- \r\n\t
- Group 1: Rewarded Every Time: <\/b>this group\u00a0always received a food reward at the end of the maze, so the payoff for learning the maze was real and immediate.<\/li>\r\n\t
- Group 2: Never Rewarded<\/b>: they never received any food reward, so there was no incentive to learn to navigate the maze effectively.<\/span><\/li>\r\n\t
- Group 3: Reward Introduced Later: <\/b>This group was like the second group for the first 10 days, but on the 11th day, food was now placed at the end of the maze.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n
If reinforcement were necessary for learning\u2014as strict behaviorists believed\u2014the Group 3 rats should have been just as slow and inefficient as the never-rewarded rats.<\/p>\r\n
But that\u2019s not what happened.<\/p>\r\n
- \r\n\t
- On Day 11, the newly rewarded rats suddenly raced<\/b><\/span> through the maze.<\/li>\r\n\t
- By Day 12, their accuracy matched the rats who had been rewarded from the beginning.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n
This told Tolman something important: The rats had learned the maze during the first 10 days\u2014they just never showed it because they had no reason to.<\/b><\/p>\r\n
He called this latent learning<\/b><\/span>: learning that occurs without reinforcement and is demonstrated only when motivation appears.<\/b><\/b><\/p>\r\n
This discovery provided early evidence that cognitive processes\u2014such as storing information, forming mental maps, and planning\u2014play a key role in learning.<\/p>\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_3884\" align=\"aligncenter\" width=\"606\"]
![\"A](\"https:\/\/s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com\/courses-images\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/855\/2017\/03\/08034423\/Screen-Shot-2017-03-07-at-9.43.56-PM.png\")
<\/a> Figure 1<\/strong>. The maze. As you can see from the map, the maze had lots of doors and curtains to make it difficult for the rats to master. The blue marks represent doors that swung both directions, which prevented the rat from seeing most of the junctions as it approached. This forced the rat to go through the door to discover what was on the other side. The green forms show curtains. These hung down and prevented the rat from getting a long-distance perspective and it also meant that they could not see a wall at the end of a wrong turn until they had already made a choice and moved in that direction. The rat was always in a small area, unable to see beyond the next door or curtain, so learning the maze was a formidable task.[\/caption]\r\n\r\n[ohm2_question height=\"350\"]4231[\/ohm2_question]<\/section>","rendered":" Understanding the Research: Latent Learning<\/h2>\n
You just read that Edward Tolman discovered latent learning,<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0<\/span>learning that is not reinforced and not demonstrated until there is motivation to do so, through his research done with rats forming a cognitive map of a maze. Let’s take a closer look at what he did to discover this. In one of Tolman\u2019s classic experiments, he observed the behavior of three groups of hungry rats that were learning to navigate mazes. Let’s break down the experimental process together. There were 3 experimental groups:<\/p>\n
- \n
- Group 1: Rewarded Every Time: <\/b>this group\u00a0always received a food reward at the end of the maze, so the payoff for learning the maze was real and immediate.<\/li>\n
- Group 2: Never Rewarded<\/b>: they never received any food reward, so there was no incentive to learn to navigate the maze effectively.<\/span><\/li>\n
- Group 3: Reward Introduced Later: <\/b>This group was like the second group for the first 10 days, but on the 11th day, food was now placed at the end of the maze.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
If reinforcement were necessary for learning\u2014as strict behaviorists believed\u2014the Group 3 rats should have been just as slow and inefficient as the never-rewarded rats.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s not what happened.<\/p>\n
- \n
- On Day 11, the newly rewarded rats suddenly raced<\/b><\/span> through the maze.<\/li>\n
- By Day 12, their accuracy matched the rats who had been rewarded from the beginning.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
This told Tolman something important: The rats had learned the maze during the first 10 days\u2014they just never showed it because they had no reason to.<\/b><\/p>\n
He called this latent learning<\/b><\/span>: learning that occurs without reinforcement and is demonstrated only when motivation appears.<\/b><\/b><\/p>\n
This discovery provided early evidence that cognitive processes\u2014such as storing information, forming mental maps, and planning\u2014play a key role in learning.<\/p>\n
<\/a>Figure 1<\/strong>. The maze. As you can see from the map, the maze had lots of doors and curtains to make it difficult for the rats to master. The blue marks represent doors that swung both directions, which prevented the rat from seeing most of the junctions as it approached. This forced the rat to go through the door to discover what was on the other side. The green forms show curtains. These hung down and prevented the rat from getting a long-distance perspective and it also meant that they could not see a wall at the end of a wrong turn until they had already made a choice and moved in that direction. The rat was always in a small area, unable to see beyond the next door or curtain, so learning the maze was a formidable task.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n - By Day 12, their accuracy matched the rats who had been rewarded from the beginning.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n
- Group 2: Never Rewarded<\/b>: they never received any food reward, so there was no incentive to learn to navigate the maze effectively.<\/span><\/li>\n
- By Day 12, their accuracy matched the rats who had been rewarded from the beginning.<\/li>\r\n<\/ul>\r\n
- Group 2: Never Rewarded<\/b>: they never received any food reward, so there was no incentive to learn to navigate the maze effectively.<\/span><\/li>\r\n\t