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Definition of Learning NCERT Textbook With Solution PDF Free Download
Chapter 6: What Is Learning?
As indicated above learning is a key process in human behavior. It refers to a spectrum of changes that take place as a result of one’s experience.
Learning may be defined as “any relatively permanent change in behavior or behavioral potential produced by experience”.
One must remember that some behavioral changes occur due to the use of drugs, or fatigue. Such changes are temporary. They are not considered learning.
Changes due to practice and experience, which are relatively permanent, are illustrative of learning.
Features of Learning The process of learning has certain distinctive characteristics. The first feature is that learning always involves some kind of experience.
We experience an event occurring in a certain sequence on a number of occasions.
If an event happens then it may be followed by certain other events. For example, one learns that if the bell rings in the hostel after sunset, then dinner is ready to be served.
Repeated experience of satisfaction after doing something in a specified manner leads to the formation of habit. Sometimes a single experience can lead to learning.
A child strikes a matchstick on the side of a matchbox and gets her/his fingers burnt. Such an experience makes the child learn to be careful in handling the matchbox in the future.
Behavioral changes that occur due to learning are relatively permanent. They must be distinguished from behavioral changes that are neither permanent nor learned.
For example, changes in behavior often occur due to the effects of fatigue, habituation, and drugs.
Suppose you are reading your textbook psychology for some time or you are trying to learn how to drive a motor car, a time comes when you will feel tired.
You stop reading or driving. This is a behavioral change due to fatigue and is temporary.
It is not considered learning. Let us take another case of change in one’s behaviour.
Suppose in the vicinity of your residence a marriage is being performed. It generates a lot of noise, which continues till late night.
In the beginning, the noise distracts you from whatever you are doing. You feel disturbed. While the noise continues, you make some orienting reflexes.
These reflexes become weaker and weaker and eventually become undetectable.
This is also one kind of behavioral change. This change is due to continuous exposure to stimuli. It is called habituation. It is not due to learning.
You must have noticed that in people who are on sedatives or drugs or alcohol, their behavior changes as it affects physiological functions.
Such changes are temporary in nature and disappear, as the effect wears out.
Learning involves a sequence of psychological events. This will become clear if we were to describe a typical learning experiment.
Suppose psychologists are interested in understanding how a list of words is learned.
They will go through the following sequence : (i) do a pre-test to know how much the person knows before learning,
(ii) present the list of words to be remembered for a fixed time, (iii) during this time the list of words is processed towards acquiring new knowledge, (iv) after processing is complete, new knowledge is acquired (this is LEARNING), and
(v) after some time elapses, the processed information is recalled by the person.
By comparing the number of words that a person now knows as compared to what s/he knew in the pre-test, one infers that learning did take place.
| Author | NCERT |
| Language | English |
| No. of Pages | 24 |
| PDF Size | 2.1 MB |
| Category | Psychology |
| Source/Credits | ncert.nic.in |
NCERT Solutions Class 11 Psychology Chapter 6 Learning
Question 1. What is learning? What are its distinguishing features?
Answer: The process of learning has certain features:
- Learning always involves some kind of experience or practice.
- Changes due to maturation or growth are not learning.
e.g.: One learns that if the bell rings in the hostel after sunset, then dinner is ready to be served.
- Changes due to maturation or growth are not learning.
- Sometimes a single experience can lead to learning.
e.g.: A child strikes a match stick on the side of a matchbox and gets her/his finger burnt. Such an experience, makes the child learn to be careful in handling the matchbox in the future.- Before it can be called learning, the change must be relatively permanent, it must last for a fairly long time.
- Learning must be distinguished from behavioral changes that are neither permanent nor learned.
eg. changes in behavior due to fatigue, habituation, and drugs. - Learning is a change in behavior, for better or worse.
- Learning follows a sequence.
Question 2. How does classical conditioning demonstrate learning by association?
Answer:
- Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an organism learns to associate stimuli.
- Conditioning is the simplest form of learning.
- Classical conditioning was first explained in Pavlov’s experiments in which a dog was kept on a harness with a tube attached to the dog’s jaw on one end, and a measuring jar on the other end.
- The dog was kept hungry in the course of experiments, every time the dog was
given food a bell was rung before it, slowly the dog become conditioned to believe that the ringing bell meant that food was coming. . - So, he began salivating at the sound at the bell.
- The dog continued to salivate even when food was not given after the bell.
- Hence, salivation became a conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus. Various forms of classical conditioning are:
- Unconditioned stimulus (US): This stimulus consistently evoked a response or is reliably followed by one or it has the potential capacity to evoke a natural response. e.g. food.
- Conditioned stimulus (CS): It is also known as a neutral stimulus because except for an altering or intentional response, the first few times it is presented, it does not evoke a specific response.
Any stimuli which lack the natural capacity to evoke a natural response develop this capacity with consistent pairing with the US. For example bell. - Unconditioned Response (UR): The response that reliably follows the unconditioned stimulus is known as the unconditioned response, e.g. Saliva due to food. (iv) Conditioned Response (CR): When the presentation of the originally neutral conditioned stimulus evokes a response.
This response is what is learned in classical conditioning, e.g. Saliva s a response to the bell.
Determinants of classical conditioning:
- Time Relations between stimuli: In classical conditioning the first three are called Forward Conditioning Procedures and the forth one is called Backward Conditioning.
The basic experimental arrangements of these procedures are as follows:- Simultaneous Conditioning: When the CS and US are presented together.
It is effective to acquire CR but requires greater number of trials. - Delayed Conditioning: The onset of CS precedes the onset of US. The CS ends before the end of the US. It is most effective way of acquiring CR.
- Trace Conditioning: The onset and the end of the CS precedes the onset of US with some time gap between the two. It is effective but requires greater number of trials.
- Backward conditioning: The US precedes the onset of CS. It is the least effective way to acquire CR.
- Simultaneous Conditioning: When the CS and US are presented together.
- Type of unconditioned stimuli: The unconditioned stimuli used in studies of classical conditioning are of two types: Appetitive e.g. eating drinking etc. according to research it is slower and requires a greater number of trials
- Aversive e.g. Noise, bitter taste, etc. classical conditioning is established in one, two, or three trials so it is more effective.
- The intensity of conditioned stimuli: This influences the course of both appetitive and aversive classical conditioning. More intense conditioned stimuli are more effective in accelerating the acquisition of conditioned responses, e.g.: The more intense the conditioned stimulus, the fewer the number of acquisition trials needed for conditioning, ie intense irritating noise is more effective.
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