Psychology of Perception: Applications and Learning Theories
The Usefulness of the Psychology of Perception
The applications of the psychology of perception in fields as diverse as architecture, design, and advertising have been significant.
Behavior and Learning
This is the field in which psychology has focused on a more behavioral approach. Behaviorism seeks to study phenomena that can only be known objectively, emphasizing observable inputs and disregarding unobservable internal states. While the introspective method is dominant in many schools of psychology, behaviorism rejects it as unscientific. If we adhere to the observable, we see that the external behavior of individuals can be quantified and studied rigorously and empirically. It is logical that the field of learning is where behaviorists have devoted the most effort. One of the classic definitions of learning is as follows:
Learning makes us change previous behaviors.
Our behavior is governed in two ways: first, we receive a stimulus (E), and this causes a response in the individual (R). Like animals, we know things that are innate, instinctive, and already fixed. A dog, or a human, will salivate upon seeing food. A child cries when hungry (they will not cry in front of a computer unless the right conditions are met). This reaction is physiological or instinctive.
Learning begins when we develop acquired habits that are not predetermined in our nature. That is, stimulus-response relationships that can be modified. In these learning processes, Pavlov was the first to study how a natural stimulus-response relationship can be replaced with an artificial one, and his work was continued by authors such as Watson and Skinner. Among the most typical types of conditioning studied in psychology are the following:
Inhibitory Conditioning or Punishment Learning
The individual ceases to respond to a stimulus as a result of associating the response with pain or discomfort. For example, you can get an animal to stop eating a particular product by delivering a shock when it eats. This type of conditioning does not lead to new learning but rather to the suppression of a response.
Classical or Respondent Conditioning
Pavlov noted that in the presence of a bowl of food (stimulus), a dog reacts by increasing the secretion of saliva (response). From there, he designed the following experiment: every time he brought the dog a bowl of food, he previously rang a bell. After repeating the process many times, he discovered that the dog began to salivate at the mere sound of the bell. He had replaced a natural stimulus-response relationship with an artificial one.
Operant Conditioning
This type of conditioning has been studied by Skinner. Its name is derived from the fact that the subject has an active role in operational conditioning. For his experiments, this psychologist developed what has since become known as the “Skinner box,” consisting of a container with a simple mechanism that, when activated, provides a reward or punishment to the subject of the experiment.
Insight and Learning by Imitation
These behavioral learning processes are clear, but one might wonder if all phases of human learning are reduced to the relationship between stimulus and response. The cognitive and functionalist schools have raised the point that a stimulus is followed by a process of reflection, an internal process within the subject. For behaviorism, the only reflection in the mind is to obtain pleasure and avoid pain; there is no other relevant mental element. However, cognitive psychologists believe that humans possess a creative, problem-solving ability that has nothing to do with simple external learning. This is insight, that is, the internal resolution of a problem: a person is able to “see” a problem and solve it internally, providing clues that may not be present in the external experience. This was the case with Kohler’s apes: the apes were able to solve simple problems, like reaching bananas by joining several clubs, by visualizing the solution in their brains and then putting it into practice.