Skip to main content

ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING

 

The capacity to learn is a gift;

The ability to learn is a skill; 

The willingness to learn is a choice. 

– Brian Herbert, American author (b 1947) 

The first stage in the learning process, Cognitive learning is more a natural way of learning that happens through observation, listening, language and emotion. It is more of a mental process rather than experience. The next stage – associative learning, is the way brain learns to associate things together. When we associate a number or an event with what we already know well (example: remembering a number associating with birthday) we tend to recall in a jiffy. Many a times this helps in building memory. Many of us have passed our academic examinations based on our memory and ability to write fast!

Even after completing four years, our second son was finding it very difficult to learn English alphabets. My wife*, a highly rated teacher by her students, found it tough to make him read the usual books that were available for Kinder-garden students. He was always interested in riding his tricycle or playing with toy cars. Looking at his interest, I suggested to my wife to create a book with pictures of all types of vehicles; example: A-Aeroplane, B-Bus, C-Car, D-Double Decker, etc. With this newly designed book, he learnt all the alphabets in less than three days! With constant support and guidance of my wife, he passed his tenth standard board examination in flying colours scoring over 87%!

This type of associative learning is known as Classical Conditioning. It is one of the fundamental ways we learn about the world around us. But it is far more than just a theory of learning; it is also arguably a theory of identity. Recently, I came across a theoretical frame-work which interestingly aligned with the solution that I had developed way back in 1991, helping my wife to teach my second son English alphabets! (Bouton, M. E, 2022, Conditioning and learning in R. Biswas-Diener & E. Diener (Eds), Noba textbook series: Psychology. Champaign, IL: DEF publishers).

The figure below summarizes the frame-work – any reinforced operant response (R) is paired with an outcome (O) in the presence of some stimulus or set of stimuli (S). In our son’s case, the stimulus was movement, response was the interest that he showed in learning and the outcome, his progress in English language over a period of time.


The other type of associative learning is instrumental conditioning (also known as operant conditioning), through which the strength of the behaviour is modified by reinforcement – reward or punishment. In the case of my son, it was reward – he was able to move from one class to another, year after year!

Thus, associative learning is necessarily associated with stimuli – internal or external. The stimuli can be conditional or unconditional. To a large extent I have used associative learning not only to improve myself, but apply in guiding my second son to overcome many of his difficulties in cognitive learning.

*Hema Ravikumar, worked as teacher of Statistics at M.L.A. Junior College for Women, Bangalore (1979-2015,) serving as Principal of the college during her last three years of service.

~~~ 
December 1, 2022 | Ravi 55 


 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

GROWTH & CHANGE

Behind every successful man, there is a surprised woman.  But behind every happy man, there are many silent women.  In the 21st century, driven by technology with a growing number of gratificationseekers, understanding oneself in terms of one’s potential and limitations to lead a happy and fulfilling life is increasingly becoming complex. While we can observe or experience the changes happening around us and realize the necessity to modify ourselves, as we grow older, adapting to change becomes more difficult.  Born in a middle-class, not-so-conservative family living in the then beautiful Bangalore, around the time when India became a full-fledged Republic[1], growing up was easy and fun-filled. My mother tells me that when she was relaxing after lunch in the main hall of our ancestral house, on a cosy afternoon towards the end of July, I popped out of her, as if in a tearing hurry to see how the real world looks like. She also tells me that no one was around at that tim...
Post a Comment
Read more

LEARNING FROM LIFE – CONCLUSION

  1989 was the watershed year of my life; though the three enterprises of which I was one of the founding members were all doing well, from my perspective it was a disaster year; several things like my father’s death, wife suffering from Rheumatoid Arthritis, couple of raids by Sales Tax and Excise officials at the factory and peaking of my asthmatic disturbances happened one after another or sometimes simultaneously in a matter of a few months. This made me to introspect seriously and the outcome was the 4F Framework. The gist of the framework is Follow fundamentals that are essential for life Have faith in yourself  Protect family that represents values and culture  Manage finances effectively. Dr. Paul Nurse[1], a Nobel laureate in his book ‘What is Life’[2] explains the five core elements that form basis of all living beings – 1. Cell  2. Gene  3. Evolution by natural selection  4. Life as Chemistry and  5. Life as Information.  Though Paul ha...
Post a Comment
Read more

LEARNING TO LIVE IN THE PRESENT – MICRO ENTREPRENEURS

  The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness. -Abraham Maslow, American Psychologist (1908-70) In a world that often feels overwhelmed by the past or consumed by the future, it’s important to remember the power of living in the present moment. Embracing the present not only allows us to fully experience life’s joys and challenges but also cultivates a mindful and fulfilling existence. Having grown up in an old locality[1] of Bangalore, very close to the main business district situated around the Mahatma Gandhi road, I was familiar with microentrepreneurs[2] – typically street vendors, push-cart vendors, petty shop-keepers and even auto drivers. Though I have been living in this locality for most of my life, it was only after registering for my doctoral research in the area of entrepreneurship (2002), I started observing them closely. Most of these entrepreneurs have migrated to this locality from different regions of Karnataka, neighbouring Stat...
Post a Comment
Read more