Learning and Cognition PSY 390 Learning and Cognition Learning is a complex subject to define. It is one of the cognitive processes that have been studied by psychologists extensively. To define learning it is important to look at many events that occur when learning as well as the outcome after they are learned. For the most part, witnessing a change in behavior is the foundation to studying cognitive processes. It is no different when examining learning we find as individuals learn they show a change in behavior.
The main thrust of this perspective is that people respond and demonstrate behavior from observing people in their environment (Engler, 2008). Likewise, the model also considers other factors that allow individuals to perform according to specific functions. Specifically, the interplay of behavioral, cognitive, and environmental factors provide the continued human development. A key component that promotes social learning theory is the process of modeling. In particular, modeling is complemented through the application of attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation (Engler, 2008).
• Albert Bandura (social learning): - Claimed that humans are cognitive beings (concerned with acquiring knowledge). Individual’s process information from the environment and this plays a major role on their learning and development. This is called the ‘Social Learning Theory’. Bandura’s approach is influential in the analysis of media violence on children and the treatment of behaviour problems and
These big ideas can be categorized under social thinking, social influence, or social relations. The idea that we construct our social reality falls under social thinking, it describes the natural human urge to explain behavior, by attempting to attribute it to a cause, in order to make it seem orderly, predictable, and controllable (Myers, 2010). According to social psychology our social intuitions are powerful and sometimes perilous, suggesting that the human ability to understand something immediately, molds or influences behavior because it also shapes fears, attitudes, impressions, and relationships (Myers, 2010). It is also believed that social influences shape behavior as does behavior shape social influences. Myers (2010) provides an example as to how behavior is shaped by social influences making humans social creatures, “We speak and think in words we learned from others (Social psychology, p. 7).
Kolb’s Experiential Theory of Learning The Experiential Learning Theory (ELT) provides a holistic model of the learning process and a multilinear model of adult development, both of which are consistent with what we know about how people learn, grow, and develop. The theory is called “Experiential Learning” to emphasize the central role that experience plays in the learning process, an emphasis that distinguishes ELT from other learning theories. The term “experiential” is used therefore to differentiate ELT both from cognitive learning theories, which tend to emphasize cognition over affect, and behavioral learning theories that deny any role for subjective experience in the learning process. Another reason the theory is called “experiential” is its intellectual origins in the experiential works of Dewey, Lewin, and Piaget. Taken together, Dewey’s philosophical pragmatism, Lewin’s social psychology, and Piaget’s cognitive-developmental genetic epistemology form a unique perspective on learning and development.
Functionalism studied the psychological processes which enable individuals to be able to adapt to their environments; each psychological process has an important role which is their main point of focus. William James, who is one of the founders of functionalism, felt that in order to study psychology, it had to come from multiple sources, through introspection, experimentation, the study of children, the
Many of those factors are either biological or environmental. Biological factors are the traits and characteristics people are born with. The environment an individual grows up in helps to shape his or her personality. Freud believes that the unconscious affects an individual’s personality. The unconscious is storage for an individual’s instincts and drives that he or she is not aware of (Feist & Feist, 2009, p. 24).
Humanistic psychology looks at positive realisation, it states that everyone is different and that those differences are good as it makes people have different views. The humanistic approach sets out a hierarchy of needs which everyone work to achieve the goal of being a fully functioning person. The Cognitive view of psychology tries to understand the internal mental processes of an individual, associates brains with computers in the sense that we process information and produce an outcome from the stimulus as we process and give an output on the data we have encoded. The social learning theory depicts people as copying behaviour of others when that behaviour is observed to being rewarding for that person. The psychological approach believes human behaviour as determined by reinforcement and punishment contingencies in the environment.
Verbal Learning Mandana Smith PSY/550 May 28, 2012 Maya Aleksic, Ph.D. Verbal Learning Learning styles vary by individuals as he or she learns in various ways. Concepts of learning and styles have become more influential in research, psychology, society, and educators alike. Promotion of learning styles is assessed through various testing, technology, and devices that can assess learning styles. By understanding how individuals learn, approaches can be identified to maximize learning styles to enhance retention, processing, absorption, and concentration of difficult or new information. Interactions between elements happen differently with individuals (Pashler, McDaniel, Rohrer, & Bjork, 2009).
The view of learning as restructuring and replacing old beliefs implies that transition involves unlearning as much as it does learning. A further hypothesis suggests that instruction may need to recapitulate transitions in the history of science to help learners transit from their own naive theories. Conceptual recapitulation refers to a means of remediating learning problems by retracing instructionally what should have been naturally occurring developmental stages for an individual (Case, Sandieson, & Dennis, 1986). But it might fit the historical recapitulation hypothesis as well. There also seem to be qualitative shifts in the mental models needed by learners to understand more complex systems, for example, in such domains as electricity (Frederiksen & White, in press).