Animal Learning Comparative cognition is a psychological approach to learning that studies how animals process information. S.T. Boysen (1998) in his article presents the summary and review of different issues concerning this approach specifically in relation to animal learning. Pervious studies and researches were discussed and their findings were carefully explained to show how cognitive learning approach has evolved over the years and what it tells us about "information-processing, reasoning, memory, and the phylogenetic emergence of mind" in nonhuman species. Imitative behavior and the influence of imitation on learning capabilities of an animal have occupied the most important place in comparative cognitive research. However imitation has been a contentious subject with varying definitions as key researchers have failed to agree on one specific pattern of learning through imitation even though the earliest studies in this connection appeared during late 19th century. For example Romanes (1884) found that imitation required "intelligent perception of the desirability of the modification on the part of certain individuals, who modify their actions accordingly," however his research was limited to human learning. Morgan (1900)...
His work prompted later researchers to discover what exactly was meant by true imitation and if there were indeed more than one type of imitative learning. This led Galef (1988) to disclose various kinds of imitative behavior some 100 years later. He classified imitation into "intelligent imitation, reflective imitation, instinctive imitation, pseudo-imitation, true imitation" etc. Galef and others that followed this theory maintained that learning through imitation was subjected to social influences. It was found that animals learnt mainly through interaction with the local and stimulus enhancements. In other words,
Perceptual learning involves long lasting and amazing changes to the human perceptual system that incredibly improve one's ability to respond to the environment. The mechanisms of perceptual learning include attention weighting, imprinting, differentiation, and unitization. With attention weighting, perception becomes adapted to tasks by increasing the attention paid to important dimensions and features. With imprinting, special receptors are developed that are specialized for specific stimuli. With differentiation, stimuli that were once indistinguishable
Latent learning; this is the type of learning that takes place oblivious of the reinforcements that are applied though these reinforcements can be useful later on in the process of learning. It is the education that is instantly expressed in a response that is obvious. Here, an organism may be learning but the information learnt is not instantly expressed (Robert Jensen, 2006). For instance, a child may watch the elders
PSYCHOLOGY as a SCIENCE Psychology is a relatively new field of science as opposed to the natural sciences because it was born out of the spirit of humanism after the Renaissance (Hergenhahn, 108). As a result, methods and norms in the field are still being developed. In addition, the subject matter of the field includes the mind, personality and other intangible entities that cannot be subjected to the same kind of
A dog hits a lever when it sees a light that signifies that it will be shocked. A person takes medicine before having certain foods that he or she knows will cause a stomachache (Sidman, 2006, p. 136). Above, the differences between operant and classical conditioning were noted. However, sometimes the distinction is blurred. In biofeedback, for instance, psychologists feed back information to the patients regarding their physiologic processes, which
Animal Communication may be defined as the transmission of a signal from one animal to another such that the sender benefits, on average, from the response of the recipient (Pearce). According to Robert Mannell this definition allows for the inclusion of many types of behavior and permits communication to be applied to a great range of animals. Natural animal communication can include chemical signals, smell, movement, posture, facial gestures, visual
Chance tries to explain the key differences in Pavlovian procedures by stating that "the most important difference is that Pavlovian conditioning involves pairing stimuli (the CS and U.S.) while operant learning involves pairing responses and stimuli." (pg 111) the average reader is likely not to readily discern the difference that easily. Turning back to the section on Pavlovian conditioning is imperative at this point in the book and therefore another
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