In this video I describe abstract learning and insight learning as types of learning that both require internal cognitive processing. Abstract learning demonstrates how mental concepts and categories relate to stimulus generalization while insight learning demonstrates the use of mental representations of the world rather than simple trial-and-error behavior learning and reinforcement. These types of learning, in addition to latent learning and biological constraints on learning, reveal the need for a more nuanced explanation of learning than a pure behaviorist approach can provide.

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Wolfgang Köhler Study Footage:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FwDhYUlbxiQ

Video Transcript:

Hi, I’m Michael Corayer and this is Psych Exam Review.

In the last video on latent learning we saw some studies by Edward Tolman that showed us that there were internal mental representations that were guiding behavior. In one example of this we saw a rat who was taught to find food in a particular maze and then when it was put in a new maze, it was still able to find the food even though it wasn’t following the specific behaviors that had previously been reinforced.

In other words, in the first version of the maze the rat had learned turn left, turn right, turn right, and then you’d get to the food and in the second version it didn’t use those same behaviors, it was still able to find the food because it had this cognitive map, it had this internal mental representation of where the food was in relation to the starting point. So it was able to follow that even though that meant different specific behaviors.

This demonstrates a type of abstract learning. Abstract learning refers to the idea that we learn in general, we don’t always learn about specific behaviors. We learn about concepts and categories. Another example of this can be found in pigeons. You can teach a pigeon to peck at pictures of chairs. So every time it sees a picture of a chair it’s reinforced for pecking at that picture. Then you can show the pigeon a new chair that it’s never seen before and if it’s similar to the other chairs the pigeon will be able to correctly identify it as a chair and will peck at the picture.

Now you can sort of try dismiss this by saying “that’s just stimulus generalization” but then if we think what does stimulus generalization really mean? It implies that the organism has some sort of internal representation of what a chair is and it’s able to recognize similar stimuli.

It’s able to identify that this new chair is part of this category of “chairs”. This is demonstrated in another study by Shigeru Watanabe and colleagues and what they did was they taught pigeons to peck at paintings from either Picasso or Monet. Then they found they could show the pigeons new pictures that they had never seen before by these two artists and the pigeons correctly identify them.

For instance, if the pigeon had been taught to only peck at Picasso paintings when shown a Picasso and a Monet, they could show it a new Picasso and a new Monet the pigeon had never seen before, it would correctly peck at the Picasso painting rather than the Monet painting. This shows that the pigeon has some sort of category of what a Monet painting is and what a Picasso painting is, even though this isn’t tied to the specific stimuli that the pigeon has seen. This shows, again, this internal mental process that’s occurring.

Now another example of this comes in insight learning. Insight learning was studied by a guy named Wolfgng Köhler. What Köhler did was he gave chimps problems to solve. One of the problems that he gave was he was suspended some bananas up out of reach. So the chimps couldn’t reach the bananas, and then in the room there were some boxes. I’m not going to try to draw a chimp because it probably won’t go very well, but what the chimps had to do is realize that they could stack the boxes on top of each other then climb on top and then they’d be able to reach the bananas. So Köhler simply observed the chimps trying to solve this problem, how do I get to those delicious bananas that are hanging from the ceiling?

What he found was that the chimps didn’t just randomly try things. They didn’t just have this trial-and-error process where they just stumbled around until a solution appeared. That would be like Thorndike’s cat in the puzzle box. Remember the cat just kind of wanders around the cage and it will accidently step on the lever and open the door and then it will start learning that the lever opens the door. That wasn’t going to work in this case. You’re not going to randomly stack these boxes on top of each other, climb on top of them, then reach the bananas.

So how are the chimps going to solve the problem? Köhler found that the chimps appeared to show sudden realization of the solution and this is what he called insight. Insight was this idea of a sudden realization. The chimps would realize that they could stack the boxes and then they would try it. They wouldn’t just try it once, it was like they knew it was going to work.

Once they had thought about the possible solution they would stack the boxes and climb on top and maybe the boxes would tumble over the first time. The chimps would go right back to trying this same solution. This showed it wasn’t that they were repeating the behavior because it had been reinforced.

It was like somehow they knew that it was possible that this solution would work. This shows that they have some internal mental representation of this problem and that they’re able to imagine possible solutions.

All of this is happening without this trial-and-error learning, without reinforcement for the particular behavior of stacking the boxes and trying to climb on top of them. This also shows the role of internal mental processes on solving problems and on increasing the likelihood of repeating a behavior even know, again, we don’t have reinforcement occurring until the chimp finally solves the problem.

So these types of learning, in addition to the biological constraints that we discussed earlier, sort of showed the cracks in the foundation of this behaviorist approach to understanding learning. It shows that there’s other types of learning and they don’t rely on observable behavior. They don’t necessarily rely on particular types of reinforcement.

So the tide shifted away from behaviorism to other approaches in psychology and that’s going to bring us to the next two units where we’re going to look at the role of internal mental processes on behavior. So we’re going to see this when we look at memory and cognition in the next two units.

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Thanks for watching!