Psychology Chapter 6 Learning

Question 1. What is learning? What are its distinguishing features?

Answer: The process of learning has certain features:

1. Learning always involves some kinds of experience or practice.

 Changes due to maturation or growth are not learning.
e.g.: One learns that if the bell rings in the hostel after sunset, then dinner is
ready to be served.
2. Sometimes a single experience can lead to learning.
e.g.: A child strikes a match stick on the side of a matchbox and gets her/his finger
burnt. Such an experience, makes the child learn to be careful in handling the
matchbox in future.
 Before it can be called learning, the change must be relatively permanent, it
must last for a fairly long time.
3. Learning must be distinguished from the behavioural changes that are neither
permanent nor learnt.
eg. changes in behaviour due to fatigue, habituation and drugs.
4. Learning is a change in behaviour, for better or worse.
5. Learning follows a sequence.

Question 2. How does classical conditioning demonstrate learning by

association?
Answer:

 Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which an organism learns to

associate stimulus.
 Conditioning is the simplest form of learning.
 Classical conditioning was first explained in Pavlovs experiments in which a dog
was kept on a harness with a tube attached to the dogs jaw on one end, a
measuring jar on the other end.
 The dogs was kept hungry in the course of experiments, every time the dogs was
given food a bell was rung before it, slowly the dog become conditioned to believe
that the ringing bell meant that food was coming. .
 So, he began salivating at the sound at the bell.
 The dog continued to salivate even when food was not given after the bell.
 Hence, salivation became a conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus.
Various forms of classical conditioning are:

1. Unconditioned stimulus (US): This stimulus consistently evoked a response or

is reliably followed by one or it has potential capacity to evoke a natural
response. e.g. food.
2. Conditioned stimulus (CS): It is also known as a neutral stimulus because
except for an altering or intentional response, the first few times it is presented, it
does not evoke a specific response.
 Any stimuli which lacks natural capacity to evoke natural response but developes
this capacity with consistent pairing with US. For example bell.
3. Unconditioned Response (UR): The response that reliably follows the
unconditioned stimulus is known as the unconditioned response, e.g. Saliva due
to food. (iv) Conditioned Response (CR): When presentation of the originally
neutral conditioned stimulus evokes a response.
This response is what is learned in classical conditioning, e.g. Saliva s a response
to the bell.

Determinants of classical conditioning:

1. Time Relations between stimuli: In classical conditioning the first three are
called Forward Conditioning Procedures and the forth one is called Backward
Conditioning.
The basic experimental arrangements of these procedures are as follows:
 Simultaneous Conditioning: When the CS and US are presented together.
It is effective to acquire CR but requires greater number of trials.
 Delayed Conditioning: The onset of CS precedes the onset of US. The CS
ends before the end of the US. It is most effective way of acquiring CR.
 Trace Conditioning: The onset and the end of the CS precedes the onset of
US with some time gap between the two. It is effective but requires greater
number of trials.
 Backward conditioning: The US precedes the onset of CS. It is least
effective way to acquire CR.
2. Type of unconditioned stimuli: The unconditioned stimuli used in studies of
classical conditioning are of two types: Appetitive e.g. eating drinking etc.
according to researches it is slower and requires greater number of trials
 Aversive e.g. Noise, bitter taste etc. classical conditioning is established in
one, two or three trials so it is more effective.
3. Intensity of conditioned stimuli: This influences the course of both appetitive
and aversive classical conditioning. More intense conditioned stimuli are more
effective in accelerating the acquisition of conditioned responses, e.g.: The more
intense the conditioned stimulus, the fewer are the number of acquisition trials
needed for conditioning, ie intense irritating noise is more effective.

Question 3. Define operant conditioning. Discuss the factors that influence the
course of operant conditioning.
Answer: Operant or instrumental conditioning is a form of learning in which behaviour
is
learned, maintained or changed through its consequences.
Determinants of operant conditioning :
1. Reinforcers

 A reinforcer is defined as any stimulus or event which increases the probability of

the occurrence of a desired response.
  The type – positive or negative, frequency, quality and schedule or reinforcer are
determinants of operant conditioning.

1. Type of reinforcement:
 Positive reinforcement involves stimuli that have pleasant consequences.
They strengthen and maintain the responses that have caused them to
occur.
 Negative reinforcer involve unpleasant and painful stimuli. Responses that
lead organisms to get rid of painful stimuli or avoid and escape from them
provide negative reinforcement. Negative reinforcement leads to learning of
avoidance and escape responses.
2. Frequency/number of reinforcement and other feature :
 Frequency of trial on which an organism has been reinforced or rewarded.
 Amount of reinforcement i.e. how much of reinforcing stimulus (food or
water) one receives on each trial.
 Quality of reinforcement i.e. to the kind of reinforcer. Bread of inferior
quality as compared with pieces of cake have different reinforcing value.
3. Schedule of reinforcement:
 This refers to the arrangement of the delivery of reinforcement during trials.
 When a desired response is reinforcement every time it occurs we call it
continuous reinforcement.
 When according to schedule responses are sometimes reinforced,
sometimes not it is known as partial reinforcement and has been found to
produce greater resistance to extinction.
4. Delayed reinforcement:
 It is found that delay in the delivery of reinforcement leads to poorer level of
performance.

Question 4. A good role model is very important for a growing up child. Discuss
the kind of learning that supports it.
Answer: Observational learning: The acquisition of new forms of behaviour,
information or concepts through exposure to others and the consequences they
experience is called observational learning. This learning is also called social learning
because we human beings learn many simple and complex social skills through
observations.The concept of social learning was introduced by BANDURA.
Characteristics of observational learning

 Individualsleam social behaviour of person of status, respect and behave similarly

when put in specific social situation e.g. In games, children quite often use.
 For such learning only those persons are observed who are considered to be as
role models.
 Social behaviours are learned by observation.
 Personality characteristics, habits are developed through observational learning.

Concept of modeling
  According to social learning much of what human beings learn through direct
experience can be learned through watching someone. It is because of modeling.
 Observational learning observers acquire knowledge by observing the model’s
behaviour, but performance is influence by model’s behaviour being rewarded or
punished. 1
 Children of fearful parents become fearful, children of critical parents become
critical and children who observe confident adults tend to become confident
themselves.

Influence of modeling

 It can be well understood by studies conducted by BANDURA.

 He showed a 5 minute film to children. The film showed numerous dolls including
bobo dolls in a play room. The film had three versions:
1st group of children see a boy being punished for his aggressive behaviour while
playing.
2nd group of children see boy being rewarded and praised by adult for being
aggressive to the doll.
3rd group of children see nothing, neither the boy being rewarded nor punished for
aggressive behaviour displayed.
 It was found that those children who displayed aggressive behaviour being
rewarded were most Aggressive, those who had seen aggressive model being
punished were least aggressive.

Conclusion
In observational learning, observers require knowledge by observing model’s behaviour
but performance is influenced by model’s behaviour being rewarded or punished.

Question 5. Explain the procedures for studying verbal learning.

Answer: Verbal Learning: The process of learning to respond verbally to verbal
stimulus, which may include symbols, nonsense syllables and lists of words.
Procedures for studying verbal learning are:

1. Paired—Associated learning:
 This method is similar to S-S conditioning and S-R learning.
 When the list of paired-associates is prepared, the first word of the pair is
used as the stimulus and the second word as the response.
 The first members of the pairs (stimulus term) are nonsense syllables
(consonant-vowel-consonant), and the second are English nouns (response
term).
e.g.: Stimulus = Response
Gen = Loot
Dem= Time
Div= Lamp
  The learner is first shown both the stimulus response pairs together and is
instructed to remember and recall the response after the presentation of
each stimulus term. After that a learning trial begins.
 Trials continue until the participant gives all the response words without a
single error.
2. Serial learning:
 First, lists of verbal items, i.e. nonsense syllables, most familiar or least
familiar words, interrelated words etc. are prepared.
 In serial learning the participant is presented the entire list and is required to
produce the items in the same serial order as in the list.
 Learning trials continue until the participant correctly anticipates and recall in
the given order.
3. Free Recall:
 In this method, participants are presented a list of words, each word is
shown at a fixed rate of exposure duration.
 Immediately after the presentation of the list, the participants are required to
recall the words in any order they can.

This method is used to study how participants organize words for storage in memory.
Studies also indicate that the items placed in the beginning or end of the lists are easier
to recall than those placed in the middle which are more difficult to recall.

Question 6. What is a skill? What are the stages through which skill learning
develops?
Answer: A skill is defined as the ability to perform some complex task smoothly and
efficiently, e.g.: car driving, writing etc.
Skill consists of a chain of perceptual motor responses or as a sequence of S-R
associations, e.g.: Movements of legs, feet and toes etc.
According to Fitts skill learning develops through three stages:

1. Cognitive Phase: In cognitive phase of skill learning, the learner has to

understand and memorise the instructions.
 The learner has to understand how the task has to be performed.
 In this phase every outside cue instructional demand, and one’s response
outcome have to be kept alive in consciousness.
2. Associative Phase:
 Different sensory inputs or stimuli are to be linked with appropriate
responses.
 As the practice increases, errors decrease, performance improves and time
taken is also reduced.
3. Autonomous Phase: two important changes take place in performance.
 The Attentional demands of the associative phase decreases.
 Inference created by external factors reduces. Finally, skilled performance
attains Automaticity with minimal demands of – conscious effort.
Question 7. How can you distinguish between generalisation and discrimination?
Answer: Generalisation:

 Pavlov noticed that when a C.S – C.R. bond has been established by conditioning,
a stimulus which is similar to the C.S can produce the same response and he
called this stimulus Generalisation, or in other words Generalisation occurs due to
similarity.
e.g. If the dog is conditioned to salivate to tone, it will salivate to any type of tone ,
like electric bell, worship bell, college bell, buzzer and other sounds.
 Stimulus Generalisation in conditioning happens usually more in childhood
particularly when the child has not developed the capacity to differentiate between
two stimuli.
For example; During infancy the baby considers every woman to be his mother.

Discrimination:

 Discrimination is the process of learning to make one response to one stimulus

and another response – or no response to another stimulus.
e.g: discrimination can be obtained in classical conditioning by pairing one
stimulus (the CS+) with an unconditioned stimulus and never pairing another
stimulus (the CS) with the unconditioned stimulus.
 Discrimination is a response due to difference or in other words discriminative
response depends on the discrimination capacity or discrimination learning of an
organism.

Question 8. How does transfer of learning takes place?

Answer: Transfer of learning refers to the way in which we might transfer skills learned
in one situation to a second, related situation. Thus, learning to play tennis may
introduce a range of coordination and racket skills that would then transfer to similar
games such as squash.

 It refers to the effects of prior learning on new learning.

 Transfer is consider to be positive if the earlier learning facilitates current learning.
If new learning is a related then it is consider to be negative transfer.
 Absence of facilitative of retarding effect means zero transfer i.e. earlier learning
has no effect on later learning.

Question 9. Why is motivation a prerequisite for learning?

Answer: Motivation is considered a pre-requisite and acts as a main facilitator of
learning.

1. It is a mental as well as a physiological state, which arouses an organism to act

for fulfilling the current need.
 2. Motivation energises an organism to act rigorously for attaining some goal, and
such sets persist until the goal is attained and the need is satisfied.
e.g.: The more motivated you are the more hard work you do for learning.
3. Motivation for learning arises from two sources:
 Intrinsic motivation: One may learn many things because he/she enjoys
them or it provides the means for attaining some other goal.
 Extrinsic motivation: Throughout the session one learn to acquire
knowledge and skill, which may help to get a good job later.

Question 10. What does the notion of preparedness for learning mean?
Answer: Preparedness is a reference to the fact that organisms are better able to
associate certain combination of stimuli, responses and reinforces than others.

 If an animal eats and is then ill, it may develop an aversion to the flavor of the
food, but not to visual or auditory stimuli that works present at the same time.
 The members of different species are very different from one another in their
capacities and response abilities.
 The kinds of S-S or S-R learning an organism can easily acquire depends on the
associative mechanism it is genetically endowed with or prepared for.
 A particular kind of associative learning is easy for apes or human beings but may
be extremely difficult for another species.
 It implies that learning very much dependent on those association for which one is
genetically prepared at the same time on his/her psychological preparedness to
learn a particular task.

Question 11. Explain the different forms of cognitive learning.

Answer: Insight learning is a form of cognitive learning.

 Insight is defined as sudden perception of relationship between the learner, the

goal and intervening obstacles.
 Insight occurs when the learner suddenly sees the relations between two
valuables. Many experiments have been performed on insight learning. One Of
the simplest of these experiments requires the chimpanzee to reach food with a
stick when it cannot be reached by hand and when nothing else other than a stick
is a available in the room. Latent learning is another form of cognitive learning.

The word latent means ‘hidden’ and thus latent learning is learning that occurs but is not
evident in behaviour until later, when conditions for its appearance are favourable.

 Latent learning is said to occur without reinforcement of particular responses and

seems to involve changes in the ways information is processed.
 Thus latent learning is an example of cognitive learning.

Experimental evidence:
  Rats in an experimental group-the latent learning group were first given plenty of
experience in a maze. After they thoroughly experienced the maze, reinforced
maze learning under instrumental conditioning began ie. They were rewarded for
their successful effort.
 The rats in a control group are not being given experience with the maze. The
control group animals were put in a box that is unlike the maze.
 When reinforcement for maze learning starts, the experimental group did better
than the rats in the control group.
 The latent learning group rats learned the maze faster and with fewer errors than
did the control animals.
 It proves that the latent learning showed up in their performance.

Question 12. How can we identify students with learning disabilities?

Answer: Learning disability refers to a heterogeneous group of disorders manifested in
terms of difficulty in the acquisition of learning, reading, writing, speaking, reasoning,
and mathematical activities.

 The sources of such disorders are inherent in the child.

We can identify students with learning disabilities from many symptoms. These
symptoms are following:

1. Difficulties in writing letters, words, and phrases, reading out text, and speaking,
appear quite frequently, quite often they have listening problems, although they
may not have auditory defects. Such children are very different from others in
developing learning strategies and plans.
2. Learning disabled children have disorders of attention. They get easily distracted
and cannot sustain attention on one point for long. Some times it leads to
hyperactivity ie they are always moving, doing different things and trying to
manipulate things without any purpose.
3. Poor space orientation and inadequate sense of time are common symptoms.
Such children do not get easily oriented to new surroundings and get lost. They
lack a sense of time and are late or sometimes too early in their routine work.
They also show confusion in direction and misjudge right, left, and down.
4. Learning-disabled children have poor motor-coordination and poor manual
dexterity. This is evident in their lack of balance. They show Inability to sharpen
pencil, handle doorknobs, difficulty in learning to ride a bicycle, etc.
5. These children fail to understand and follow oral directions for doing things.
6. They misjudge relationships as to which classmates are friendly and which ones
are indifferent. They fail to learn and understand body language.
7. Learning-disabled children usually show perceptual disorders. These include
visual, auditory, tectual and kinesthetic, misperception etc. They fail to differentiate
a call-bell from the ring of the telephone. It is not they do not have sensory
acuity.They simply fail to use it in performance.
8. Fairly large number of learning-disabled children have dyslexia. They quite often
fail to copy letter and words, e.g,: they fail to distinguish between b and d, p and q,
 p and I, was and saw, unclear and nuclear etc., they fail to organize verbal
material.

Chapter 7 Human Memory

Question 1. What is the meaning of the terms ‘encoding’, ‘storage’ and ‘retrieval’?
Answer: Memory is conceptualized as a process consisting of three independent,
though interrelated stages. These are:

1. Encoding:
 It is the first stage which refers to a process by which information is recorded
and registered for the first time so that it becomes usable by our memory
system.
 In encoding, incoming information is received and some meaning is derived.
2. Storage: It is the second stage of memory:
 Information which was encoded must also be stored so that it can be put to
use later.
 Storage refers to the process through which information is retained and held
over a period of time.
3. Retrieval: It is the third stage of memory.
 Information can be used only when one is able to recover it from his/her
memory.
 Retrieval refers to bringing the stored information to his/her awareness so
that it can be used for performing various cognitive tasks.

Question 2. How is information processed thrdugh sensory, short-term and long-

term memory systems?
Answer: Atkinson and Shiffrin model of memory also known as stage model of
memory.

 This proposes the existence of three separate but sequentially linked memory
systems, the sensory memory, the short-term memory and the long-term memory.
 The sensory memory—contains a fleeting impression of a sensory stimulus (a
sight or a sound). It is initial process that preserve brief impression of stimuli. It
has a large capacity. It is of very short duration that is less than a second.
 The short-term memory—a limited recollection of recently perceived stimuli (a
telephone number or an order of drinks). It holds small amount of information for a
brief periocfof time i.e. less than 30 seconds. It is primarily encoded acoustically.
 The long-term memory—a more or less permanent store of memories for later
retrieval (e.g. our telephone numbers). In this stage informations are encoded
semantically and storage capacity is unlimited.
 Each of these memory system is seen as differing in the way they process
information, how much information they can hold and for how long they can hold
that information.
 The model can be expressed in the following diagram:

Question 3. How are maintenance rehearsals different from elaborative

rehearsals?
Answer: Maintenance rehearsals:

 It is an important control process of STM.

 It is used to retain the information for as much time as required.
 As the name suggests these kinds of rehearsals simply maintain information
through repetition and when such repetitions discontinue the information is lost.
 It is carried through silent or vocal repetition.

Elaborative rehearsals:

 From the STM information enters the long term memory through elaborative
rehearsals.
 This rehearsal attempts to connect the “to be retained information” to the already
existing information in long term memory.
e.g. the task of remembering the meaning of the work “humanity” will be easier if
the meaning of concepts such as “compassion”, “truth” and “benevolence” are
already in place.
 In elaborate rehearsals, one attempts to analyse the information in terms of
various information it arouses.
 Assignment of meaning and associations are formed. –
 It involves organization of the incoming information in as many ways as possible
e.g. we can expand the information in some kind of logical framework, link it to
similar memories or else create a mental image.

Question 4. Differentiate between declarative and procedural memories.

Answer: Difference between declarative and procedural memories are following:
Declarative Memory

 All information pertaining to facts, names, date, such as rikshaw has three wheels
or that India became independent on August 15,1947 or a frog is an amphibian or
you and your friend share the same name are part of this.
 Facts retained in this memory are related to amenable to verbal descriptions.
Procedural Memory

 It refers to memories relating to procedures of accomplishing various tasks, i.e.

skill learning e.g. how to make tea, play basketball or drive a car. .
 Contents of this memory can not be described easily.

Question 5. Discuss the hierarchical organisation in long-term memory?

Answer:

 Allan Collins and Ross Quillian suggested that knowledge in long-term memory is
organized in terms of concepts, categories and images and are organised
hierarchically and assumes a network structure. Elements of this structure are
called nodes.
 Nodes are concepts While connections between nodes are labelled relationships,
which indicate category membership or concept attributes.
 According to this view, we can store all knowledge at a certain level that ‘applies
to all the members of a category without having to repeat that information at the
lower levels in the hierarchy’.
 This ensures a high degree of cognitive economy, which means maximum and
efficient use of the capacity of long-term memory with minimum effort.
 Images: An image is a concrete form of representation which directly conveys the
perceptual attributes of an object.
 All concrete objects generate images and the knowledge related to them is
encoded both verbally as well as visually. This is known as dual coding
hypothesis, originally proposed by Paivio. Such information can be recalled with
greater ease.
 According to this hypothesis, concrete nouns and information related to concrete
objects are images.
 Information related to abstract concepts assume a verbal and a descriptive code.
For example, if you are asked to describe a bird, the first thing that happens is that
an image of a bird is generated and based on this image, you describe a bird. But,
on the other hand, the meanings of concepts like ‘truth’ or ‘honesty’ will not have
such accompanying images.

Question 6. Why does forgetting take place?

Answer: Each one of us has experienced forgetting and its consequences almost
routinely. There | . are some reasons because of which we forget:

1. It is because the information we commit to our long term memory is somehow

lost.
2. It is because we did not memorise it well enough.
3. It is because we did not encode the information correctly or it is because during
storage, it got distorted or misplaced.

There are theories which have been developed to explain forgetting:

1. Theory of forgetting developed by Hermann Ebbinghaus:
According to him the rate of forgetting is maximum in the first nine
hours,particularly during the first hour. After that, the rate slows down and not
much is forgotten even after many days.
2. Forgetting due to Trace decay:
(a)Trace theory (also called disuse theory) is the earliest theory of forgetting.
(b)The assumption here is that memory leads to modification in the central
nervous system, which is akin to physical changes in the brain called “memory
traces”. When these memory traces are not used for a long time, they simply fade
away and become unavailable.
Drawbacks:
 If forgetting takes place because memory traces decay due to disuse, then
people who go to sleep after memorizing should forget more compared to
those who remain awake.
 Those who remain awake after memorizing show greater forgetting than
those , who sleep.
3. Forgetting due to interference:
 The interference theory suggests that forgetting is due to interferences
between various informations that the memory store contains.
 Interference comes about at a time of retrieval when these various sets of
associations compete with each other for retrieval.
There are two kinds of interferences that may result in forgetting.
(a) Proactive (forward moving): Proactive means what you have learnt
earlier interferes with the recall of your subsequent learning. In other words,
in proactive interference past learning interferes with the recall of later
learning, e.g. If you know English and you find it difficult to learn French it is
because of proactive interference.
(b) Retroactive (backward moving): Retroactive refers to difficulty in recalling
what you have learnt earlier because of learning a new material. In
retroactive interference the later learning interferes with the recall of past
learning.e.g. If you cannot recall English equivalents of French words that
you are currently memorizing then it is because of retroactive interference.

4. Forgetting due to retrieval failure:

 Forgetting can also occur because at the time of recall, either the retrieval
cues are absent or they are inappropriate.
  Retrieval cues are aids which help us in recovering information stored in the
memory.
 This view was advanced by “Tulving and his associates” who carried out
several experiments to show that recall of content become poor either due to
absence or inappropriateness of retrieval cues that are available /employed
at the time of recall.
 Without getting any cues one may recall a couple of them only but if the
learner get cues like category names then the recall improves significantly.
Category names may act as retrieval cues.

Question 7. How is retrieval related forgetting different from forgetting due to

interference?
Answer: According to Tulving retrieval cues are adds which help us in recovering
information stored in the memory.

 Tulving said that contents of memory may become inaccessible either due to
absence or inappropriatance of retrieval cues that are available at the time of
recall.
 According to interference theory of forgetting we forget due to interference
between various informations the memory store contains.
 According to this theory learning and memorizing involve forming of associations
between items and these associations remain in the memory.

Question 8. What evidence do we have to say that ‘memory is a constructive

process’?
Answer: “Bartlett” saw memory as a constructive and not a reproductive process.

1. He used the method of “serial reproduction” in which the participants of his

experiments recalled the memory materials reportedly at varying time intervals.
 While engaging in this method of learning material, his participants
committed a wide variety of errors which Bartlett considered useful in
understanding the process of memory construction.
2. Using meaningful materials such as texts, folk tales, fables etc.
 He attempted to understand the manner in which content of any specific
memory gets affects by a person’s knowledge, goals, motivation,
preferences and various other psychological process.
3. Schemas play an important role in the process of memorization. Schemas refer to
an organization of past experiences and knowledge which influence the way in
which incoming information is interpreted, stored and later retrieved.
 Memory, therefore becomes encoded and is stored in terms of a person’s
understanding and within his/her previous knowledge and expectations.

Question 9. Define Mnemonics? Suggest a plan to improve your own memory.

Answer: All of us desire to possess an excellent dependable memory system. There
are a number of strategies for improving memory called “mnemonics” (pronounced ni –
mo-nicks) to help you improve your memory.
Some of these mnemonics involve use of images whereas others emphasise self-
induced organization of learned information.
Mnemonics using Images: Mnemonics using images require that you create vivid and
interacting images of and around the material you wish to remember. The two
prominent mnemonic devices, which make use of images are following:

1. The Keyword Method: In this method, an English word that sounds similar to the
word of a foreign language is identified. This English word will function as a
keyword, e.g. If you want to remember the Spanish word for duck which is “pato”
you may choose “pot” as the keyword and then evoke images of keyword and the
target word (Spanish word) and imagine them as interacting. You might imagine a
duck in a pot full of water.
This method of learning words of a foreign language is much superior compared
to any kind of rote memorization.
2. The Method of Loci:
 This method is particularly helpful in remembering items in serial order.
 It requires that you first visualize objects/places that you know well in a
specific sequence, imagine the objects you want to remember and associate
them one by one to the physical locations.
 Suppose you want to remember bread, eggs, tomatoes and soap on your
way to the market, you may visualize a loaf of bread and eggs placed in your
kitchen, tomatoes kept on a table and soap in the bathroom. When you enter
the market all you need to do is to take a mental walk along the route from
your kitchen to the bathroom recalling all the items of your shopping list in a
sequence.
3. Mnemonics using organization: Organization refers to imposing certain order on
the material you want to remember. Mnemonics of this kind are helpful because
the framework you create while organization makes the retrieval task fairly easy.
(a)Chunking: In chunking, several smaller units are combined to form large
chunks. For creating chunks, it is important to discover some organization
principles, which can link smaller units. This method is very much used to improve
short term memory.
(b)First letter technique: For this method you need to pick up the first letter of
each word you want to remember and arrange them to form another word or a
sentence, e.g. colours of a rainbow are remembered in this way (VIBGYOR— that
stands for Violet, Indigo, Blue, Green, Yellow, Orange and Red).
Drawbacks of mnemonics:
(a)Mnemonics strategies for memory enhancement are too simplistic.
(b)It underestimates complexities of memory tasks and difficulties people
experience while memorizing.

More comprehensive approaches to memory improvement:

(a)Engage in Deep Level processing:
  “CRAIK and LOCKHART” have demonstrated that processing information in terms
of meaning that they convey leads to better memory as compared to attending to
their surface features.
 Deep processing would involve asking as many questions, related to the
information as possible, considering its meaning and examining its relationships to
the facts you already know.
 In this way, the information will become a part of your existing knowledge
framework and the chances that it will be remembered are increased.

(b)Minimise interference: Maximum interference is caused when vary similar materials

are learned in a sequence.

 To avoid this, Arrange your study in such a way that you do not learn similar
subjects one after the other.
 Instead pick, up some other subject unrelated to the previous one. Give yourself
rest periods while studying to minimize interference.

(c)Give yourself enough Retrieval cues: Cues will be easier to remember compared
to the entire content and make link to the parts of the study material to these cues. Then
this content will facilitate the retrieval process.
“THOMAS and ROBINSON” have developed another strategy to help students in
remembering, more which they called the method of “PQRST”. It stands for Preview,
Question, Read, Self-recitation and the test.

 “Preview” refers to giving a cursory look at the chapter and familiarizing oneself
with its contents.
 “Question” means raising questions and seeking answers from the lesion.
 “Read”—Now start Reading and look for answers of questions you have raised.
 “Self-recitation”—After reading try to rewrite what you have read.
 Test-At the end test how much you have been able to understand.

Chapter 9 Motivation and Emotion

Question 1. Explain the concept of motivation.
Answer: The term motivation is derived from the Latin word ‘movere’ referring to
movement of activity. Thus it pushes an individual (organism) into activity.

 It can be used to explain drives, needs, goals and incentives… Any behaviour is
goal driven, demand persistent and often preferred or is in favour of one goal over
the other.
 It is individuals internal force which energises and directs the behaviour.
Question 2. What are the biological bases of hunger and thirst needs?
Answer: Hunger:

 The stimuli of hunger include stomach contractions, which signify that the stomach
is empty.
 A low concentration of glucose in the blood
 A low level of protein and the amount of fats stored in the body.
 The liver also responds to the lack of bodily fuel by sending nerve impulses to the
brain.
 The aroma, taste or appearance of food may also result in a desire to eat.
 They all in combination act with external factors (such as taste, colour by
observing other’s eating, and the smell of food, etc.) to the help one understands
that she/he is hungry.

Thirst: When we are deprived of water for a period of several hours, the mouth and
throat become dry, which leads to dehydration of body tissues.

 Drinking water is necessary to wet a dry mouth.

 The processes within the body itself control thirst and drinking of water.
 Water must get into the tissues sufficiently to remove the dryness of mouth and
throat.
 Motivation to drink water is mainly triggered by the conditions of the body.
 Loss of water from cells and reduction of blood volume.
 When Water is lost by bodily fluids, water leaves the interior of the cells. The
anterior hypothalamus contains nerve cells called ‘osmoreceptors’, which
generate nerve impulses in case of cell dehydration. These nerve impulses act as
a signal for thirst and drinking.

Ist View:

 The mechanism which explains the intake of water is responsible for stopping the
intake of water.

IInd View:

 The role of stimuli resulting from the intake of water in the stomach have
something to do with stopping of drinking water.
 The precise physiological mechanisms underlying the thirst drive are yet to be
understood.

Question 3. How do the needs for achievement, affiliation, and power influence
the behaviour of adolescents ? Explain with examples.
Answer: Needs for achievement:
  It energies and directs behaviour as well as influences the perception of situations.
 During the formative years of social development, children acquire achievement
motivation. They learn it from their parents, other role models, and socio-cultural
influences.

We are social being. We maintain some form of relationship with others. Nobody likes
to remain alone all the time. Formation of group is an important feature of human life. It
involves motivation for social contact.

 Need for affiliation seeking other human beings and wanting to be close to them
both physically and psychologically is called affiliation. It involves motivation for
social contact.
 It is aroused when individuals feel threatened or helpless and also when they are
happy. People high on this need are motivated to seek the company of others and
to maintain friendly relationships with other people.

Need for power is an ability of a person to produce intended effects on the behaviour
and emotions of another person. The various goals of power motivation are to influence,
control, persuade, lead and charm others.

Question 4.What is the basic idea behind Maslow’s hierarchy of needs? Explain
with suitable examples.
Answer: Abraham Maslow, a humanist psychologist proposed a hierarchy of needs in
which human needs are arranged in a sequence from primitive to human. They are
interrelated in the sense that when one need is fulfilled, the next one takes on the mind.
At the lowest level are the physiological needs followed by the other higher level needs
as given below:

1. Physiological needs:These are needs which are basic for survival.They include
such as hunger, thirst.
2. Safety needs: The need to be free from any possible threat-both real and
imaginary. It is of both physical and psychological nature.
3. Belongingness: Needs to belong, to affiliate, to love and to be loved by others.
One can’t live alone and needs other’s company.
4. Esteem needs: Individual strives for the need for self-esteem to develop a sense
of self worth once his belongingness needs are fulfilled.
5. Self-actualisation: It means to attain the fullest developments of one’s potential.
Such people are self-aware, socially responsible, creative, spontaneous, open to
novelty and change, has a sense of humour and capacity for deep interpersonal
relationships.

Question 5. Does physiological arousal precede or follow an emotional

experience? Explain.
Answer:

 William James and Carl Lange argued that the perception about bodily changes,
like rapid breathing, a pounding heart and running legs following an event, –
brings forth emotional arousal.
 This theory of emotion holds that body’s reaction to a stimulus produces emotional
reaction.
  The theory suggests that environmental stimuli elicit physiological responses from
viscera (the internal organs like heart and lungs), which in turn, are associated
with muscle movement.
 James-Lange theory argues that your perception about your bodily changes, like
rapid breathing, a pounding heart, and running legs, following an event, brings
forth emotional arousal.
 The theory can be expressed in the following hierarchy:

Canon and Bard contradicted to the James-Lange theory.

 According to this theory, felt emotion and the bodily reaction in emotion are
independent of each other; both get triggered simultaneously.
 This theory of emotion holds that bodily changes and the experience of emotion
occurs simultaneously.
 Theory claims that the entire process of emotion is governed by thalamus.
 Thalamus conveys the information simultaneously to the cerebral cortex and to
the skeletal muscles and sympathetic nervous system.
 The cerebral cortex then determines the nature of the perceived stimulus. By
referring to the past experiences. This determines the subjective experience of
emotion. Simultaneously the sympathetic nervous system and the muscles
provide physiological arousal and prepare the individual to take action.
 Following diagram shows the CANNON-BARD theory of emotion:

 As proposed by the theory we first perceive potential emotion-producing situation

which leads to activity in the lower brain region such as the hypothalamus which in
turn sends output in two directions:
(a)To internal body organs, external muscles to produce bodily expressions
(b)To cerebral cortex where the pattern of discharge from the lower brain areas is
perceived as felt emotion.
Question 6. Is it important to consciously interpret and label emotions in order to
explain them? Discuss giving Suitable examples.
Answer: Schacter-Singer theory: In 1970, the American psychologists Stanley
Schachter and Jerome Singer, while adopting an eclectic approach to both the earlier
theories of emotion, introduced a new theory named Cognitive theory of emotion.

 They suggested that our physical arousal together with our perception and
judgement of situation (cognition) jointly determine which emotions we feel.
 In other words, our emotional arousal depends on both physiological changes and
the cognitive or mental on both physiological changes and the cognitive or mental
interpretation of those changes. One cannot work without the other.
 The necessary detection and explanation for an emotional state always rests with
the interpretation of situation. Since this interpretation is purely a subject of
cognitive functioning, the cognitive factors are said to be the potent determiners of
our emotional states.

The views expressed by Schachter and Singer was also supported by Magda Arnold by
stating that cognitive processes control how we interpret our feelings and how we act on
them. She used the term Cognitive Appraisal for the identification and interpretation of
emotion provoking stimuli.

 A third element, in understanding the relationship between physical reactions and

emotional experience aroused on account of the perception of an emotion
provoking stimulus.
 Cognitive theory helped us to learn that the emotional experience and
physiological changes through which we pass are determined by the way we
interpret a situation through the cognitive element of our behaviour in the form of
our previous knowledge and our interpretation of the present situation directly
affect our emotional experience.

Question 7. How does culture influence the expression of emotions?

Answer: Emotional expression involves posture, facial expression, actions, words and
even silence.

 Cultural similarities in the facial expression of emotions such as anger, fear,

disgust, sadness, happiness etc. have been observed. It must however, be noted
that facial expression can, in some cases, be also misleading.
 The display rules that regulate emotional expression and emotional vocabulary do
vary across cultures.
 It has been found that children would cry when distressed, shake their heads
when defiant and smile when happy.
 Despite similarities in expressions of certain basic emotions, cultures do vary in
why and how they express emotions.
Question 8. Why is it important to manage negative emotion? Suggest ways to
manage negative emotions.
Answer:

 It is important to control negative emotions in order to ensure an effective social

functioning. Positive emotions should be enhanced. We can reduce/manage
negative emotions in the following manner.
 Negative emotions like fear, anxiety, disgust are such emotions if allowed to
prevail for a long time, they are likely to have adverse effects on our well¬being.
Anxious individuals find it difficult to concentrate. They are not able to take
decisions. Depression impairs individuals ability to think rationally, feel realistically
and work effectively.
 Following tips prove useful to manage negative emotion effectively The following
tips prove useful for achieving the desire balance of emotion:

1. Enhance self-awareness: Try to get insight into your own emotions and this
makes you understand them in a better way. Knowing about your capabilities and
limitation helps.
2. Appraise the situation objectively: An evaluation of situation and gaining insight
into it determines the level and direction of emotion.
3. Self monitoring: A periodic evaluation of past accomplishments, emotional and
physical states and other positive experiences enhance faith in yourself and leads
to contentment.
4. Self-modeling: Analyzing past performances and the positive aspects attached to
it provides with inspiration and motivation to perform better next time.
5. Perceptual reorganization and cognitive rest-structuring: Changing old
patterns and following new positive ones. Restructure your thoughts to enhance
positively and eliminate negative thoughts.
6. Be creative: Take up some hobby or develop and interest in something creative
and innovative. Create fun for yourself by pursuing such activity of interest.
7. Develop and nurture good relationship: One who shares good interpersonal
relationship with others never feel alone and disheartened.
8. Empathy: Looking at other’s situation as it was your own. Understanding others
well help you in understanding your own self in a better way. It adds meaning to
your life.
9. Participation in community services: this can prove to be very effective in
creating a balance of emotion in your life.