Learning pshychology faculty of physiotherapy.pptx

1. LEARNING

2. INTRODUCTION
• Learning is a key process in human behaviour. It plays a vital role in
language, customs, attitude and beliefs, our goals, personality
characteristics and even our perception.
• According to Henry P. Smith, “Learning is the acquisition of new behaviour
or the strengthening or weakening of old behaviour and experiences
different from what that would otherwise have been.”
• It has three important features –
1. Learning bring changes in behaviour.
2. Changes takes place through practice or experience and not due to
maturation.
3. Change in behaviour should be relatively permanent.

3. THEORIES OF LEARNING
• Trial and error
• Theory of conditioned reflex –
1. Classical Conditioning
2. Operant Conditioning
• Cognitive learning
1. Insight learning
2. Sign learning
• Social learning

4. Trial and error method
• Edward lee Thorndike the American Psychologist conducted a series of experiment on trial and
error methods of learning.
• Experiment
• A hungry cat was kept inside a puzzle box and pieces of food outside the cage. A string from the
door went over the pulley to a wire loop hanging in the box.
• Whenever the cat clawed at the loop the door would open and the cat could escape from the box
and eat.
• Eventually in its random movement around the cage, the cat happened to pull the loop , the door
opened.
• As the trial increases , the cat took less time to open the door .
• It showed that the cat learned to open the door.

5. • This is known as trial and error learning. Thordnike had suggested three laws of learning
• Law of effect
• Law of Frequency
• Law of recency

6. Theory of conditioned reflex
Classical conditioning – It is also known as Respondant conditioning .
He noticed that a dog began to salivate at the mere sight of the food dish.
Unconditioned stimulus – Food and meat powder
Conditioned stimulus – Bell
Unconditioned response – Salivation
• The condition stimulus while evokes a response was conditioned response was conditioned response.
• Before conditioning
CS ( Bell sound ) – No response or irrelevant response
US ( Food ) – UR ( Salivation )
During Conditioning
CS ( Bell ) – No response
CS ( Bell ) and US ( Food ) – UR ( salivation )
After Conditioning
CS ( Bell ) – CR ( Salivation )

7. • Laws of classical conditioning
• Extinction
• Spntaneous recovery
• Generalisation
• Discrimination

8. Operant Conditioning
• Term coined by BF Skinner to indicate that when a response operates on the enviroment. , it may
have consequences that can affect the likelihood that response will occur again.
• Skinner placed a rat inside a glass box containing a lever and food tray . The animal was free to
explore the box . Whenever the lever in the bx was pressed, automatically a pellet of food was
dropped on the tray.
• Pressing the lever- Operant response
• The food – Stimulus consequence
• The rate of presses increased notable with the rewarding of the rat with food each time he pressed
the lever by reinforcement the rat learned the operant response

9. Cognitive learning
• According to cognitive thories , learning cannot be explained in terms of S-R association alone.
• They propose that a learner forms a cognitive structure in memory , which organizes memory
information into relationships and meanings without any known reinforcement, new associations
are formed and new relationships are perceived along events, simply as a result of having
experienced these events.
• In this stimulation stimulus associations are learned.

10. Social learning
• Albert and Richard Walters focused on the highly efficient form of learning known as observation
learning or imitation.
• Imitation is defined as a response that is like the stimulus triggering the response a person or
animal watched or hears another do or say something then responds in the same way.

11. Thank you.