Learning

        Learning, in psychology, is defined a bit differently than educational learning. In chapter 6, the chapter starts off with the definition of learning - the process by which life experience causes a change in the behavior or thinking of an organism. (Week 7 - Chapter 6: Learning) There are three principal areas of learning: classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and observational learning. In this blog post, I will be focusing on Classical Conditioning.

        Classical Conditioning is a form of learning in which animals or people make a connection between two stimuli that have occurred together such that one predicts the other (Week 7 - Chapter 6: Learning). Essentially this type of conditioning occurs when one begins to associate an object, sight, or sound with a specific sensation. Ivan Pavlov, who was a medical researcher (a physiologist), committed his professional life to the study of the digestive system. He wanted to measure the salvation of the dog when he presented it with food, so he placed him in a harness. Pavlov and his assistant would bring food to a dog, and they would measure how much the dog's mouth watered with the help of specialized equipment. When studying the digestive system with a dog, he then accidentally discovered classical conditioning. This occurred when the dog started to salivate on at the sight and sound of the lab assistant bringing in the food. The dog learned and remembered the pattern over time or through repetition of the food being brought to him.

        Another experiment using classical conditioning was Dr. Watson's experiment.
Dr. Watson did an experiment over a child named "Albert". In his "Little Albert" experiment, it showed classical conditioning. Dr. Watson conditions the child to fear things like a dog, a Santa Clause mask, fire, a monkey, a rabbit, and a white rat. He does this by making a loud noise when the child would try to reach these things. This resulted in Albert fearing all of the aforementioned things.


        In my personal opinion, I would say this theory is very interesting. This theory shows how adjustable humans and animals are to learning new things. We learn by association and recurring situations or examples. A real-life example would be the cows hearing the noise of the feed hitting the trough, and running towards the location they are hearing it from. They are basically trained to run to come eat when they hear the rattling noise.

        A real-world application in classical conditioning can be used to teach children to do chores and to be rewarded for them. For example, when I was younger my mother used to have a wall where it listed certain chores with an amount of money as the reward for completing them. This motivated me to do as many chores as possible, and it turned into a habit after a few weeks/months of doing this. I would automatically look for new chores to do every week in order to have money for school or events.



Sources:

Week 7_Chapter_Pomerantz1e_Learning.pdf

https://www.verywellmind.com/the-little-albert-experiment-2794994

https://www.verywellmind.com/what-is-learning-2795332