Learning

Reactive learning, in which new reactions to stimuli are developed. This is a passive form of learning: to acquire new reactions, a living being does not perform any action on the external environment.

The simplest type of learning. The main forms of reactive learning: addiction and sensitization, imprinting, classical conditioning.

Addiction and sensitization

These simplest forms of learning are found in the most primitive animals, but they also persist in humans.

Addiction (habituation) is a decrease in response to the repeated action of an insignificant stimulus. For example, a person gets used to sleeping soundly under the noise of cars under the windows.

Sensitization , on the contrary, is an increase in the reaction upon repeated action of a significant stimulus. For example, in a person who is greatly frightened by a loud sound, for some time the reaction to quiet sounds also intensifies.

Imprinting

Imprinting (“imprinting”) is an instant learning, “learning the first time.” A classic example of imprinting is the formation of attachment of goslings to the first moving object seen after hatching. In the natural habitat, this object is the mother, and the goslings immediately after hatching begin to follow her everywhere; The biological significance of this phenomenon is obvious. If the experimenter or even an inanimate object (for example, a ball) is the first moving object, then the goslings begin to follow it.

An important regularity of imprinting is that it is formed in strictly defined periods of life, called critical periods. In the goslings example, the critical period is the first hours after birth. This pattern also extends to many other forms of learning similar to imprinting: for example, a canary can learn to sing only if it is planted in a certain period of life to an adult singing individual; the child has a certain critical period (up to 5 years) for the formation of speech. Thus, critical periods in the broad sense of the word are periods in which certain forms of behavior are especially easily formed and especially firmly fixed.

Classical conditioning

This is the formation of classical (Pavlovian) conditioned reflexes. The conditioned reflexes differ from the unconditioned by the following main features.

Unconditioned reflexes are mostly innate, they arise in response to the action of the stimulus always, without any preconditions (hence the unconditioned).

Conditioned reflexes - new, acquired; they are developed under certain conditions (hence the conditional), the main of which are as follows:

A typical example is the development of conditioned reflex salivation. Presentation of food is an unconditional irritant: in a more or less hungry animal or human, it always causes salivation. If the presentation of food is preceded several times by turning on the light bulb, then after a certain number of repetitions, saliva will be released in response to turning on the light bulb.

If the unconditioned stimulus ceases to be reinforced, then the conditioned reflex gradually ceases to manifest itself. For example, if you develop a conditioned-reflex salivation to turn on a light bulb, and then stop turning on this presentation of food, then after a while the appearance of the light bulb will cease to cause salivation. This phenomenon is called conditional inhibition. There are several types of conditional inhibition, but all of them have the main common property: they arise in response to non-reinforcement.

The biological meaning of conditioned reflexes is that conditioned stimuli have a signal value, that is, they inform about upcoming important events. Thus, the reaction to a conditioned stimulus (conditioned reflex) provides an anticipatory response. Its significance is enormous: the vast majority of our actions are anticipatory responses to signals. Due to the constant development of conditioned reflexes to reinforced stimuli and inhibition of conditioned reflexes, when the reinforcement ceases, the body more and more finely and more accurately adapts to the environment.

Classical conditioning was discovered by I.P. Pavlov .

An operant teaching in which new actions are developed over the environment.

This is the formation of operant (instrumental) conditioned reflexes - active actions (operations) aimed at achieving the goal. The two main types of such learning are trial and error and social learning.

Trial and error method

This way of learning is that a living being, when a need arises, produces many different actions (tests); most of them are useless (errors), but some lead to the achievement of the goal, and then they are fixed in the form of operant conditioned reflexes. For example, a dove in a cage has a circle, a blow on which leads to the appearance of a feeding bowl with grain. A hungry pigeon actively walks around the cage, pecks different objects, and in case of accidental hit by a beak in a circle receives food. After a certain number of repetitions, the pigeon will already beating the circle with its beak to get food.

The development of operant conditioned reflexes can be directed, reinforcing some intermediate steps necessary to achieve the goal (for example, lay out a path for pigeons from the grains in the direction of the circle and glue one more grain to the circle). This method of training is called the method of forming reactions, it is widely used in training, partly in raising children and in different types of psychotherapy. It is used by animals in raising young individuals - for example, when a cat is raising kittens.

Social Learning

In the natural environment, neither the trial and error method, nor the method of reaction formation alone can ensure the adaptation and survival of the animal. Any mistake may turn out to be the last one: a hare cannot make a mistake in its behavior when it sees a wolf. The mentor, who forms the reaction, is also absent; the exception is the training of the cubs by their parents, but this method is quite limited. In this regard, social learning, or learning by observation, arose. Its essence boils down to the fact that the young individual learns not from his own, but from the mistakes of others: by copying the behavior of adult individuals, she takes over the experience of generations. This form of learning includes two types: simple imitation and vicar learning.

Simple imitation is blind copying of the actions of adults, without understanding its consequences. Simple imitation is characteristic of the youngest individuals - young children and young animals.

Imitation (vicar) learning is an imitation of a successful model with an understanding of the consequences. So someone imitates the beloved heroes of books or films, someone - the class leader, someone - famous athletes, actors, etc. This teaching is characteristic of older adults - adolescents and young animals; sometimes a person has it for life, actually replacing independent development and behavior.

This is the most complex and most perfect form of learning, in which a living being learns first to carry out actions on the mental model of reality, and then transfer the results to real reality.

Imagine a maze leading to a feeding trough; this maze first bifurcates into left and right branches, and then both branches converge. If a rat is trained to run to the feeder along the left branch, and then block it, then the rat, having stumbled upon a partition, suddenly turns and runs along the right branch, without preliminary trials and errors. In other words, in the process of learning, in her brain, under the influence of a stream of conscious and unconscious stimuli, a “terrain map” is formed - the so-called cognitive map . In the broad sense of the word, a cognitive map can be understood not only as a purely topographic map of the area, but any model of reality over which mental actions are performed. A classic example is a monkey, in which a narrow and wide meter tube lies in the cage, and at the distance of one and a half meters from the cage there is a banana; the monkey unsuccessfully tries to get it first with his hand, then with separate tubes, then freezes for a while (“thinks”) and suddenly suddenly inserts one tube into another and takes out a banana - moreover, she had never done this before.

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