Learning Paper

Learning Paper

  • Submitted By: mnieves25
  • Date Submitted: 11/10/2008 2:24 PM
  • Category: Psychology
  • Words: 1090
  • Page: 5
  • Views: 1573

Running head: LEARNING PAPER

Learning Paper

The Concept of Learning

Learning can be defined to activities that increase the capacity and willingness of an individual to acquire knowledge and skills to grow and solve problems. Learning includes most everything from academics to training for occupational skills. Psychologists have defined learning to include verbal knowledge, habits and skills, and behaviors outside the conscious awareness. The everyday meaning of the word knowledge implies a level of conscious awareness and verbalizable recall that is not present in many instances of learning. Learning may be defined as a relatively permanent change in behavior, or behaviors repertoire that occurs as a result of experience (Terry, 2006, pg 5). The object of learning is having some kind of evidence that there was a change in behavior. Learning and memory can not be directly observed because this process takes place in the nervous system.
There are many types of measures that can take place to show evidence of to what has been learned. In addition to recording the overt behavior of organisms (e.g. maze running), we can also record physiological responses of the internal activity of the body (e.g. heart rate) and verbal reports (e.g. recollections of past experiences) (Terry, 2006, pg 6). An example if this would be having a past experience where one has been bitten by a animal when they were young and now and increased heart rate and sweating occurs when they go near any animals years later.
Learning also involved the changes in behavioral repertoire which is the stock of behaviors that may be performed. This means that learning may not have an immediate reaction from someone but that it does have the potential for a change in behavior when conditions happen to prompt the display of what was learned. This was demonstrated by Albert Bandura who conducted a study of how children will imitate adults and the aggressive behaviors they exhibited. In one part...

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