Cognitive Psychology And Learning

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One aspect of cognitive psychology is the study of learning; how both humans and animals attend to their environments and use the cues to predict future behaviour. Learning can be defined as “a relatively permanent change in behaviour due to experience” (Chance 2014, as cited in Coon, D., Mitterer, J., 2015). Relatively permanent does not include changes in behaviour that are more or less innate, such as: eating and sleeping. Experience relies a great deal on what is available in any given environment that is not as a result of the species maturing. People and animals attend to stimulus in their environment through their sensory organs; in turn this elicits a response and behavioural alterations. There are many methods that measure learning …show more content…
The way that learning is assessed can affect the conclusions derived from the research. Pearce, Colwill and Hall (1978) demonstrated this phenomenon when making comparisons between rats’ ability to learn to press a lever and when scratching themselves to attain food. The ability to learn was directly affected by the rats’ ability to learn the relationship between the two events. The strength of the pairing of the stimulus and the response would result in the animal performing the correct response more rapidly and more frequently. An explanation of this could be that the behaviour that an animal finds easier to associate with a reward is in some way related to evolutionary or natural responses. Foree and Lolordo (1973) trained pigeons to attain food and avoid shocks either by pecking or by flapping their wings. Pigeons found it easier to get food by pecking and to avoid shocks by flapping their wings. This is their natural behaviour, which is more or less instinctive to them. This suggests that not only does the environment play an important role in animal learning but evolution determines their behaviour and therefore intelligence. This effect limits research in studying animal learning, as demonstrated in classical and operant conditioning; animals can only be taught in tasks that elicit their natural responses. Furthermore, this does not allow species to be taught behaviours that oppositional, thus we are unable to conclude whether the animal has learned something new or just applied their previous knowledge to the

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