Q4):
Explain the associative theories of learning.
Ans:
associative theories of learning:
Psychologists
have developed two principle types of learning theories to explain how
individual learn: behavior or associative and cognitive.
Behavior
learning theories tends to emphasize observable behavior, such as classroom
behavior or new skills or knowledge that can be demonstrated. Behavioral
learning theories is particularly interested in the way pleasurable or painful
consequences of behavior change the individual’s behavior over time.
A major goal
of the behaviorist is to determine the laws governing learning. The concern
about the nature of learning has dominated academic psychology for most of this
century. A number of ideas contributed to the behavioral views. The Greek
philosopher Aristotle’s concept of the association of ideas is one important
origin of behaviorism.
Associations
Suppose when
bomb blasts you remember the event of Orji camp. The whole thought process
reflects the concepts of association of ideas. Two events can become associated
with each other thus when you think of one event you automatically recall the
other.
Aristotle
proposed that in order for an association to develop the two events must be
contiguous and either similar to or opposite to each other. As Aristotle said
that learning is the result of association of two components the conditioning
become synonymous with association.
Conditioning:
Conditioning
is considered by many psychologists to be the fundamental form of learning
underlying the development of some of the earliest response patterns in new
infants. Conditioning has been demonstrated to occur even before birth. Through
conditioning the organisms responses to a great variety of situations are
changed.
Classical
conditioning:
Classical
conditioning may be defined as the formation of an association between a
conditional stimulus and a response through the repeated presentation of the
conditional stimulus in a controlled relationship with an unconditioned
stimulus that originally elicits that response.
The best
known experiment in classical conditioning was performed by a Russian
physiologist and Nobel Prize winner Ivan Pavlov who accidentally discovered the
conditioned response while performing a series of routine physiological
experiments Pavlov was studying digestion and salivation in dogs using an
apparatus which collected and measured the secretions of live animals by means
of tubes implanted in the stomach or cheek.
In these
experiment meat powder was placed in a dog’s mouth and his salivary response to
the food was observed. Pavlov’s assistants reported that after a number of
trials with any particular dog the animal would being to salivate when he saw
the food before it was actually placed in his mouth. Soon he would salivate at
the sight of the food dish and finally even at the sound of the assistants
approaching footsteps. Pavlov realizing that his phenomenon was of significance
changed the course of his investigations.
In this
series of experiments which followed his chance discovery Pavlov established
the terminology that is still used to describe this type of learning. He
applied the term unconditioned stimulus to the food in the mouth which elicited
the inborn unconditioned response salivation. He demonstrated that after
repeated occasions on which a bell was sounded immediately before the food was
placed in the dog’s mouth. The bell alone came to produce the increased flow of
saliva. Pavlov called this change in the animal’s behavior a conditioned reflex
or conditioned stimulus by virtue of having neutral stimulus the bell had
become a conditioned stimulus is one that before conditioning does not produce
the response that the investigator is seeking. It may of course produce other
presences such as pricking up the ears or turning the head.
0 تبصرے