Effect of experience Chapter 33

Effect of practice on motor skills Repeated use of a motor skill establishes a motor pathway Leads to a formation of a ‘motor memory’ Practice improves performance - lack of practice results in skill being ‘rusty’ - (but not forgotten) Learning curves illustrate improvement in performance Eventually a maximum level is reached – cannot be improved upon E.g. finger maze

Imitation Children learn by imitating adults & other children New tasks often learned quicker by watching & imitating others demonstrating Easier if demonstration is broken up into opportunities to repeat the task learnt Social skills & attitudes also learnt by imitation Can lead to values & traditions being held for life Many accepted in childhood can be rejected later Social techniques are learnt best by imitation - e.g. suitable tone of voice, sympathetic manner Children often imitate behaviour presented by the media

Learning, motivation, reinforcement ‘inner drive’ - makes an animal want to participate in learning Motivating factors – hunger, thirst, sexual drive etc E.g: hungry & well fed rats in a box Reinforcement: process that makes an organism tend to repeat a certain piece of behaviour Involves a positive response from a particular action Can be positive or negative Can also be continuous or intermittent

Superstition Developed by a chance favourable event occurring in response to a piece of behaviour

Shaping, extinction & rewarding pattern of behaviour obtained by learner from trainer - reinforcing successive approximations of the desired response e.g child learning to use knife & fork, dog aiding the blind Extinction: disappearance of behaviour pattern due to lack of reinforcement Intermittent reinforcement more resistant to extinction Rewarding – good behaviour reinforced with a ‘reward’ Unacceptable behaviour goes unrewarded, or even punished

Generalisation & Discrimination ability to respond in the same way to different but related stimuli e.g boy with white rats Discrimination: ability to distinguish between different but related stimuli and give different responses Taught by reinforcing desired response, but not reinforcing wrong response e.g baby saying ‘mama’ to several adults