Difference between Human and Animal learning

Difference between Human and Animal learning

1. The difference between man and animal in learning is due to superior intelligence found in man. By making use of intelligence, not only learn faster but also with less efforts.
2. Man's memory is better than that of the animals. It helps him to save time and energy in learning the material.
3.Man has the ability for abstract thinking which is lacking in the lower animals. This abstract thinking helps him to plan out learning before making any effort to learn.
4. Man has verbal ability which the animal is lacking. This helps him to read and understand the instructions or the directions given.

Types or forms of Learning

The following are the important types of learning :

1. Trial and Error learning

2. Insightful learning

3. Learning by imitation

4. Learning by conditioning and

5. Learning by instrumental conditioning


Trial and error learning :

A great volume of a psychologists reasearch on learning is based on animal studies. Animals are more easily amonable to experimentation than human beings and many mental processes are found in the simplest form among animals. Therefore many investigators have used animals as their subjects in the experiments. Perhaps the earliest systematic investigation of animal learning was that of E.L.Thorndike, a psychologist belonging to the columbia university. He introduced the concept of trial and error learning and also formulated certain comprehensive laws of learning.
Throndikes experiments on cats illustrate the trial and error learning. He put a hungry cat in a problem box or puzzle box which was a kind of cage made out of wooden bars. It was provided with a door. The puzzle box was designed in such a way that the door of the cage could be opened by manipulating a simple mechanism such as pulling a thread. A fish was put out side the cage to act the incentive to the cat. The experiment game was to study whether the cat would open the door and if it learnt, how did it learn and what process brought about such learning.
Thorndike observed that the cat in this situation exhibited varied activities such as clawing the bars, trying to squeeze itself through the space between the bars, biting the bars and similar other ' random behaviour' . This is called random the cat was trying to do what ever responses occurred to its mind about that time. However after sometime it accidentaly pulled the thread and finding that the door had opened, it came out. It was then allowed to eat the fish a little and immediately returned to the cage for a second trial was very much like the first. The useless random activities persisted until again the cat accidentally pulled the thread. Put again and again in the puzzle box, the cat continued to behave in the same manner but from trial to trial there was a gradual decrease in the useless activities and also in the time until finally the cat went straight to the thread, pulled it and got out. The cat had learnt to pull the thread and open the door of the cage. But the course of it's learning was not uniform and regular. In addition to being very slow, there were up's and down's in it's scores giving the impression that it had not learnt much extensive practice was needed for the cat to avoid all irrelevant behavoiur and to go straight to the thread and pull it. Thus the cat had learnt to manipulate the mechanism.
Trial and error learning consists of repeated efforts of the animals to explore the situation. The first success is by accident and is followed by further success. The expression trial and error has been expanded as the learning by repeated trials and a gradual elimination of errors.

To explain the process of learning Thorndike has suggested 3 laws of learning.

a. Law of effect :

According to this law any activity that gives satisfaction of success has a tendency to be established and gets fixed up. On the other hand any activity that does not lead to desired goal and causes the feeling of disappointment has a tendency to be dropped out. Thus the stamping in and stamping out of any activity is determined by the effect it produces.

b. Law of frequency :

According to this law, any activity repeated a certain number of times has a tendency to be established permanently. Thus the repeated activity becomes stronger and easier to repeat it again. On the other hand any activity that is not repeated is lightly to disappear for want of reputation.

c. Law of Recency :

According to this law, any act which is done recently has an advantage of being repeated once again, because of fresh experience. Thus these three laws govern trial and error learning.

Maze learning in animals

One of the most common experiment in animal learning is maze learning by whit rats. Generally a maze has wrong turns leading to blind allays. The correct path leads to the goal where the rat finds food. The plan of the experiment is to see the number of trials that the rat takes to learn the maze successfully. Entering the blind allays is taken as as error. In order to motivate properly, the rat is generally kept hungry 24 hours prior to the experiment. When the rat is place at the entrance of the maze it cannot see its way to the food. Naturally it becomes active and begins to explore the maze in an unorganized way. It enters all the parts leading to blind allays finally. It reaches the food, after allowing to eat a bid, it is place again at the entrances. Thus several trials are given per day as the trials. Entering the blind ally's finally after a number of trials it learns to avoid entering them, and runs directly and quickly through the correct path to react the food for each trial a number of errors and the time taken are noted.

Maze learning in human beings

In order to study the learning process in human being psychologist have used various types of mazes such as Finger Tracing maze, step maze, mirror tracing board etc. One of the common experiment is tracing the star pattern by means of a chalk piece or styles in the mirror tracing board. The subject has to trace the star pattern without touching the edges while tracing the pattern the subject is not suppose to look at pattern directly but it has to see through mirror where the whole thing is reverse. So it requires some learning. Therefore one can trace the pattern correctly. In the begening the subject tends to commit a lot of mistakes and the time taken will also be more but as the trials advance the number of error and the total time will get reduced.

Learning by imitation

Apart from learning by trial and error method and by insight, animals and human beings also learn by observing and attempting to copy the performances of others. However the activity to be imitated must be with in the limits of the imitator.
Learning to imitate is illustrated by and experiment conducted by Milln and Dollord on forty two first standard children.Two boxes were kept on two chairs in a room one child (the leader) was told, which of the two boxes must be open to secure a piece of candy. The box contained two pieces of candy and the child was instructed to take only one piece and leave the other behind. The second child (imitator) was rewarded with the second piece of candy if he opened the same as the leader. He was not rewarded if he went to the other box. Both the children at first stood at a short distance away from the two chairs on which the boxes were kept. It was found that only twenty present of the children learnt bye imitation to go to the correct box in the first trial itself. On the average it took three trials for the imitator to copy the performance of the first child. Thus this experiment explains how children learns by imitation.

Learning by conditioning

The term conditioning is used widely to mean to get adjusted or to get used to. It is a process of connecting a new and unnatural stimulus to an old and natural response, which by nature have nothing to do, with each other. Learning by conditioning was scientifically explained by a Russian physiologist I.P. Pavlov.

Classical conditioning experiment

The best known experiment on classical conditioning was performed by a Russian physiologist and nobel prize winner. I.P.Pavlov. He accidentally discovered the conditioned response, while performing a series of physiological experiments in the early part of the twentieth century. He was studying digestion and salivation in dogs, which he called as psychic secretion of saliva. He was using an apparatus to collect and measure the secretions of saliva by implanting tubes in the stomach or cheek. He had arranged to put powder into the dogs mouth and observed its salivary response to the food.
He had engaged an assistant to serve food and to take care of the dog. Pavlov believed that placing food in the dog's mouth cause salivations in the stomach. As the experiment continued the dog started salivating at the sight of the food alone then at the sight of the dish, the assistant and even at the approaching sound of his foot steps.
When the food is put into the mouth salivation is natural response because it causes chemical arousal of the sense receptors in the tongue and mouth where as salivation at the very sight of the food or dish or the servant is not natural but learnt. So Pavlov thought that if salivary response could be attached to the sight of the food along it can be attached to any stimulus which has nothing to do with response by nature.....................Read

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