Download Cognitive Learning - Scott County Schools

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING
SOCIAL LEARNING THEORY
WOULD YOU TREAT BOBO THIS WAY?
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Children were told to play while in another part
of the room an adult “model” aggressively
“played” with a 5 foot inflated Bobo doll. The
model laid the Bobo doll on its side, sat on it and
punched it repeatedly in the nose. The model
then raised the Bobo doll, picked up a mallet and
stuck the doll on the head.
Following this the children were brought to a
room that contained many attractive toys and...
Yes, a Bobo doll!
How will the children react to the Bobo doll?
WOULD YOU TREAT BOBO THIS WAY?

The children exhibited a good deal of aggressive
behavior toward the Bobo doll- behavior
resembling that of the adult model.

Basically they beat the crap out of Bobo—OH NO!
MODELING
Albert
Bandura
WHAT IS OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING?
 Observation
or Social Learning- Process of
altering behavior by observing and
imitating the behavior of others

Learning goes beyond stimuli or
reinforcement

Two Types:
Modeling
 Cognitive

MODELING
 Modeling:
Learned by imitating
others; copying behavior

Three Types:
General Modeling: behavior will increase
if others are doing it
 Observational Learning: observer
watches someone perform and
reproduces it closely
 Disinhibition: engage in threatening
activity because the person they are
watching are not punished for behavior

MIRROR NEURONS
Frontal lobe neurons that fire when performing
certain actions or when observing another doing
so.
 1991 Accidental Experiment
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Monkey with implanted wires located in the frontal
lobe region. Every time monkey placed a peanut into
his mouth, a monitored would buzz. One day a
researcher returned from lunch with an ice cream
cone in hand. The monkey stared. As the researcher
raised the cone to lick it, the monkey’s monitored
buzzed- the monkey had not moved.
You find it hard to smile when you see a frown,
you find yourself yawning when you see another
person yawn, you laugh when others laugh.
COGNITIVE LEARNING
Cognitive Learning: form of altering
behavior that involves mental processes and may
result from observation or imitation

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Cognitive Maps: a mental picture of spatial
relationships or relationships between events


Concerned with the mental processes of learning
Mental picture of a place
Tolman placed a rat in a maze & allowed the rat
to explore. Next, food was placed at the end of the
maze. What route did the rat take in order to get
to the food?
COGNITIVE LEARNING


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The rat quickly learned to take the shortest route
to the food.
When the shortest route was blocked, the rat
found the second shortest route.
The rat had developed a cognitive map of the
maze, which was created when the rat explored
the maze on it’s own.
COGNITIVE LEARNING

Latent Learning: alteration of behavior that is
not demonstrated by an immediate, observable
change in behavior

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Behavior is learned without reinforcers but may not
be present until reinforcer is present
Rat learned to find the second shortest route
through latent learning. It didn’t intend to use
this route, but learned it through exploration.


Time for Bobo!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqNaLerMNOE
COGNITIVE LEARNING
 Learned
Helplessness: condition in which
repeated attempts to control a situation
fail, resulting in the belief that the
situation is uncontrollable.
Ex. If a person gets rewarded for
nothing, they do not learn to work

Learned Helplessness is very common in
the classroom!!!!!!!

*Does your child
hate school?
*Can't seem to
keep up with his
class
*Fights doing
homework
*Lacks motivation
and self-esteem
 In
an experiment on learned helplessness,
Seligman found that animals that were unable
to change their situation for long periods of
times seemed unable or unwilling to change
when the possibility of change was opened to
them.
I CAN’T
DO
THIS!!!
COGNITIVE LEARNING

Learned helplessness is one major cause
of depression

Three important elements
 Stability: result of a permanent
characteristic (I never have done well on
math tests and I never will!!!)
 Globality: problem is a large scaling issue
(I’m dumb!)
 Internal: Stability + Globality = reasons
for failure