3 approaches to learning - cognitive

3 approaches to learning - cognitive

1. Animals used to demonstrate generalised learning expectations

   • Mercado et al (2000): Bottle-nose dolphins distinguished pairs of shaped the same and not the same, then applied to shapes never seen before
   • Sappington & Goldman (1994): Arabian horses & 'triangularity'

2. Developed as dissatisfied with behaviourism

3. Concerned with mind function and processes (what and how)

4. Category learning: how people mentally organise things

   • Bruner et al (1956): patterned cards; successive scanning; conservative focusing.
     • People use real-world knowledge to exclude possible cards
     • Meaningful information interferes with logical processess
     • Lacked validity: patterned cards not a problem that often needs solving
   • Murphy and Medin (1985): Use prior knowledge to infer common links - 'like' but not compared
   • Murphy and Allopenna (1994): Look for common themes EG underwater building, but not attributes
   • Kaplan and Murphy (2000): only one common attribute needed to identify a theme

5. Meaningful info and background knowledge are important to category learning

6. Nativism (Plato): our ideas are innate

7. Fodor and Chomsky: cat learning can't be based on testing hypotheses

   • Inductive reasoning: form a hypothisis through known facts that match our past EG all mammals are hairy
     • Other categories can fit within a category
     • Past experience is not complete. Egg laying mammals dispute that all mammals give birth to live babies
       • Only realise this when see other hypotheses we ignored
     • This approach gives false information
       • Therefore, category learning must be innate
         • Challenged as being absurd by Paiget