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Learning and Cognition

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Learning and Cognition
Spencer Surjue-Bowens
Psych390
Prof. Gayle Ball
October 10, 2012

Throughout history there have been many theories on the different styles of how people learn and retain information. There have also been different speculations on how these different learning styles pertain to certain types of behavior. Although this has been a strenuous taskresearchers have been able to conclude some theories by correlating learning to behavior.
There are many variables to consider when discussing learning and cognition. According to Bietz (2010) “Learning is often defined as a relatively lasting change in behavior that is the result of experience. Learning became a major focus of study in psychology during the early part of the twentieth century as behaviorism rose to become a major school of thought. Today, learning remains an important concept in numerous areas of psychology, including cognitive, educational, social, and developmental psychology.” People normally link learning with the different experience that occur in life. Most can relate what they learned to a certain emotion that presented itself at that time. Behavior is at the core of psychology; it is behavior that we study,analyze and experiment to understand the psychology of any person (Changani, 2011). There are numerous behavior types and most behaviors are a series of learned conditions that one experienced. Behavior plays a considerable role in learning because it is through one’s behavior that what they have learned is displayed. There are many variations of learning styles. Operant conditioning is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior. There are key components to operant conditioning such as reinforcement and punishment. There are two types of reinforcement that consist of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforces are favorable outcomes that are given after the behavior. In situations that involve positive reinforcement certain responses or behaviors are strengthened by reward or praise. Negative reinforcement is when something pleasant is removed after the display of certain behaviors. Situations involving negative reinforcement responses are strengthened by the removal of something unpleasant. In another case punishment decreases the probability that a certain behavior will not repeat again. There too are two types of punishments which goes as follows: negative punishment which is also referred to as punishment by application, occurs when a behavior is is followed by a stimulus, such as introducing a shock or loud noise, resulting in a decrease in that behavior. According to Stevens (2002) “negative punishment occurs when a behavior is followed by the removal of a stimulus, such as taking away a child's toy following an undesired behavior, resulting in a decrease in that behavior.” Classical conditioning is a reflexive or automatic type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus (Pavlov, 1927). Pavlov discovered that we respond to certain stimuli when they are not occurring.
In this essay one has discussed in detail the relationship between learning and cognition. One also discussed the different types of learning styles and their characteristics.As technology keeps rising researches will be able to determine exactly how learning and cognition correlates. There will come a time when there are not anymore theories and only facts.

References
Bietz, K. (2010). The relationship between learning and cognition.
Changani, N. (2011). Child Psychology.The role of behavior and learning in human development.
Pavlov, I. P. (1927). Conditioned Reflexes: An Investigation of the Physiological Activity of the Cerebral Cortex. Translated and Edited by G. V. Anrep. London: Oxford University Press
Stevens, P. (2002). Studying Styles.A guide to learning styles.

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