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Learning
In ThIs ChapTer
Summary: Did you have to learn how to yawn? Learning is a relatively
permanent change in behavior as a result of experience. For a change to be
considered learning, it cannot simply have resulted from maturation, inborn
response tendencies, or altered states of consciousness. You didn’t need to
learn to yawn; you do it naturally. Learning allows you to anticipate the future
from past experience and control a complex and ever-changing environment.
This chapter reviews three types of learning: classical conditioning, operant
conditioning, and cognitive learning. All three emphasize the role of the envi-
ronment in the learning process.Key Ideas
✪ Classical conditioning
✪ Classical conditioning paradigm
✪ Classical conditioning learning curve
✪ Strength of conditioning
✪ Classical aversive conditioning
✪ Higher-order conditioning
✪ Operant conditioning
✪ Thorndike’s instrumental conditioning
✪ Operant conditioning training procedures
✪ Operant aversive conditioning
✪ Reinforcers
✪ Operant conditioning training schedules of reinforcement
✪ Superstitious behavior
✪ Cognitive processes in learning
✪ The contingency model
✪ Latent learning
✪ InsightKEY IDEAChapTer
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