1. Effect of experience
Chapter 33

2. 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

3. 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

4. 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

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

6. 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

7. 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