Psyc 337: Psychology of Learning

Cognitive Learning Theory

Dr Richmond Acquah-Coleman

DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY
 Lecture objectives
1. Explain Cognitive learning as a theory of learning

2. Discuss Cognitive information processing model

3. Discuss Tolman’s experiment on cognitive

learning

4. Discuss the concept of cognitive maps

Cognitive Learning Theory:
Learning through thinking
 Cognitive learning Theory
 classical and operant conditioning theories explain
learning as stimulus-response/ consequence mechanisms

 Observational learning simply argues that we learn by

watching and imitating

 Some psychologists argue that although these positions

are true, almost all learning processes including
conditioning processes involve some form of mental
processing.
 Cognitive learning Theory
 These mental processes may include mental images,
perceptions, expectations.

 Eg. The association between the NS and UCS in classical

conditioning is developed through the organism’s expectation
that a particular NS will be followed by a particular UCS

 That is, the organism mentally links the two objects which
leads to a particular response

 Over time, this mental association becomes automatic in the

individual/ organmism
 Cognitive learning Theory
 Simply put, individuals actively
cognitively process environmental events
and the outcome of this cognitive/mental
processing determine the learning that
takes place

 This is the foundation argument of the

Cognitive Learning Theory.
 Cognitive learning Theory
According to the Cognitive learning theory:
 It is not enough to say that people make responses
because there is an assumed link between a stimulus
and a response…
or
 Due to a past history of reinforcement for a response.
 Instead people and even animals develop an expectation
that they will receive a reinforcer upon making a
response.
 Cognitive learning Theory
 Cognitive theorists therefore insist that the study of
learning should include the study of cognitive
processes.

 Cognitive processes refer to mental processes such as

thinking, knowing, problem solving, remembering,
and forming mental representations.

 Cognitive learning is therefore the study of the

mental processes that underlie the whole learning
process.
 Cognitive learning Theory
 There are 3 instances of cognitive learning:

 Place Learning

 Latent Learning

 Insight Learning
 Cognitive learning Theory
1. Place Learning
 This concept is credited to the work

of Edward C. Tolman (1886-1959).

 He developed this theory of

learning which combines the
advantages of stimulus-response
theories and cognitive theories.
Edward Chance Tolman (1886 - 1959

 He used mazes in his experiments

(Tolman, 1946) and the subjects
were rats.
 Cognitive learning
Tolman’s Experiment :
Rats in a Maze
• The experiment was to
demonstrate how people
learn about places

• He placed rats in a maze

and observed how the
rats came to learn their
way out to reach food
 Cognitive learning Theory
 Based on his findings, Tolman believed that:
 The rats had learned a cognitive map of
where the food was located relative to the
starting point.
A cognitive map refers to:
 “a mental representation of a spatial
arrangement such as a maze” (Wood et al.,
2005).
 Cognitive learning Theory
2. Latent Learning
 “Learning that occurs without apparent reinforcement

and is not demonstrated until the organism is

motivated to do so” (Wood et al., 2005).

 To support this position, Tolman and Honzik (1930)

conducted a classic experiment.
 Cognitive learning Theory
 To demonstrate latent learning, Tolman and
Honzik(1930) conducted a classic experiment:
 One group of Rats were placed in mazes to run and were
rewarded with food
 Another group were placed in the maze and run
unrewarded
 Group two were observed to be very slow.
 Later rewards were introduced to group 2
 They run faster immediately and even became faster than
group one.
 Cognitive learning Theory
From this experiment Tolman concluded that:
 the rats had learned to form a cognitive map.

 They only showed evidence of this after being given

a reason to do so through reinforcement.

 This was referred to as Latent Learning: Meaning

learning that occurs in the absence of an obvious
reward. (Hidden Learning)
 Cognitive learning Theory
3. Insight Learning
 This concept is credited to the work of a
German Gestalt theorist by name
Wolfgang Köhler (1887 – 1967).

 It is a form of cognitive learning that

involves sudden recognition of previously
unseen relationships.

 It is also known as Discovery Learning.

Wolfgang Köhler (1887 – 1967).
 Köhler developed this theory in the 1940s
based on his numerous experiments using
a chimpanzee named Sultan.
Cognitive learning Theory
 Kohler’s Experiment
 Cognitive learning Theory
 According to Köhler the chimpanzee learned because of a
cognitive change, a new insight that it had developed about
the problem.
 Wood et al., (2005):
Insight refers to
 “the sudden realization of the relationship between two
elements in a problem situation, which makes the solution
apparent.”
 Köhler’s insight learning received a lot of criticisms from
other psychologists, even some cognitive theorists.
 Cognitive learning Theory
 The critics argued that insight learning results only after a
“mental trial-and-error” process which involves the
following steps:
 Envisage a course of action.
 Mentally simulate its results.
 Compare it with the imagined outcome of the other
alternatives.
 Then settle on the course of action most likely to aid
complex problem solving and decision-making (Klein,
1993).
Cognitive Learning:
Applications
Cognitive learning Theory

Cognitive Learning:
Applications
 Cognitive learning Theory
Examples of cognitive therapies include:
 Cognitive Restructuring – Assumes that a person’s way
of perceiving the world and his/her self-defeating
behaviours are as a result of faulty/maladaptive
assumptions or irrational beliefs
 E.g.: I must be loved and approved of by everyone
whose love and approval I seek.
 The focuses of CR is to change these.
 Cognitive learning Theory
 Rational-Emotive Therapy – Developed by
Albert Ellis, it attempts to restructure a person’s
belief system into a more realistic, rational and
logical set of views.

 Rational-Emotive therapists openly challenge

patterns of thoughts that appear to be
dysfunctional.

 E.g.: How does failing an exam mean that you are

no good?
 Cognitive-Beahviour therapy - Devised by Aaron
Beck, its basic goal is changing people’s logical
thoughts about themselves and the world.
 Beck believed that irrational thoughts and faulty
assumptions can lead to emotional disorders.
 Cognitive Therapy has been successful in treating
depression.
Read:
15 styles of cognitive distortions
HAVE A NICE DAY