Stages Of Learning

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Our topic is learning. Learning is a relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs through experience (Laura A. King, 2009). The “relatively permanent” part of the definition refers to the fact when people learning anything, some part of their brain is physically changed to record what they have learned ( Farmer et a l, 2013; Loftus&Loftus, 1980 retrived from Saundra k. Ciccarelli, J. Noland White, 2015). When we make a mistake and gain from it, we will remember this experience and will not repeat it again. This shows that we learned something from the past experience.
A theory of learning that focuses solely on observable behaviours discounting the importance of such mental activity as thinking, wishing and hoping is called behaviourism. …show more content…

Stages 1 is before conditioning. The UCS produces an UCR in an organism in this stage. This means that a stimulus in the environment has produced a behaviour / response which is unlearned (i.e. unconditioned) and therefore is a natural response which has not been taught. In this respect no new behaviour has been learned yet. For example, the smell of food can create hunger. This stage also involves another stimulus, neutral stimulus (NS) which has no effect on a person. The NS could be a person, object, place, etc. The neutral stimulus in classical conditioning does not produce a response until it is paired with the unconditioned …show more content…

Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behaviour and a consequence for that behaviour. In operant conditioning, there are positive and negative reinforcement and positive and negative punishment. Positive reinforcement are favourable events or outcomes that are given to the individual after the desired behaviour. This may come in the form of praise, rewards, etc. Negative reinforcement typically are characterized by the removal of an undesired or unpleasant outcome after the desired behaviour. A response is strengthened as something considered negative is removed. The goal in both of these cases of reinforcement is for the behaviour to increase. Punishment, in contrast, is when the increase of something undesirable attempts to cause a decrease in the behaviour that follows. Positive punishment is when unfavourable events or outcomes are given in order to weaken the response that follows. Negative punishment is characterized by when a favourable event or outcome is removed after a undesired behaviour occurs. The goal in both of these cases of punishment is for a behaviour to

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