NCERT Solutions for Class 11 Psychology Chapter 6 Learning

Ans : Learning is any relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential produced by experience or practice. Features of learning: The first feature is that learning always involves some kinds of experience. Behavioural changes that occur due to learning are relatively permanent. Learning involves a sequence of psychological events. 

Ans : Classical conditioning demonstrates learning by association as one stimulus signifies the possibility of the occurrence of another stimulus. Unconditioned stimulus and response are gradually conditioned. For example. in the experiment conducted by Ivan P. Pavlov on the dog. a bell was rung after which food was served to the dog. After some days. no food was served after the ringing of bell. but the dog still salivated to the sound of it and thus. associated the bell with the food. The association resulted in the acquisition of the new response by the dog. i.e. salivation to the sound of bell. In this case. the bell was a conditioned stimulus and saliva secretion was a conditioned response.
Therefore. in classical conditioning, one stimulus signifies the possible occurrence ot another stimulus. 

Ans : Operant conditioning refers to the conditioning of behaviours and responses that are under the control of animals and human beings and are emitted voluntarily by them. The behaviour is learned, maintained or changed through its consequences called reinforcers. These refer to a stimulus or event that increases the probability of the occurrence of the response. The factors that influence the course of operant conditioning are as follows: 
Type of reinforcements — Positive reinforcement involves pleasant consequences that satisfy needs. Negative reinforcement involves unpleasant and painful consequences that lead to learning of avoidance. 
Number and quality of reinforcements — The course of operant conditioning is accelerated by increase in number, amount and quality of reinforcements. 
Schedule of reinforcement — Continuous reinforcement elicits a desired response every time during a trial. Intermittent reinforcement elicits responses only intermittently. Delay in the delivery of reinforcement — It results in a poor level of conditioning and performance. 

Ans : A good role model is very important for a growing up child as children learn social behaviour and acquire personality characteristics by observing and emulating adults. It a form of learning that takes place by observing others,Hence it is caned modeling Which is a form of observational learning. The observers acquire knowledge by observing the model. Similarity, children learn various personality characteristics through observational learning. For instance, traits like aggressiveness. pro-social behaviour. courtesy. politeness. diligence and indolence are acquired through observational learning.
A negative role model would lead to the development of negative personality while a positive role model would lead to the development of good personality of the child. 

Ans : The following are the procedures for studying verbal learning: 
(i) paired Associates Learning 
This method is used to learn foreign languages. A list of paired-associates is prepared and the first word is used as a stimulus, while the second word is used as a response. 
Members of the each pair may be from the same language or two different languages.
The learner is first shown both the stimulus-response pairs and instructed to remember and recall the response after the presentation of each stimulus term. 
This continues until the participant remembers all the response words without any error. 
The total number of trials taken to reach the criterion becomes the measure of paired associates learning.
(ii) Serial Learning 
This method is used to find out the ways through which participants learn the lists of verbal items and the processes involved in it. 
The participant is presented with a list of nonsense syllables. most familiar or least familiar words and interrelated words. 
Then, he/she is required to produce the items in the same serial order. 
During the first trial. the participant is shown the first item after which he/she has to produce the second item. If the participant fails to do that then the second item is presented and the participant has to produce the third. 
The learning trials continue until the participant remembers all the items in the given order.
(iii) Free Recall 
The participants in this method are presented with a list of words to read and speak out After this. they are required to remember the words in any order. 
This method is used to study the kind of organisation of words made by the participants in order to store them in memory.