items that can be held in STM. For instance,
breaking down a phone number into chunks to recall it.

Long-Term Memory
 ● Encoding and Storage: Encoding is the process by which we store the things that we
experience into memory. Unless information is encoded, it cannot be remembered.
One way to improve our memory is to use better encoding strategies. When we
engage in elaborative encoding we process new information in ways that make it
more relevant or meaningful. For instance, you might try to remember the
fundamentals of the cognitive school of psychology by linking the characteristics to
the computer model.
● Retrieval: Even when information has been adequately encoded and stored, it does
not do us any good if we cannot retrieve it. It refers to the process of reactivating
information that has been stored in memory. For instance, you might want to try to
study for an exam in a situation that is similar to the one in which you are going to
take the exam.

The Serial Position Curve states that people are able to retrieve more words that were
presented to them at the beginning and the end of the list than they are words that were
presented in the middle of the list. This pattern, known as the serial position curve, is caused
by two retrieval phenomena: The primacy effect refers to a tendency to better remember
stimuli that are presented early in a list. The recency effect refers to the tendency to better
remember stimuli that are presented later in a list.

Working Memory
Working memory is thought to be involved in translating visual information into an acoustic
code, forming chunks, rehearsing to keep attention focused on material to remember, and
sometimes elaborating on incoming information by calling up relevant knowledge from LTM.

Baddeley (2007) describes working memory as a limited capacity temporary storage system
that underpins complex human thought. He conceives of Working Memory as consisting of
multiple components:

● Central Executive: this component directs the flow of information, choosing which
information will be operated on when and how. Rather than dealing with the storage
and retrieval of information, it deals with the way resources are allocated to
cognitive tasks.
● Phonological Loop: used to carry out subvocal rehearsal to maintain verbal material.
It plays an important role in tasks such as learning to read, comprehending language,
and acquiring vocabulary.
● Visuospatial Sketch Pad: used to maintain visual material through visualisation. It
involves the creation and use of mental images. It maintains and is involved in
manipulating visual information and imagery.
 ● Episodic buffer: this is thought to be a temporary system that is capable of
integrating information from different sources. It interacts with both the
phonological loop and visuospatial sketch pad as well as with LTM.

Metamemory
Metamemory refers to a person's knowledge about the contents and regulation of memory.
Metamemory enables a person to reflect on and monitor her memory. In addition,
metamemorial knowledge plays an important role in planning, allocation of cognitive
resources, strategy selection, comprehension monitoring, and evaluation of performance.

The two main structural components of metamemory:

● declarative knowledge, which enables a person to evaluate the contents of memory
● procedural knowledge, which enables a person to monitor and regulate memory
performance

Development of Metamemory

● Metamemory awareness is rather poor in children until the age of ten or older.
Younger children frequently find it difficult to monitor the contents of memory,
estimate the resources needed to complete a task, select appropriate strategies for a
task, and monitor their learning.
● Metamemory development is incremental and continuous. Development appears to
be linear in nature with a steady increase in metamemory awareness, control, and
monitoring from preschool through early puberty.
● Meta Memorial knowledge is self-constructed in nature. One essential element of
the construction process is self-generated and other-generated feedback that
increases knowledge of the contents of memory and tasks. A second essential
element is modelling, in which an individual has the opportunity to observe and
emulate skilled models.
● The final conclusion is that metamemory facilitates strategy use and performance.
The more one knows about memory, the better able one is to regulate one's
performance.

Metamemory and Learning

● Metamemory affects learning in many ways but especially with respect to the
efficient use of limited cognitive resources, strategy use, and comprehension
monitoring. Children and adults often experience difficulty learning because of
cognitive overload–that is, too much mental work to do and too few cognitive
resources at their disposal.
● A second way that metamemory improves learning is through the flexible use of
cognitive learning strategies. Research indicates that self-regulated learners use a
 diverse repertoire of strategies that are controlled using conditional knowledge in
metamemory.
● A third way that metamemory improves learning is comprehension monitoring.
Unfortunately, many children and adults do not monitor with a high degree of
accuracy. Monitoring training helps learners monitor more successfully and also
improves performance.

Episodic memory & Semantic memory

Episodic memory contains biographical details of our lives. Memories relating to our
personal life experiences constitute the episodic memory and it is for this reason that its
contents are generally emotional in nature. Episodic memory comprises each person’s
unique recollection of specific experiences, events and situations. Generally, emotions
associated with a memory tend to raise the likelihood that that memory would be
recollected more easily and more vividly.

Semantic memory is a type of long-term declarative memory that refers to facts, concepts
and ideas which we have accumulated over the course of our lives. Semantic memory
generally encompasses matters widely construed as common knowledge, which are neither
exclusively nor immediately drawn from personal experience. All concepts, ideas and rules
of logic are stored in semantic memory. Since the contents of semantic memory relate to
facts and ideas of general awareness and knowledge, it is affect-neutral and not susceptible
to forgetting.

Semantic memory is focused on facts, ideas and concepts. Episodic memory, on the other
hand, refers to the recalling of particular and subjective life experiences. While semantic
memory embodies information generally removed from personal experience or emotion,
episodic memory is characterised by biographical experiences specific to an individual.

Models of semantic memory

● Tulving’s theory
The theory presented by Tulving describes how semantic memory is related to procedural
and episodic memory, and does not aim to describe how information in semantic memory
may be structured. According to Tulving, the three types of memory are characterised by
different types of consciousness. Procedural memory is characterised by anoetic
consciousness, semantic memory by noetic consciousness, and episodic memory by
autonoetic consciousness. Anoetic consciousness means, literally, non knowing
consciousness, and contains information that is temporally and spatially bound to the
current situation. This information is called anoetic since we are not aware of processing it,
but still it allows us to behave appropriately in relation to the environment (Tulving, 2003).
When riding a bicycle, for example, we are not aware of how we keep balance, or what the
exact mechanism is behind steering and so on. But we are able to ride the bicycle anyhow,
since the information required is processed in procedural memory. Noetic consciousness
means, literally, knowing consciousness. This type of consciousness allows us to be aware
of, and to cognitively operate on, objects and events and their relations, in the absence of
the objects and events. Noetic consciousness allows us to imagine a bicycle and relate it to
other events such as the knowledge that one can ride a bicycle during summer.

● The hierarchical structure theory

The hierarchical structure theory is a theory of semantic memory organisation. This theory
suggests that semantic knowledge is organised hierarchically in the memory system, where
it is divided into three different levels of information. In these levels of information
superordinate categories, subcategories and individual exemplars of the subcategories are
represented. The superordinate categories, which are large and general, are represented at
the highest level of information, and examples of superordinate categories are “animal”,
“vehicle” and “food”. At the second level of information, the subcategories are represented,
and here more specific information of the large and general superordinate categories is
found. The lowest level of information in the hierarchical structure contains the specific
exemplars of the subcategories, examples of specific exemplars in the category of fruit are
“lemon” and “pear”.

● Feature-based theories
Feature-based theories are those that concern the organisation and internal structure of
semantic representations. According to these theories, semantic knowledge is composed of
small units of information, so called semantic features. However, there are differences
between these theories that concern the organisation of the semantic features in memory.
Some feature-based theories suggest that the semantic features are organised into two
levels of knowledge. The first of these levels is the category-level, which contains
information about features that are shared by many concepts in a specific category. The
second level is the exemplar level, which contains information about distinguishing features,
that is, features that are not shared by all concepts in a category. Rather these features are
a distinguishing part of a specific exemplar in a category.

Theories of forgetting

The first systematic attempt to understand the nature of forgetting was made by Hermann
Ebbinghaus, who memorised lists of nonsense syllables (CVC trigrams such as NOK or SEP
etc.) and then measured the number of trials he took to relearn the same list at varying time
intervals. He observed that the course of forgetting follows a certain pattern. The rate of
forgetting is maximum in the first nine hours, particularly during the first hour. After that the
rate slows down and not much is forgotten even after many days. It is now upheld that
there is always a sharp drop in memory and thereafter the decline is very gradual.
Forgetting due to Trace Decay
Trace decay (also called disuse theory) is the earliest theory of forgetting. The assumption
here is that memory leads to modification in the central nervous system, which is akin to
physical changes in the brain called memory traces. When these memory traces are not
used for a long time, they simply fade away and become unavailable. If forgetting takes
place because memory traces decay due to disuse, then people who go to sleep after
memorising should forget more compared to those who remain awake. Results, however,
show just the opposite. Those who remain awake after memorising (waking condition) show
greater forgetting than those who sleep (sleeping condition).

Forgetting due to Interference

Interference theory suggests that forgetting is due to interference between various
information that the memory store contains. This theory assumes that learning and
memorising involve forming of associations between items and once acquired, these
associations remain intact in the memory. People keep acquiring numerous such
associations and each of these rests independently without any mutual conflict. However,
interference comes about at a time of retrieval when these various sets of associations
compete with each other for retrieval. Interference can be proactive (forward moving)
which means what you have learnt earlier interferes with the recall of your subsequent
learning or retroactive (backward moving) which refers to difficulty in recalling what you
have learnt earlier because of learning a new material. For example, if you know English and
you find it difficult to learn French, it is because of proactive interference.

Forgetting due to Retrieval Failure

Forgetting can also occur because at the time of recall, either the retrieval cues are absent
or they are inappropriate. Retrieval cues are aids which help us in recovering information
stored in the memory. This view was advanced by Tulving and his associates who carried out
several experiments to show that contents of memory may become inaccessible either due
to absence or inappropriateness of retrieval cues that are available/employed at the time of
recall. For example: Suppose you memorise a list of meaningful words in which words
belong to six categories. If after a while you are asked to recall those you may recall a couple
of them but during the second recall attempt you may find that your recall is near total.

Mnemonics
There are a number of strategies for improving memory called mnemonics to help you
improve your memory.
Mnemonics using Images
Mnemonics using images require that you create vivid and interacting images of and around
the material you wish to remember.
 ● The Keyword Method : In the keyword method, an English word that sounds similar
to the word of a foreign language is identified. This English word will function as the
keyword. For example, if you want to remember the Spanish word for duck which is
‘Pato’, you may choose ‘pot’ as the keyword and then evoke images of the keyword
and the target word and imagine them as interacting.
● The Method of Loci : In order to use the method of loci, items you want to
remember are placed as objects arranged in a physical space in the form of visual
images. This method is particularly helpful in remembering items in a serial order. It
requires that you first visualise objects/places that you know well in a specific
sequence, imagine the objects you want to remember and associate them one by
one to the physical locations. For example, suppose you want to remember bread,
eggs, tomatoes, and soap on your way to the market. When you enter the market all
you need to do is to take a mental walk along the route from your kitchen to the
bathroom recalling all the items of your shopping list in a sequence.

Mnemonics using Organisation

Organisation refers to imposing a certain order on the material you want to remember.
Mnemonics of this kind are helpful because of the framework you create while organisation
makes the retrieval task fairly easy.
● Chunking : In chunking, several smaller units are combined to form large chunks. For
creating chunks, it is important to discover some organisation principles, which can
link smaller units.
● First Letter Technique : In order to employ the first letter technique, you need to pick
up the first letter of each word you want to remember and arrange them to form
another word or a sentence. For example, colours of a rainbow are remembered by
VIBGYOR.

In place of mnemonics, a more comprehensive approach to memory improvement has been

suggested by many psychologists.
● Engage in Deep Level Processing : If you want to memorise any information well,
engage in deep level processing. Craik and Lockhart have demonstrated that
processing information in terms of meaning that they convey leads to better
memory
● Minimise Interference : Interference, as we have read, is a major cause of forgetting
and therefore you should try to avoid it as much as possible. For example: Give
yourself intermittent rest periods while studying to minimise interference.
● Give Yourself enough Retrieval Cues : While you learn something, think of retrieval
cues inherent in your study material. Cues will be easier to remember compared to
the entire content and the links you have created between cues and the content will
facilitate the retrieval process.