Unit 4 · Learning Theory · Reading 13 of 13
Learning Inside the Head
Before you read
Have you ever stared at a problem, gotten nowhere, and then had the answer suddenly click? Where were you, and what were you doing?
Words you'll own by the end
- Cognitive learning: learning that involves thinking and mental processes, not just outward behavior.
- Insight learning: a sudden solution after thinking about a problem (Wolfgang Köhler).
- Latent learning: learning that happens without reinforcement and shows up only once there's a reason (Edward Tolman).
- Cognitive map: a mental picture of a place.
- Learned helplessness: giving up after repeated failure because you believe nothing you do matters (Martin Seligman).
1. Bringing the mind back
As Reading 10 said, psychologists eventually decided to study what happens in the mind, not just outward behavior. That's cognitive learning. Cognitive psychologists don't throw out behavior. They argue that thinking and perceiving are tied to behavior and should be studied together.
2. Insight: the "aha!" moment
Insight learning is when a solution comes suddenly after thinking about a problem, like an exam answer that suddenly seems obvious. In the 1920s, Wolfgang Köhler put bananas out of reach of chimpanzees. In one case, the bananas hung from the ceiling of a tall enclosure, with crates and sticks lying around. A chimp jumped and failed, then sat and stared. Suddenly it got up, stacked the crates, climbed them, and used a stick to knock the bananas down. No trial-and-error, no reinforcement for each step: a sudden solution.
Check-in: What makes insight learning different from shaping?
3. Latent learning: Tolman's rats
Edward Tolman coined latent learning: learning that happens without reinforcement and stays hidden until there's a reason to show it. That challenged Skinner, who argued all learning comes from reinforcement and punishment.
Tolman ran three groups of rats through a maze. Group A got food at the end every time and steadily made fewer errors. Group B never got food and didn't improve. Group C wandered the maze for 10 days with no food. On day 11, they started getting food, and they immediately ran the maze as well as Group A or better.
What Tolman saw
Group C had been learning the maze all along. They just had no reason to show it. Tolman said they had built a cognitive map: a mental picture of the maze. You have cognitive maps of your house, your school, and your town.
Check-in: Behaviorists predicted Group C would improve slowly after day 11, like Group A did. Why were they wrong?
4. Learned helplessness
Martin Seligman coined learned helplessness: you try, you keep failing, and eventually you quit, because you've come to believe nothing you do changes the outcome. Maybe you gave math your best in middle school and kept failing, and now you don't try much because "it won't matter." Learned helplessness is a major part of cognitive explanations of depression, which you'll see again in the personality and clinical units.
Try it: Which kind of cognitive learning?
Match each example.
You ride as a passenger to school for years. The first time you drive, you know every turn.
After three failed tryouts, Jordan won't try out again: "I'm just not good enough."
Stuck on a puzzle, you take a break, then suddenly see the solution.
A rat that explored a maze without food finds the food quickly once it's added.
5. The big picture
No single kind of learning is most important. Today most psychologists take an eclectic approach, using classical, operant, observational, and cognitive explanations together. You'll use these ideas again when you study personality and the treatment of psychological disorders.
Am I ready for a pop quiz?
Check a box only if you can say the answer out loud without scrolling up.
Come back to your "before you read" question
Your "aha!" moment was insight. Notice it came after you'd already worked on the problem, not from nowhere. Köhler's chimp spent time stuck first too.
Unit 4 readings complete
You've read the whole chapter in 13 pieces. Before the test, go back and redo every "Am I ready?" checklist. Anything you can't check off is what you ask about on review day.