Chapter 1 Flashcards
What is learning?
Relatively permanent (open to change) changes in behaviour that result from experience. Not due to fatigue, aging, maturation, disease etc.
what is experience?
Exposure to external or internal events to which the organism is sensitive to. These events are called stimuli. Some type of experience has to occur for learning to occur.
What is change in behaviour?
Observable changes following experience.
What is the order of learning?
Experience >learning >change in behaviour
Bubba (grandmother) psychology
Known as “implicit” or “naive” psychology.
Grandmothers know / think something therefore it must be true
Common misconceptions about the brain
- Only 10% of the brain is used
- L & R hemisphere of brain have clearly separate functions
S brain never changes after birth
Mueller and Oppenheimer experiment
Learning occurs better / faster if individual writes their notes rather than type.
Laptop = transcribing = missing key points
What is rationalism?
Truth and knowledge to be found WITHIN us
What is empiricism?
Truth and knowledge found outside ourselves by using our senses ( experiential learning)
Was Plato a rationalist or empiricist ?
Rationalist
He believed truth and knowledge could be discovered through self-reflection.”tapping into your internal knowledge”
Was Aristotle a rationalist or empiricist?
Empiricist
He used his senses to look for truth and knowledge in the world outside of him.
What method of discovering truth did Socrates use?
He used the Dialectic method : investigating and discussing the truth of opinions. Ex tutorial discussions.
Modern education
Uses rationalism, empiricism and dialectic method synchronously
Roman Catholics learning theory
Invokes memorization and recitation ex- recitation of scripture.
Rene Descartes
Interested in the internal works of the body.
Revived the platonic concept of innate knowledge
Believed to be an interactive dualist “i think, therefore l am”
John Locke
Revived Aristotle’s empiricism with the concept of the Childs mind being a blank tablet (tabula rasa).
Blank slate brain
Who quoted this?
“ let us suppose the mind to be, as we say, white paper, void of all characters, without any ideas: how comes it to be furnished? Whence has it all the materials of reason and knowledge?… From experience”
John Locke
Who quoted this?
“The only habit which the child should be allowed to form is to contract no habit whatever.”
Jean - Jacque Rousseau
Allows children to experience things on their own to lead to learning.
Immanuel Kant
Suggests that a priori knowledge was knowledge that was present before experience (at birth)
Edward L. Thorndike
Puzzle boxes
First modern psychologist
Wanted to bring a scientific approach to psychology
Who was B.F Skinner and what did he work on
Was a behaviouralist
Animal testing ( operant conditioning)
Work with rats and mice: lever pressing
Work with pigeons: pecking (response rate)
B.F Skinner (response rate)
Allowed learning to be measured numerically
Response rate = # of responses divided by time
Who can laboratory animals help us understand according to Skinner?
Children
Jean Piaget
Believed learning to be a developmental cognitive process
States both memorization and free activity is needed for learning
Believes the age of subject must be considered when choosing a learning model
