UNZA Pharmacy Training Lecture notes

1. Learning
J. M. Ncheka
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2. Outline
• Introduction
• Theories of learning
• Application of theories of learning
•
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3. • ‘What we have learned is [comparable to] a
handful of soil, what we have not learned is as
large as the world’
– By Thiruvallar Tamil (Poet)
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4. • What is learning?
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5. • Much of what we do results from what we
have learned.
– Speaking a different language
– Liking different foods
– Behave in a certain way
• Applies to areas to many areas of acquiring
new behaviours.
• It involves change.
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6. Learning
• Learning is a relatively permanent change in
behaviour that occurs through experience.
• Learning is acquiring new, or modifying
existing knowledge, behaviours, skills, values,
or attitudes.
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7. • Learning is a relatively permanent change (or
potential for change) in behaviour which
occurs as a result of experience.
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8. • Learning can occur:
– Consciously
– Unconsciously
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9. • Methods of learning include forms such as:
– Habituation
– Sensitization
– Associative learning
• Classical condition
• Operant condition
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10. THEORIES OF LEARNING
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11. Habituation
• Also called desensitisation
• Repeated stimulation results in a decreased
response.
• e.g. a child who receives weekly allergy
injections cries less and less with each
injection.
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12. Sensitisation
• Repeated stimulation results in an increased
response.
• e.g. a child who is afraid of spiders feels more
anxious each time he encounters a spider.
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13. Associative Learning
• Learning in which a connection or association
is made between two events.
• Conditioning is the process of learning
associations.
• Two types of conditioning:
– Classical conditioning
– Operant conditioning
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14. Classical Conditioning
• Elements of Classical Conditioning
• Unconditioned response UR)
– A naturally occurring behaviour that does not
have to be learned.
– e.g. salivation in response to the smell of food.
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15. • Unconditioned stimulus
– Something that unconditionally and automatically,
without having to be learned, produces a
response.
– e.g. the smell of food
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16. • Conditioned response (CR)
– The learned response to a previously neutral
stimulus.
– It is a behaviour that is learned by an association
made between a conditioned stimulus and an
unconditioned stimulus.
– e.g. salivation in response to the lunch bell.
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17. • Conditioned stimulus
– An originally neutral stimulus that, after
association with an unconditioned stimulus comes
to trigger a conditioned response.
– Something that produces a response following
learning.
– e.g. the sound of the lunch bell.
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18. • Organisms learn through association of two
stimuli.
• As a result of this association, organisms learn
to anticipate events.
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19. 19

20. • This theory was developed by a Russian
physiologist called Ivan Pavlov.
• He discovered while studying the digestive
system that dogs salivated not only when food
was introduced in the mouth but also
whenever the experimenter entered the room
with the food.
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21. • When a previously neutral stimulus is
repeatedly paired with a stimulus that
normally causes salivary secretion, the neutral
stimulus alone eventually comes to elicit the
response.
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22. • Learning is thought to take place when events
occur closely together in time (association).
• Results from the repeated pairing of a neutral
(conditioned) stimulus with one that evokes a
response (unconditioned stimulus) such that
the neutral stimulus eventually evokes the
response.
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23. Pavlov’s Experiment
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24. Classical Conditioning and Human
Behaviour
• Seen in our day to day living.
– Dislike and attraction to certain type of
foods/people.
– Tranquility in places of worship.
– Drinking in bars.
– Use of various parts of our homes.
– In advertising- Pairing highly desirable stimulus
with the product being sold.
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25. 25

26. Features of Classical Conditioning
• Acquisition
– Initial learning of the stimulus-response link.
– The conditioned response is learned.
– e.g. Salivation in response to the bell.(UCS)
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27. • Generalisation
– Tendency of a new stimulus that is similar to the
original CS to elicit a response that is similar to a
CR.
– e.g. A church bell that resembles a conditioned
stimulus causes a conditioned response.
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28. • Extinction
– The CR decreases if the CS is never again paired
with the UCS.
– e.g.
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29. • Discrimination
– A process of learning to respond to certain stimuli
and not to respond to others.
– In Pavlov’s experiment, only the bell was used to
produce discrimination.
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30. Classical Conditioning and
Psychopathology
• Acquisition of phobias and anxieties
– Experiment by J. B. Watson
– Induced phobia in Little Albert (11 months old)
• Habit formation and addiction
– Habits are cue dependent
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31. Clinical Application of Classical
Conditioning
• Used in the treatment of emotional and
behavioural problems:
• Systemic desensitisation
– Developed by Joseph Wolpe (1958) for the
treatment of phobias.
– It is the gradual exposure of the subject to the
feared stimulus while using relaxation.
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32. • Flooding
– Based on the principle that presentation of the
feared stimulus for sufficiently long periods of
time provided the subject can tolerate the anxiety.
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33. • Aversion therapy
– Pairing of an unpleasant/painful stimulus with the
target behaviour.
– Used mainly in alcohol and drug addiction
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34. Operant Conditioning
• Developed by an American psychologist called
Burrhhuss Fredrick (B. F)Skinner.
• It is a form of learning in which the
consequences of the behaviour produce
changes in the possibility of the behaviour’s
occurrence.
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35. Principles of Operant Conditioning
• Behaviour is determined by its consequences.
• An individual can learn a new behaviour
through reinforcement and punishment.
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36. Features of Operant Conditioning
• Positive reinforcement (Reward)
– It is the introduction of a positive stimulus that
results in an increase in the rate of behaviour.
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37. • Negative reinforcement (Escape/Avoidance)
– It is the removal of an aversive stimulus that
results in an increase in the rate of behaviour.
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38. • Punishment
– Introduction of an aversive stimulus aimed at
reducing the rate of an unwanted behaviour.
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39. • Spontaneous recovery
– If the animal is returned to the experimental
situation, it quickly learns the behaviour.
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40. • Extinction
– This is gradual disappearance of a learned
behaviour when reinforcement is withheld.
– This is affected by how reinforcement is applied.
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41. Reinforcer
• A reinforcer is any event/stimulus that
strengthens or increases the frequency of a
behaviour.
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42. Applying Reinforcers
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43. Continuous reinforcers
• Every time a behaviour occurs, it is reinforced.
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44. Partial/intermittent Reinforcers
• Fixed ratio schedule
– Reinforcement is presented after a specific
number of times.
– Fixed number or responses
– e.g. getting k10 for every box of tomato picked
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45. • Variable ratio schedule
– Reinforcement is presented after a random and
unpredictable number of responses.
– e.g. betting
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46. • Variable interval schedule
– Reinforcement is presented after a random and
unpredictable amount of time.
– Amount of time varies
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47. • Fixed interval schedule
– Reinforcement is presented after a specific time
regardless of the number of responses..
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48. Operant Conditioning and
Psychopathology
• Learnt helplessness
– Arises when one feels the situation they are in is:
• Hopeless
• Difficult to enable escape (Unable to escape)
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49. Clinical Application of Operant
Conditioning
• Establishing new behaviours.
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50. Observational Learning
• Albert Bandura
• Learning by watching what other people do and
say.
• Imitating others.
• Mediated by cognitive factors:
– Attention (Focus on certain aspect)
– Retention (Committing observed behaviours to
memory)
– Reproduction (Repetition of behaviour)
– Motivation (Felt need to perform the behaviour)
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51. • Best occurs when the model:
– Has high status and power or is attractive
– Is similar to the observer
– Is seen to be rewarded for the behaviour
• And the observer:
– Has low self esteem and dependent
– Is reinforced for performing the imitated
behaviour.
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52. • e.g. anxiety reactions in children are often
mediated by parental anxiety responses.
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53. Cognitive Learning
• This will be discussed using the theory of Jean
Piaget.
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54. Cognitive development
• Cognition is a term used to explain our ability to
think, reason and execute function from memory.
• It is a term used to designate all the processes
involved in “knowing.”
• Cognitive activities are largely non observable.
• They have to be interpreted from behaviorally
observable phenomena.
• It seeks to provide descriptions and
understanding how mature ways of thinking
emerge.

55. Piaget’s theory
• Of all the theories of cognitive development, Piaget’s theory is the
most popular and influential.
• Jean Piaget took to studying children's thinking.
• He used 2 basic methods : observation and clinical interviews.
• Often this involved presenting children with tasks to test their ways
of thinking.
• Piaget was struck by the findings that, the mistakes children made
on cognitive tasks were systematic. Most children of a given age
range made the same mistake.
• C o n c l u d e d t h a t c h i l d r e n w e r e n o t j u s t
l e s s k n o w l e d g e a b l e t h a n a d u l t s b u t h o w
t h e y t h o u g h t w a s q u a l i t a t i v e l y d i f f e r e n t .

56. Two conceptual pillars of Piaget’s
theory

57. • COGNITIVE STRUCTRES: are understood in
terms of schemes and operations.
• SCHEMES: (schema) are basic units of
knowledge, organized patterns of thoughts
and actions consisting of internal
representation and generalization.

58. • OPERATIONS: which refers to mental actions
that develop later in life (around the age of
seven) as the child begins to understand the
logical rules of how the environment works.
• Schemas and operations undergo change,
modification and become more complex and
sophisticated as children develop.
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59. • ADAPTATION: The process of adjustment and
modification to the demands of the
environment. Which is achieved through
assimilation and accommodation.
• ASSIMILATION: this is the process by which
new experiences (new ideas or objects) are
understood by incorporating them into
already existing schemas.

60. • Taking in new experiences and making them
part of what already exists.
• ACCOMMODATION. This is the
complementary process in which the schema
is modified to fit new experiences into it.
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61. • According to Piaget, as development proceeds
through the various stages, schemas undergo
change and underlying each stage is a new
category of schema.
• The motivational force that drives the child's
cognitive development onto a higher and
more flexible level is known as
EQUILIBRARTION.

62. PIAGET’S STAGES OF
DEVELOPMENT.
• Piaget held that, through a process of
continuous accommodation and
assimilation, c h i l d r e n p r o c e s s
t h r o u g h a s e r i e s o f s t a g e s o f
c o g n i t i v e d e v e l o p m e n t .
Formal Operational.
11 + years
Concrete Operational (7 –
11 years)
Preoperational (2-7 Years)
Sensorimotor (Birth – 2
years)

64. • Intelligence and thinking do not develop on a
quantitative basis (change in amount of
knowledge held)
• But rather, changes that occur during
development are qualitative.
• Cognitive development is discontinuous.
• Variations in Piaget’s theory have been
acknowledged as he explains age ranges as
averages and not fixed constants.

65. • EACH STAGE HAS TO BE ACHIEVED BEFORE
PROCEEDING TO THE NEXT ONE.
• Of note: although the rate at which a child
moves through each stage may vary from child
to child, the order in which they progress is
fixed or in variant.
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67. Sensorimotor (Birth – 2 years)

68. Preoperational (2-7 Years)

69. Concrete Operational (7 – 11 years)

70. Formal Operational.
11 + years

71. Summary
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