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Learning theories, part 2: Do humans and other animals need different theories of learning?

Search and rescue training with Skye in Scotland

The exploration of learning and behaviour has led to the emergence of several theoretical frameworks, among which ecological psychology and behaviourism (applied to humans and other animals), and cognitivism (applied to humans only) are prominent. Each of these approaches provides distinct insights into how individuals learn and interact with the world around them, yet they also come with unique strengths and weaknesses. Here I will outline the fundamental differences between these three theories, delving into their key features, criticisms, and the implications for understanding learning processes. My motivations for comparing and exploring these theories are tethered to my desire to understand how humans and other animals (particularly horses and dogs), learn and interact with each other without having to use completely separate and incompatible theories for each species.

(Cover picture of Marianne working with Skye while training for search and rescue (SARDA) in Scotland).

Behaviourism

Behaviourism is characterised by its focus on observable behaviour and the principle of conditioning, where learning is understood in terms of stimulus-response relationships. This approach operates under the “black box” concept, treating the mind as an opaque entity with little regard for the internal cognitive processes that mediate behaviour. By emphasising external factors, such as reinforcement and punishment, behaviourism seeks to explain learning without delving into the complexities of thoughts, emotions, or motivations. While this can lead to clear, measurable outcomes, behaviourism has been criticised for oversimplifying the learning process and failing to account for the richness of experience.

Limitations of behaviourism

Critics of behaviourism argue that its focus on observable behaviour leads to the “black box” problem, which neglects the internal mental processes that contribute to learning. This can oversimplify experience, as behaviourism tends to reduce learning to mere stimulus-response associations. Additionally, behaviourism struggles to account for the complexities of language acquisition and the generative aspects of language use, as its models do not adequately address the role of cognition and social interactions in language learning. The emphasis on external reinforcement further presents limitations, as behaviours are considered to be performed primarily for rewards rather than for intrinsic understanding or motivation. This perspective also diminishes the recognition of agency.

Cognitivism

Cognitivism emerged as a counter to behaviourism, redirecting focus onto the internal mental processes involved in learning, such as perception, memory, and problem-solving. It likens the mind to a computer, emphasising the processing of information through the manipulation of mental representations and schemas. This approach recognises learning as a complex interplay of thoughts and cognitive strategies, allowing for the possibility of deeper understanding and insight generation.

Cognitive theories introduced significant advancements in understanding phenomena such as language acquisition, and they have fostered an appreciation for the ways in which prior knowledge influences the assimilation of new information. In this regard, cognitivism has provided important frameworks that underscore the active role of learners in shaping their understanding.

Limitations of Cognitivism

Despite its contributions, cognitivism has faced considerable criticism, particularly concerning its reliance on abstract symbols and representations. In our podcast conversation (Part 2. Exploring Learning Theories with David Farrokh: An ecological (systems) approach in practice.) David Farrokh highlights the “symbol grounding problem,” a significant issue wherein cognitivism fails to adequately explain how mental symbols relate to the real world and integrate into actual experiences. This lack of connection makes it challenging to understand how learning and comprehension emerge from purely abstract processing. Moreover, David argues that the deterministic and abstract nature of cognitivist frameworks overlooks the dynamic aspects of behaviour, resulting in a disconnection between cognitive processes and real-world actions.

Cognitivism also tends to neglect the embodied nature of learning, failing to recognise how physical and environmental interactions shape cognitive processes, which limits its applicability to practical learning scenarios. Additionally, the complexity of behaviour is often inadequately addressed within cognitivism, as it can become overly reliant on simplified cognitive models that do not capture the full breadth of human or other species interactions.

Ecological Psychology

Ecological psychology emphasises the dynamic interplay between organisms and their environments, presenting a view of learning that is rooted in the concept of “affordances”, opportunities for action that the environment offers based on an individual’s intentions and capabilities. This perspective encourages a departure from abstract cognitive representations, focusing instead on how individuals actively perceive and interact with their surroundings. Learning is conceptualised not as mere internal processing but as a fluid and situated activity, where understanding is shaped by real-world context and engagement.

A significant advantage of this approach is its consideration of individual agency; learners are seen as active participants who navigate their environments purposefully, adapting their behaviours in response to the myriad affordances they encounter. This provides a holistic view of learning that accounts for environmental, situational, and contextual factors, including the nested influences of different contexts and timeframes on behaviour, allowing for a more comprehensive understanding of learning.

Limitations of Ecological Psychology

While ecological psychology offers valuable insights, it also presents certain limitations. The complexity of affordances, which are central to this approach, can lead to ambiguity, as determining which affordances are perceived and how they vary among individuals can be challenging. Moreover, the strong emphasis on context may hinder the establishment of generalisable learning principles applicable across diverse situations, leading to some frustration from those who wish for simple linear rules to supporting learning.

Critics also point out that ecological psychology tends to undervalue internal cognitive processes, which can result in an incomplete perspective on how people mentally conceptualise their interactions with the environment. Furthermore, the qualitative nature of ecological research can complicate efforts to measure and quantify behaviour.

Conclusion

Behaviourism, cognitivism, and ecological psychology each provide unique lenses through which to understand learning and behaviour. A strength of ecological psychology is its focus on real-world interactions and the agency of individuals, presenting a nuanced view that accounts for the dynamic relationships between organisms and their environments. Behaviourism, while historically significant, has faced criticism for its reductive approach to learning, overlooking the organism and the complexity of cognition and emotional factors. On the other hand, cognitivism has contributed significantly to the understanding of internal mental processes but overlooks the environment and grapples with the symbol grounding problem, emphasising abstract representations at the expense of real-world applicability.

As research continues to increase our understanding of both human and other animal learning and behaviour, the more it is evident that other animals are more like us than previously believed. The learning abilities of many other animals, along with the recognition of the implications of evolution, would necessitate that our learning has evolved over millennia and cannot be incompatibly different to that of other animals. Ecological psychology claims to be applicable to all organisms, human and non human. This opens up an opportunity for research to gain a better understanding of learning and skill acquisition in all animals, including multi-species (such as human-horse-dog) interactions.

Bibliography:

Part 2. Exploring Learning Theories with David Farrokh: An ecological (systems) approach in practice. https://www.buzzsprout.com/1975020/episodes/15754250

Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?: Frans de Waal. 2017

Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel. Carl Safina. 2020

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Learning theories: Behaviourism and Ecological Psychology.

Ecological psychology and behaviourism are both approaches within psychology that focus on understanding human and animal learning and behaviour. They are also both descendants of American naturalism, but they differ significantly in their theoretical foundations and methodologies.

Similarities.

Both ecological psychology and behaviourism prioritise observable behaviours and acknowledge the importance of the interaction between the individual and the environment. They both recognise that behaviour is influenced by environmental factors and reject the reliance on internal mental processes (abstract models and representations) that are a feature of cognitive theories including constructivism and social constructivism.

Both ecological psychology and behaviourism reject Cartesian dualism, the idea that the mind and body are separate. Instead, they see mental processes as intrinsically linked to physical and environmental contexts, reinforcing a naturalistic worldview. Both use scientific methods to study psychology, relying on empirical data to draw conclusions about behaviour.

Although both approaches recognise the importance of the environment in shaping behaviour, behaviourists study how external stimuli influence responses, while ecological psychologists examine how people and animals interact with the affordances in their environment. The concepts of stimuli in behaviourism and affordances in ecological psychology represent foundational ideas in their respective frameworks, and they highlight key differences in how each approach understands the environment’s influence on behaviour.

Differences.

Theoretical Foundations:

Behaviourism is rooted in the work of figures like John B. Watson and B.F. Skinner (1), focusing primarily on the links between stimuli and responses. It discounts internal mental states, arguing that behavior can be understood purely in terms of conditioning (both classical and operant).

A stimulus is a discrete event in time and space that causes, or can be conditioned to cause, a response. A stimulus is an external event or object that elicits a specific response. It refers to any environmental factor that can trigger a behavioural reaction, such as sounds, lights, or other observable phenomena.

Ecological Psychology was developed by psychologist James J. Gibson* (2), influenced by behaviourism and sharing roots from American naturalism, it emphasises the relationship between individuals and their environments, focusing on how organisms perceive and act within specific contexts. The concept of stimuli is replaced by the concept of affordances, which describe the opportunities for action that the environment offers the individual.

Affordances are not considered causal like stimuli, but invitational, relational (to individual abilities and intentions), and act over multiple scales of time, events, and space.

An affordance refers to the potential actions or uses that an environment or object offers to an individual based on its characteristics and the capabilities of the individual. It emphasises the interactive relationship between the organism and its environment, highlighting a dependance on the specific context and the individual’s perception, embodying the idea that the same object can afford different actions to different beings, or different actions to the same being at different times or in different contexts (e.g., a wall may afford leaning against for a human, jumping over or avoiding for a horse, or walking along for a cat; a patch of grass may afford eating by a horse, lying on by a human, or digging a hole in by a dog).

From an ecological psychology perspective, perception is not merely a response to a stimulus but involves active engagement with the environment, allowing the organism to recognise opportunities for action based on its own abilities and intentions.

The primary differences between the concept of a stimulus in behaviourism and the concept of affordances in ecological psychology lie in their definitions, methodologies, and the frameworks within which they operate. While behaviourism centres around external stimuli and conditioned responses within discrete scales of time, ecological psychology emphasises the active role of perception and interaction between organisms and their environments through affordances, over nested scales of time. 

Nature of Learning:

Behaviourism views learning primarily as conditioning. This can be through reinforcement and punishment (operant conditioning) or through pairing a conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus, leading to a conditioned response (classical conditioning). In both cases the focus is on observable behaviours rather than internal processes. Ecological Psychology emphasises learning as an active process of perceiving and adapting to affordances in the environment. It considers the dynamic interactions between organisms and their settings.

 

Action and Agency:

Behaviourism tends to downplay the role of agency, arguing that behaviour is largely a result of external stimuli without accounting for individual internal intentions. Ecological Psychology highlights the active role of individuals in perceiving and interacting with their environments, emphasising agency and intention.

Nature of Study:

Behaviourism often involves controlled experiments in laboratories or simplified environments to study behaviour in response to specific stimuli, often ignoring the broader context of real-world environments and longer scales of time. Ecological Psychology tends to engage in more naturalistic observations, studying behaviour in real-world settings and focusing on the interplay between organisms and their environments. 

Conclusion:

In summary, while both behaviourism and ecological psychology recognise the role of the environment in shaping behaviour, they diverge significantly in how they conceptualise learning, the nature of interaction, the role of agency, and the complexity of measurement in understanding behaviour. Behaviourism emphasises observable stimulus-response relationships, while ecological psychology focuses on affordances and the active, perceptual engagement of individuals with their environments.

Ecological psychology accounts for nested scales of influence in behaviour and learning, recognising that actions are influenced by broader contextual factors and different timeframes. This allows for a more comprehensive understanding of learning processes that incorporates various environmental and situational influences.

Where next?

In the next blog, we will explore ecological dynamics (the fusion of ecological psychology and dynamical systems theory) to highlight how this theoretical framework can be used in the design of learning environments and practice activities.

Related podcast

Part 1. Exploring Learning Theories with David Farrokh: From Behaviourism to Ecological Psychology.

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References

  1. Akpan, B. (2020). Classical and Operant Conditioning—Ivan Pavlov; Burrhus Skinner. In: Akpan, B., Kennedy, T.J. (eds) Science Education in Theory and Practice. Springer Texts in Education. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-43620-9_6 accessed online at https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-3-030-43620-9_6
  2. Lobo L, Heras-Escribano M, and Travieso D. (2018). The History and Philosophy of Ecological Psychology, Frontiers in Psychology (9),  URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02228.

* James Gibson’s wife Eleanor was also a developmental psychologist and contributed extensively to the field  of ecological psychology, continuing to develop their work after James’ death.