Learning — Psychology STD 11 Humanities — Question

Insight learning is a form of cognitive learning.

• Insight is defined as sudden perception of relationship between the learner, the goal and intervening obstacles.
• Insight occurs when the learner suddenly sees the relations between two valuables. Many experiments have been performed on insight learning. One of the simplest of these experiments requires the chimpanzee to reach food with a stick when it cannot be reached by hand and when nothing else other than a stick is a available in the room. Latent learning is another form of cognitive learning.

The word latent means ‘hidden’ and thus latent learning is learning that occurs but is not evident in behaviour until later, when conditions for its appearance are favourable.

• Latent learning is said to occur without reinforcement of particular responses and seems to involve changes in the ways information is processed.
• Thus latent learning is an example of cognitive learning.

Experimental evidence:

• Rats in an experimental group the latent learning group were first given plenty of experience in a maze. After they thoroughly experienced the maze, reinforced maze learning under instrumental conditioning began ie. They were rewarded for their successful effort.
• The rats in a control group are not being given experience with the maze. The control group animals were put in a box that is unlike the maze.
• When reinforcement for maze learning starts, the experimental group did better than the rats in the control group.
• The latent learning group rats learned the maze faster and with fewer errors than did the control animals.
• It proves that the latent learning showed up in their performance.