Cognition and Learning
What this domain covers
Cognition and Learning tests how people acquire, store, and use knowledge: conditioning, social learning, information processing, and metacognition. Expect items that ask you to name the principle behind a classroom scenario and choose the best instructional response.
Core rules
- Classical conditioning (Pavlov): a neutral stimulus paired repeatedly with an unconditioned stimulus acquires the power to elicit a conditioned response. Extinction occurs when the CS is presented without the UCS; spontaneous recovery is the temporary return of the CR.
- Operant conditioning (Skinner): consequences shape voluntary behavior. Positive adds a stimulus; negative removes one. Reinforcement increases behavior; punishment decreases it. Schedules: fixed-ratio (reinforce after a set number of responses), variable-ratio (after an unpredictable number; most resistant to extinction), fixed-interval (after a set time), variable-interval.
- Social cognitive theory (Bandura): observational learning requires attention, retention, reproduction, and motivation. Vicarious reinforcement and self-efficacy influence whether a modeled behavior is tried.
- Information processing: sensory register to working memory (limited capacity, brief duration) to long-term memory. Chunking, elaboration, spaced retrieval, and dual coding support encoding and retrieval. Schemas organize prior knowledge and can distort new input.
- Metacognition: planning, monitoring, and evaluating one's learning; accurate judgments of learning matter.
Worked example
A student who was once laughed at while solving a problem on the board now feels anxious whenever the teacher says 'come to the front.' Name the conditioning process and a sound intervention. The embarrassment is the UCS; the phrase becomes a CS; anxiety is the CR. Repeated, low-stakes, successful board experiences without embarrassment allow extinction; the teacher can also pair the phrase with supportive cues. Calling on the student more often without changing the aversive condition is not extinction.
Traps
Negative reinforcement is not punishment: it removes something aversive to increase behavior. Variable-ratio schedules produce the most persistent responding, not variable-interval. Learning can be latent and not immediately performed. Near transfer differs from far transfer. Working-memory limits are small; multitasking usually impairs encoding.