PSYC 301 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Sensory Neuron, Observational Techniques, Mechanoreceptor
Document Summary
Learning is a biological process that facilitates survival and promotes well being. Physiological functions have evolved to accomplish respiration, digestion, etc. However they face not evolved to take care of all the adaptive functions required to exist. Learning plays a critical role in how the organism is able to adapt to the environment. Learning is not only the acquisition of new behaviour, but also the decrease or loss of a previously performed response eg. learning not the cross the street when the light is red. Learning to inhibit responses is just as important as learning how to make responses. We also have simple learning of the relationships between events in the environment, the learning. We will be learning about behaviorist psychology which looks at analyzing behaviour in terms of its antecedent stimuli and consequences. Automatic procedural learning that does not require awareness rather than declarative learning which does require conscious report.