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How Does Cognitive Psychology
Explain Learning?
According to cognitive
psychology, some forms of
learning must be explained
as changes in mental
processes, rather than as
changes in behavior alone
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
How Does Cognitive Psychology
Explain Learning?
• Insight Learning –
Problem solving occurs by means of a sudden
reorganization of perceptions.. suddenly perceiving
familiar objects in new forms or relationships
• Cognitive Maps –
A mental representation of physical space
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Wolfgang Köhler
and Insight Learning
• Example: chimp stacks crates to
reach food
• This is a form of cognitive
learning
• Behaviorism has no convincing
stimulus-response explanation
for Kohler’s demonstration.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
• Köhler observed the manner in which
chimpanzees solve problems, such as that
of retrieving bananas when positioned out
of reach.
• He found that they stacked wooden crates
to use as makeshift ladders, in order to
retrieve the food.
• Köhler concluded that the chimps had not
arrived at these methods through trialand-error (which Thorndike had claimed to
be the basis of all animal learning, through
his law of effect)
• Rather they had experienced an insight
(also known as an “aha experience”), in
which, having realized the answer, they
then proceeded to carry it out in a way
that was “purposeful.”
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Edward Tolman’s Cognitive Map
• Organisms learn the spatial
layout of their environments
by exploration, even if they
are not reinforced for
exploring
• (Evolutionary perspective:
Animals forging for food)
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Edward Tolman’s Cognitive Map
• Argued that is was a
cognitive map that
accounted for a rat
quickly selecting an
alternative route in a
maze when the preferred
path was blocked
• Challenged the work of
Pavlov, Watson, and
Skinner
• Claimed learning was
mental, not behavioral.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Examples of Cognitive Maps
• Giving
directions
• Walking through
your house in
the dark
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Observational Learning: Bandura’s
Challenge to Behaviorism
• A form of cognitive learning
• We learn by watching others’
behavior and the consequences of
their behavior
• Albert Bandura: Proposed
that rewards can be effective
if we merely see someone
else get them
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Observational Learning
• Accounts for such things
as the rapid spread of
clothing fashions and
slang expressions
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Bandura’ Bobo Doll Experiment
1961
• Bandura found that the
children exposed to the
aggressive model were
more likely to act in
physically aggressive
ways than those who
were not exposed to the
aggressive model.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
The Bobo Doll Experiment Video
Albert Bandura
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Children See, Children Do
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Recent Cognitive Psychologists Findings
Kamin
Rescorla
• Expanded on this concept and
demonstrated that a CS - R
• Has shown that the
connection only occurs if the
most critical feature of
CS contains unique
a CS is its value in
predicting when the US information about the UCS
will occur
– EX: Taste aversion- a
certain flavor/smell
could server as a
warning for illness
– When presents with multiple
possible CS, a subject will only
become conditioned to the one
that provided the best info
• EX: Flu=eat Taco Bell food or
smells become the CS
• CS is not the Taco Bell sign, the
colors blue, pink, and purple, bells,
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fountain drink stations, etc…
Summary
Reinforcement changes
not only the behavior
but also the
individual’s
expectations for
future rewards and
punishments in similar
situations .
Reinforcement changes
expectations and behavior
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Brain Mechanisms and Learning
Long-term Potentiation
• Biological process involving the strengthening of
synapses in groups of nerve cells; believed to be the
neural basis of learning
• Dopamine a “reward neurotransmitter” is released
in mammals w/ Operant Conditioning. Continuous
Reinforcement of behavior releases dopamine,
which brings pleasure and strengthens the neural
pathway associated with that behavior, making a
LASTING behavior
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
Are There Two Learning Circuits??
• Simple ‘mindless’ learning, like learning to
ride a bike
• More complex learning that requires
conscious processing: concept formation,
insight learning, observational learning,
memory of specific events.
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007
End of Chapter 6
Copyright © Allyn & Bacon 2007