Nonassociative Learning

Focus

Unexplained changes in stimulus–response pairings

Principal Metaphors

  • Knowledge is … repertoire of behaviors
  • Knowing is … behaving (triggered by stimuli)
  • Learner is … an organism-in-context
  • Learning is … changes in behavior (linking stimuli to responses)
  • Teaching is … training; engineering behavior (through deliberate conditioning)

Originated

1960s

Synopsis

Nonassociative Learning occurs when an organism’s responses to a stimulus change, with no apparent influence from learning events. Nonassociative Learning processes include:
  • Dishabituation (Dehabituation) – a recovery or restoration of a behavior that had become habituated (e.g., noticing a background noise that one had grown used to)
  • Extinction – reduction in a learned behavior
  • Habituation – a reduction in innate behavior (e.g., no longer startled by a loud noise)
  • Imprinting – a rapid type of learning, typically limited to a very tight window after birth, that involves an initial fixing of attention on an object or agent and a subsequent tendency to follow that object or agent. Imprinting has been observed in many birds, some fishes and insects, and a few mammals. Whether humans imprint is a disputed matter.
  • Inhibition/Disinhibition – increase/decrease in the intensity of a learned behavior, owing to processes not associated with the learning (e.g., observing consequences of others’ actions; recalling prohibitions from youth)
  • Satiation – the reduction or loss of a reinforcer’s effectiveness, due to repeated use
  • Sensitization – an increase in responsiveness to a specific stimulus
  • Spontaneous Recovery (Ivan Pavlov, 1920s) – the re-appearance of a thought-to-be-extinguished behavior. Although originally formulated to refer to the recovery of “lost” conditioned responses, the notion has since been extended to memories of all sorts.

Authors and/or Prominent Influences

See Behaviorisms.

Status as a Theory of Learning

See Behaviorisms.

Status as a Theory of Teaching

See Behaviorisms.

Status as a Scientific Theory

See Behaviorisms.

Subdiscourses:

  • Dishabituation (Dehabituation)
  • Extinction
  • Habituation
  • Imprinting
  • Inhibition/Disinhibition
  • Satiation
  • Sensitization
  • Spontaneous Recovery

Map Location



Please cite this article as:
Davis, B., & Francis, K. (2024). “Nonassociative Learning” in Discourses on Learning in Education. https://learningdiscourses.com.


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