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Learning

Kartiki

Kamala Nehru College, University of Delhi

Dr Shivani Dutta

22nd February, 2022

Learning

Definition

Learning is any relatively permanent change in behavior brought about by experience

or practice.

Theories of learning

Classical conditioning

A basic form of learning in which one stimulus comes to serve as a signal for the

occurrence of a second stimulus. In this type of learning, a neutral stimulus comes to bring

about a response after it is paired with a stimulus that naturally brings about that response.

Classical conditioning became the subject of careful study in the early twentieth

century, when Ivan Pavlov, a Nobel Prize-winning physiologist from Russia, identified it as

an important behavioral process. Pavlov had been studying salivation in dogs in response to

the ingestion of varying amounts and kinds of food. He noticed that the dogs in his studies

often began to salivate when they saw or smelled food but before they actually tasted it.

Some even salivated at the sight of the pan where their food was kept or at the sight or sound

of the person who usually brought it. This suggested to Pavlov that these stimuli had

somehow become signals for the food itself: The dogs had learned that when the signals were

present, food would soon follow.

To demonstrate classical conditioning, Pavlov (1927) attached a tube to the salivary

gland of a dog, allowing him to measure precisely the dog’s salivation. He then rang a bell

and, just a few seconds later, presented the dog with meat. This pairing occurred repeatedly

and was carefully planned so that, each time, exactly the same amount of time elapsed

between the presentation of the bell and the meat. At first the dog would salivate only when

the meat was presented, but soon it began to salivate at the sound of the bell. In fact, even
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when Pavlov stopped presenting the meat, the dog still salivated after hearing the sound. The

dog had been classically conditioned to salivate to the bell.

This can be used to explain the different elements of classical conditioning. Before

conditioning, there are two unrelated stimuli: the ringing of a bell and meat. The bell is

therefore called the neutral stimulus, because it is a stimulus that, before conditioning, does

not naturally bring about salivation. The meat was termed the unconditioned stimulus (UCS),

because its ability to produce salivation was automatic and did not depend on the dog’s

having learned the response. Similarly, the response of salivation to the meat was termed an

unconditioned response (UCR); it too did not depend on previous learning. When

conditioning is complete, the bell has changed from a neutral stimulus to a conditioned

stimulus (CS) because its ability to produce salivation depended on its being paired with the

meat. Finally, salivation in response to the bell was termed a conditioned response (CR).

After many presentations of a bell (conditioned stimulus) in the absence of meat

(unconditioned stimulus), the dog no longer salivates in response to the bell. In other words,

extinction has occurred. Extinction is the process through which a conditioned stimulus

gradually loses the ability to evoke conditioned responses when it is no longer followed by

the unconditioned stimulus. But if the conditioned stimulus (the bell) and the unconditioned

stimulus (meat) are again paired, salivation will return very quickly—a process termed

reconditioning. The reappearance of the previously extinguished conditioned response after a

time interval is referred to as spontaneous recovery.

Operant conditioning

Operant conditioning is a process through which organisms learn to repeat behaviors

that yield positive outcomes or permit them to avoid or escape from negative outcomes.

In order to understand operant conditioning, we should first look at some research

done by pioneers of this field- B.F. Skinner and Edward Thorndike.

Thorndike built a special cage, called a puzzle box, that could be opened from the

inside by pulling a string or stepping on a lever. Thorndike placed a hungry animal, such as a

cat, inside the box. Food was put outside, and to get it the animal had to learn how to open

the box. The cat might first claw at the sides or push against an opening. Eventually, as it

moved around the cage, the cat would happen to step on the lever, the door would open, and

the cat would eat the food. Performance slowly improved with repeated trials, and over time

the cat learned to press the lever soon after the door was shut.

What would have occurred, according to Edward L. Thorndike (1932), who studied

this situation extensively, was that the cat would have learned that pressing the paddle was

associated with the desirable consequence of getting food. Thorndike summarized that

relationship by formulating the law of effect: which states that in a given situation, a response

followed by a satisfying consequence will become more likely to occur and a response

followed by an annoying consequence will become less likely to occur.

Harvard psychologist B. F. Skinner, who built on and expanded Thorndike’s work,

was America’s leading proponent of behaviorism throughout much of the 20th century.

Skinner coined the term operant behavior, meaning that an organism operates on its

environment in some way. Operant conditioning is a type of learning in which behavior is

influenced by the consequences that follow it (Skinner, 1938, 1953). Skinner designed what

has come to be known as a Skinner box, a special chamber used to study operant conditioning

experimentally. A lever on one wall is positioned above a small cup. When the lever is

depressed, a food pellet automatically drops into the cup. A hungry rat is put into the chamber

and, at first the rat will wander around the box, exploring the environment in a relatively

random fashion. At some point, however, it will probably press the lever by chance, and

when it does, it will receive a food pellet. We record the rat’s behavior on a cumulative

recorder, which shows that the rat presses the bar more frequently over time. Skinner
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identified several types of consequences. For now, we will focus on two: reinforcement and

punishment.

Procedures that strengthen behavior are termed reinforcement, whereas those that

suppress behavior are termed punishment.

Reinforcement is the process by which a stimulus increases the probability that a

preceding behavior will be repeated. There are two types of reinforcement: positive

reinforcement and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is the reinforcement of a

response by the addition or experience of a pleasurable consequence. It involves the impact

of positive reinforcers- a stimulus added to the environment that brings about an increase in a

preceding response. Negative reinforcement involves the impact of negative reinforcers- an

unpleasant stimulus whose removal leads to an increase in the probability that a preceding

response will be repeated in the future.

Punishment refers to procedures that weaken or decrease the rate of behavior. It is any

event or stimulus that, when following a response, causes that response to be less likely to

happen again. Punishment weakens responses, whereas reinforcement strengthens responses.

As with reinforcement, there are two types of punishment: positive punishment and negative

punishment. In positive punishment, behaviors are followed by aversive stimulus events

(such as a spanking, scolding, or other unpleasant stimulus) is added to the situation or

applied. In negative punishment, the rate of a behavior is weakened or decreased by the

removal of something pleasurable or desired after the behavior occurs. “Grounding” a

teenager is removing the freedom to do what the teenager wants to do and is an example of

this kind of punishment.

Schedules of Reinforcement-

Continuous Reinforcement: Every response is reinforced. Reinforcement is provided every

single time after the desired behavior. Candy machines are examples of continuous
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reinforcement because every time we put money in (behavior), we receive candy in return

(positive reinforcement).

Intermittent Reinforcement: only reinforce the desired behavior occasionally rather than all

the time.

 Fixed ratio schedule: Reinforcement is delivered after a fixed number of responses

has been made. For example, every fifth time a pigeon pecks at the disk in an operant

chamber, food is dispensed.

 Variable ratio schedule: The number of responses required for a reinforcer to be

delivered, varies for each trial. For example, a slot-machine requires a variable

number of responses after each trial to pay-out.

 Fixed-interval schedule: A reinforcer is delivered after a fixed amount of time has

elapsed. For example, food is dispensed at 15-minute intervals.

 Variable-interval schedule: A reinforcer is delivered after an average amount of time

has elapsed. For example, food may be dispensed after 30 seconds on the first trail,

and after 90 seconds on the second trial, but the average stays 60 seconds.

Another concept in operant conditioning is shaping- the process of teaching a complex

behavior by rewarding closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. The

organism undergoing shaping receives a reward for each small step toward a final goal—the

target response—rather than only for the final response. At first, actions even remotely

resembling the target behavior are followed by a reward. Gradually, closer and closer

approximations of the final target behavior are required before the reward is given. Shaping,

then, helps organisms acquire, or construct, new and more complex forms of behavior from

simpler behavior.
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Another procedure is chaining- a procedure that establishes a sequence of responses, which

lead to a reward following the final response in the chain. Chaining is usually begun by first

shaping the final response. When this response is well established, the responses earlier in the

chain are shaped, then they are reinforced by giving the animal the opportunity to perform

responses later in the chain, the last of which produces the reinforcer.

Observational learning

Observational learning is the learning of new behavior through watching the actions

of a model (someone else who is doing that behavior).

Albert Bandura demonstrated the ability of models to stimulate learning in a classic

experiment. In the study, young children saw a film of an adult wildly hitting a 5-feet-tall

inflatable punching toy called a Bobo doll. Later the children were given the opportunity to

play with the Bobo doll themselves, and most displayed the same kind of behavior, in some

cases mimicking the aggressive behavior almost identically. In another condition, the model

interacted with the toys in a nonaggressive manner, completely ignoring the presence of a

Bobo doll. The children who saw the model ignore the doll did not act aggressively toward

the toy.

There are four elements of observational learning- attention, memory, imitation and

desire. To learn anything through observation, the learner must first pay attention to the

model. Next, the learner must also be able to retain the memory of what was done. The

learner must be capable of reproducing, or imitating, the actions of the model. Finally, the

learner must have the desire or motivation to perform the action.

Memory

It is an active system that receives information from the senses, puts that information

into a usable form, organizes it as it stores it away, and then retrieves the information from

storage.
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Memory can be broken into three basic processes: encoding—converting information

into a form that can be entered into memory; storage— somehow retaining information over

varying periods of time; and retrieval— locating and accessing specific information when it

is needed at later times.

Theories of memory

1) Levels of processing theory

This theory was suggested by Craik and Lockhart (1972). According to this theory,

there is only one kind of memory, and the ability to remember depends upon the depth of

information processing. According to this theory, we can process information in two ways.

The first is through shallow processing in which we encode the physical qualities or structure

of something (structural processing) as well as its sound (phonemic processing). Shallow

processing only involves maintenance rehearsal (information gets stored only in the short-

term memory after repetition) and leads to fairly short-term retention of information. The

second way through which we can process information is through deep processing- in which

we encode the meaning of a word and relate it to similar words with similar meaning

(semantic processing). Deep processing involves elaboration rehearsal which involves a more

meaningful analysis of information and leads to better recall.

2) Information processing theory

The model proposed by Atkinson and Shiffrin suggests that we possess three distinct

systems for storing information. One of these, known as sensory memory, provides temporary

storage of information brought to us by our senses. A second type of memory is known as

short-term memory. Short-term memory holds relatively small amounts of information for

brief periods of time, usually thirty seconds or less. Our third memory system, long-term

memory, allows us to retain vast amounts of information for very long periods of time.

Information in sensory memory enters short-term memory when it becomes the focus of our

attention. Whereas, information in short term memory enters long-term storage through

elaborative rehearsal—when we think about its meaning and relate it to other information

already in long-term memory.

Factors affecting learning and memory

There are various factors that affect learning and memory related to the learner and

the learning experience.

1) Anxiety

Anxiety affects the quality of learning. For example, people with math anxiety have a

smaller capacity for remembering math-related information in working memory, such

as the results of carrying a digit in arithmetic.

2) Expertise

Having more knowledge or expertise actually enhances our ability to learn new

information. A classic example can be seen in comparing a chess master with a chess

novice on their ability to learn and remember the positions of pieces on a chessboard

(Chase & Simon, 1973). In that experiment, the master remembered the location of

many more pieces than the novice, even after only a very short glance. 

3) The learner’s physical and mental health

The mental and physical state and health maintained by the learner, especially at the

time of learning, greatly affect the outcome of learning.

4) The level of aspiration and achievement motivation

The learner can’t be expected to achieve a thing they have no aspiration for. Thus, the

level of aspiration and nature of achievement motivation possessed by a learner

greatly influence the learning. 

5) Readiness and will power

A learner’s readiness and power to learn is a great deciding factor of their results in

learning. It is only possible for a person to effectively learn when they have the will to

do so.

6) Scheduling repetitions of study

Spacing one’s repetitions apart in time is superior than massing them all together.

Spaced repetition uses increasing intervals of time between review sessions of

previously learned material. This exploits the spacing effect, which refers to the fact

that studying the material a second time is more effective when the two study sessions

are spaced apart.

7) State of mind, emotion and attention

We tend to remember experiences that match our momentary state of emotion – sad

memories when feeling sad. It is also easier to remember an experience in the same

state of mind as when it was encoded – by evoking a sad emotion, we can remember a

sad experience better. Strong emotional content usually gets more attention. It is the

amygdala that mediates emotion and attention. Studies show that the amygdala drives

attention to emotion-laden – especially fear-laden- visual input.

8)  Ability to retain

This depends upon good memory traces left in the brain by past experiences.

9) Sleep or rest

Sleep or rest immediately after learning strengthens connections in the brain and helps

for clear memory.

Relationship between learning and memory

According to Wickens (2005), "there is no learning without memory, although some

memories can be innate such as instincts and basic reflexes".

Learning involves acquisition of new information, and memory is the capacity for

storing and retrieving the information. Learning, in all, takes place when information is

transferred and stored in our memory. Memory refers to the process of acquiring, storing,

retaining and later retrieving information which also allows people to learn and interact. It is

almost impossible for an individual to truly learn something without also having the memory

to retain what they have learned. Therefore, in many ways, learning and memory maintain an

interdependent relationship. The process of memory formation involves encoding of

information, its storage for later use and retrieval for future reference. Factors like the

environment, cognitive skills, culture, biological state, and social development along with

past experiences and social relations influence both learning and memory. These factors also

affect how people remember and store memories – information must be stored in the long-
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term memory once sensory information has been received and held in the short-term memory

for 20-30 seconds, or it is lost. 

Learning has a most significant impact on the brain. When most are young, they learn

how to eat, get dressed, etc. It is our memory in which we can store this information to keep

and teach us how to live our lives efficiently.

Incidental and Intentional learning

Intentional learning is generally defined as learning that is motivated by intentions

and is goal directed. Bereiter and Scardamalia (1989) point out that they use the

term intentional learning “to refer to cognitive processes that have learning as a goal rather

than an incidental outcome”. Intentional learning emphasizes the consciousness of learning.

Incidental learning is not premeditated, deliberate, or intentional and that is acquired

as a result of some other, possibly unrelated, mental activity. “Incidental learning” can imply

that the acquisition of knowledge is unconscious in nature.

Application of Incidental and Intentional learning

These are some ways by which we make use of intentional learning-

 Learning a new language requires intention, practice and the ability to recall what you

have learnt.

 Learning study material for an exam and recalling it later.

 Learning things about new people that you meet such as their name.

 Learning your way around a new city that you live in so that you can commute easily.

These are some ways by which we make use of incidental learning-

 Remembering the name of characters, quotes or dialogues from a movie or book that

you watched or read respectively.

 Remembering the details of the routes that you cross regularly. The surroundings of a

route start to feel familiar when you go there regularly.

 We tend to start using the vocabulary or habits of those that we regularly hang out

with. This is mostly unconscious learning.

 We also learn material while doing assignments or projects. We may have not had the

intention to learn it but spending time searching things and reading material multiple

times may lead to unintentionally learn some part of it.

Literature Review

F. C. Bartlett (1932), conducted 3 experiments with a total of 76 undergraduates, in

which subjects who had rated 35 stimulus words on a 7-point affective scale (like-dislike or

pleasant-unpleasant) showed better recall and recognition after incidental learning than

subjects who had not so rated words did after intentional learning. Clustering by rating

categories was not consistently related to, while the number of rating categories was

significantly correlated with, level of recall. It was concluded that the critical variable is not

the intention to learn but the effectiveness of the operations to learn, and the facilitation with

affective ratings.

Murray, H. G., & Ure, G. (1974), conducted a study on role of temporal contiguity in

intentional and incidental paired-associate learning in which Consonant-vowel-consonant

(CVC) trigram pairs were presented as "distracting stimuli" to 180 university students in the

context of a probability-learning orienting task, with an interstimulus interval (ISI) of .8, 3.0,

or 6.0 sec between the first and second stimulus of each pair. Intentional subjects were told to

learn the CVC pairs, whereas incidental subjects were given no instructions to learn.

Performance on subsequent test trials was a decreasing function of the ISI for incidental

subjects and an increasing function of the ISI for intentional subjects. Results suggest that, at

least under certain orienting conditions, incidental and intentional paired-associate learning

may involve different underlying processes.

Duchek (1984) tested incidental learning in a cued recall task after a semantic (e.g.,

“is it a type of bird?”) or rhyme (e.g., “does it rhyme with care?”) categorization task. Older

adults remembered fewer items than younger adults did and were overall slower in their

reactions. Younger participants remembered significantly more yes-responses than no-

responses and were superior in recall of semantically encoded words.

Mitchell (1989) examined the effect of incidental learning on subsequent free recall

and recognition. Participants had to name pictures, which appeared on a projection screen

and, after a short delay, recalled the names of the pictures in writing and performed an

old/new recognition task. Younger participants freely recalled more pictures and had a lower

false alarm rate during recognition compared to older participants, but both groups performed

comparable for hit rates.

Anderson (1972) gave 163 2nd graders, in Exp. I, pretraining with trial-and-error

learning vs. instructions (special training on a 1- or 2-relevant-cue problem before giving

them 0 or 20 trials of redundant cue overtraining. There were no differences in 2-cue learning

between special training and trial-and-error learning, but Ss pretrained with 1 relevant cue

were less likely to learn both cues than were Ss pretrained with 2. This blocking effect was

not complete, in that significant incidental learning was also obtained. Exp. II and III (n =

144 and 64, respectively) found no increase in blocking with increasing 1-cue pretraining.

Data are interpreted as suggesting that incidental learning may not be cumulative over trials

but due to memory of the last trial.

M Eagle and E Leiter (1964)

Recall and recognition of a list of 36 words were studied in 3 groups: an intentional group

(Group 1) instructed to remember the words; an incidental group (Group 2) instructed to

respond to each stimulus word by indicating whether it was a noun, verb, or adjective; a 3rd

group (Group 3) instructed to both remember the words and perform the orienting task.
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Group 1 showed superior recall, but Groups 2 and 3 recognized significantly more words

than Group 1. The superior recall of Group 1 was attributable mainly to performance of those

Ss reporting use of a memorizing strategy (e.g., grouping, rehearsing). These results support

the view that intention to learn is crucial for learning only to the extent that it generates

adequate learning operations. Furthermore, different learning responses (e.g., recall and

recognition) require somewhat different operations. 

Method

Variables-

Independent variable- ‌Instructions‌ ‌given‌ ‌to‌ ‌the‌ s‌ ubject‌ ‌to‌ ‌facilitate‌ ‌incidental‌ ‌/‌ ‌

intentional‌‌learning‌w
‌ ith‌‌respect‌‌to‌‌the‌‌task.

Dependent variable- The number of words correctly recalled in each condition.

Control variable-

1. The number of words in both the lists was kept 10.

2. The font size, colour of the text and background of the slides was kept constant. (Arial

size 52, black)

3. Each word was shown for 7 seconds, i.e., the exposure time was kept constant.

4. Each word was shown one at a time. 

5. The subject was made to read each word aloud for both the lists.

6. The sample characteristics were held constant since it’s a within-subject design. 

7. Both lists were shown only once. 

8. Free recall was used in both the conditions. 

9. Environmental conditions (for example, location, temperature, noise) were also kept

constant across both conditions. 

10. The language in which the lists were prepared was English for both the conditions.

Rules for list construction

1. In both the lists, there should be 10 words.

2. Each word in the given list should start with a different alphabet.

3. No words in any of the lists should rhyme with each other. 

4. The meaningfulness, concreteness and imagery ratings of each word are 6-7 from

Paivio, Yuille and Madigan (1968) list of words. 

5. The number of letters in each word should range from 6 to 8.

6. No two consecutive words should start with two consecutive alphabets.

7. All the words in both lists should be presented in randomised order.

8. Both the lists should not contain two words from the same category, like leopard and

elephant.

Design of the experiment

The design of this experiment consists of two conditions of incidental and intentional

learning along with a rest pause of 5 minutes:

Condition I: Intentional Learning Condition

The first condition is the incidental learning condition.  The experimenter shall present a list

of 10 words through a PowerPoint presentation. The list shall be constructed according to the

rules mentioned earlier.  The exposure time will be 5 seconds for each word. Each word will

be shown one at a time only once.  There will be no instructions given to learn the words in

the incidental condition list.  However, the subject will be asked to read aloud the words and

also to perform an orienting task of counting the number of vowels in each word and say the

number aloud. These responses will be noted by the experimenter. After the list is shown, the

subject will be immediately asked to do a free recall of the words by writing down as many

words as they can remember in any order they like. 

A rest pause will be given for 5 minutes. 

Condition II: Intentional Learning Condition 

This shall be followed by the second condition, i.e., the intentional learning condition in

which the experimenter will present another list of 10 words through a PPT also constructed

according to the rules mentioned earlier. Each word will be shown one at a time for 5 seconds

only once.  In this condition, the subject will be instructed to learn the list of words shown

and will not be given any separate orienting task.  After the list is shown, Immediate free

recall will be taken for this list as well by instructing the subject to write down as many

words as they can remember on a piece of paper and in any order they like. The performance

of the subject in both conditions will be compared.

Precautions

 Optimal conditions in the study setting were ensured with respect to lighting and

ventilation. 

 Distractions were minimized in the setting. 

 Material was arranged appropriately and all equipment was checked for proper

functioning before the subject arrived. 

 Adequate rapport was formed before commencement of the experiment. 

 It was ensured that all instructions were clear to the participant for both conditions.

 The word ‘learning’ was not used in front of the subject till the first condition was

over. 

 There was no delay in giving the recall slips after the presentation of the list of

words. 

 No feedback was given during the experiment. 

 The subject was de-briefed at the end. 

 It was ensured that the subject was comfortable with English. 

 The subject was a non-psychology student to avoid demand characteristics. 

Materials required

1. List A (Incidental learning)

2. List B (Intentional learning)

3. Stationery

4. Laptop

Preliminaries:

Name: A. P.

Age: 19 years

Sex: Female

Educational Qualification: 12th pass

Place of conduction: Google Meet

Time of conduction: 7 PM

Date of conduction: 4th February, 2022.

Rapport formation: 

Subject was sent an invite link to join a google meet room. She was asked to sit

comfortably on a chair and in a room free from any kind of distraction. She was engaged in

informal conversation. Her rights regarding the experiment were reviewed. If she had any

questions then they were addressed to, and when she got comfortable enough with the setting,

the experimenter moved on to taking informed consent.

Instructions
The following instructions were given to the subject before beginning with each

condition of the experiment -

Condition I: Incidental Learning

“You will be presented a list of words. Each word will be shown on the screen only once. The
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words will appear on the screen one at a time. Read each word aloud as soon as it is

presented.

Also count the number of vowels in the word and say the number aloud. For example, if you

see the word ‘toast’ then you will say ‘toast – 2’ since there are two vowels in this word.”

Condition II: Intentional Learning

“You will be presented a list of words. Each word will be shown on the screen only once. The

words will appear on the screen one at a time. Read each word aloud as soon as it is

presented.

Try to learn as many words as possible. At the end of the list, you will be asked to recall the

words in any order you like.”

Free Recall

The subject was handed the recall slip after the presentation of each list and the following

instructions were given –

“Please write down as many words as you can remember from the list that you just saw in

any

order you like.

Conduction

The subject was told that she was participating in a reading experiment. She was

given instructions about the incidental learning condition. Once the instructions were given

and her questions were answered, her consent taken and the experiment began.
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The subject gave a thumbs up signifying that she was ready. I shared my screen on Google

Meet and opened the PowerPoint Presentation of List A that was to be used for the incidental

learning condition. The PowerPoint Presentation was shown from the beginning with the first

slide being blank white. The words of List A were displayed on the screen as PPT slides,

each for 7 seconds. The subject read each word out loud along with the number of vowels

that it contained. As soon as the complete List A was shown to the subject, the slide show

ended. The subject was asked to write down all the words that she could remember from the

list that she was just shown. After she finished writing them down, we took a break for 5

minutes.

After 5 minutes she was informed that we would be continuing with the experiment and she

was given the instructions for the intentional learning conditions. Once the subject was ready,

I showed her List B in the form of a PowerPoint Presentation. The words of List B were

displayed on the screen as PowerPoint Presentation slides, each for 7 seconds. The subject

was asked to remember the words as she read them out loud. As soon as the complete List B

was shown to the subject, the slide show ended. The subject was asked to write down all the

words that she could remember from the list that she was just shown.

Once both the lists were shown, the subject was told that it was actually a learning

experiment. She was explained what incidental and intentional learning was and which

learning was more prominent in her case based on the number of correct words recalled in

each case. Whatever questions she had about the experiment were then answered. The subject

was also asked some questions about her experience of the experiment and the experiment

was finally concluded.

Introspective Report
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“When you first told me about the experiment, I got very excited. I thought it would be

something related to the mind so I was very curious to know about it and participate in it.

Then when you told me that I need to sit in a quiet place in my house, free from any

distraction, I got a bit nervous. I wanted to perform well in the experiment. I made myself

normal before the experiment started. Then I followed all of your instructions in the

experiment. I was not thinking much about the experiment when we were doing it. In the

second condition, I was repeating words to myself in order to learn them. After the

experiment was completed, you explained to me what it was and then I asked you how had

performed in it.”

Result

Table 1- Recall for incidental learning

S. No. Words Words Recall slip

1. Magazine ●

2. Factory ●

3. Corpse ●

4. Prisoner

5. Valley

6. Trumpet ●

7. Icebox ●

8. Hairpin ●

9. Dollar ●

10. Alcohol
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Table 2- Recall for intentional learning

S. No. Words Words Recall slip

1. Library ●

2. Damsel ●

3. Scorpion ●

4. Cradle ●

5. Hamlet ●

6. Bagpipe ●

7. Missile

8. Admiral ●

9. Poster

10. Engine ●

Table 3- Comparison of the percentage of correct recall in the two learning conditions

Percentage of correct
Learning Condition No. of words recalled
recall
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Incidental learning 7 70%

Intentional learning 8 80%

Bar graph depicting the correct recall for incidental and intentional learning

Discussion

The aim of this experiment was to compare the outcome of incidental learning and

that of intentional learning with a hypothesis that intentional condition would lead to better

learning outcomes than the incidental condition.

The experiment followed the pattern of a within-subject study and the subject was

exposed to two conditions, separated by a rest pause of 5 minutes. The first condition focused

on incidental learning, wherein the subject was presented with a list of 10 words through a

PowerPoint presentation, each shown only once and one at a time with the duration of

exposure being 7 seconds. Instructions were given to simply read the words aloud as well as

perform an orienting task of counting the number of vowels in each of them. The responses

were noted by the experimenter. This was followed by a surprise recall in any order (free

recall) immediately. After the rest pause, instructions for the second condition, focusing on

intentional learning, were given. The subject was explicitly asked to learn as many words as

possible while also reading them aloud. Another list of 10 words was presented through a

PPT, each shown only once and one at a time with the duration of exposure being 7 seconds.

This was followed by an immediate free recall, i.e., in any order and the time taken was

noted. Thereafter, the results of both conditions were compared. 

As can be seen on Table 1, the number of words correctly recalled by the subject are 7

out of 10 words. That means that in incidental learning condition, 70% recall took place.

When we look at Table 2, we can see that the number of words correctly recalled by

the subject are 8 out of 10 words. This means that they were able to correctly recall 80% of

the words under intentional learning condition.

This means that intentional learning was better than incidental learning in this case.

There have been some mechanisms proposed which explain the role of intention in learning

and emphasize the relationship between intention and stronger learning. These mechanisms

can be categorized into two major classes: motivation and strategies (specific responses). 

Motivational mechanisms:
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Goal setting theory (Latham and Locke)- Goal setting involves the development of an action

plan designed in order to motivate and guide a person or group toward a goal. In the

intentional learning condition, with explicit instructions about the learning requirement, a

clear-cut goal is provided to the subject. This helps the subject to align his/ her thought,

emotion, and behaviour towards attaining the goal. In the contrary, the goal setting for the

incidental learning condition is not in sync with the eventual task performance expected out

of the participants as the instructions are related to orienting task drawing their focus on the

vowels whereas the final task performance is pertaining to accurate recall of the words, thus

creating an asynchrony.

Muscular tension and stimuli maintenance 

McGeoch (1942) states that the intention to learn leads to greater muscular discharge or

tension and relates these notions of tension with the concept of maintaining stimuli (Guthrie,

1985) where subjects maintain a state of readiness to make certain types of responses. Studies

indicate that subjects who have been given no particular instructions to do anything or learn

will often slump in their chairs, exhibiting low muscular tension. And on the other hand,

subjects under specific instructions to perform some tasks will usually sit erect and indicate

increased muscular tension. However, this type of mechanism and reasoning is difficult to

apply across most studies since, in many cases, even orienting tasks may lead to increased

muscular tension and unless subjects are directed towards learning the material to be tested,

the retention gets impaired (Saltz, 1971).  Therefore, tension cannot be the basic factor or

explanation for the difference in performance under intentional and incidental conditions.

Memory improving strategies/ mnemonics techniques):

McGeoch also indicates that in addition to the tension inducing functions, intention also has

orienting and directing properties, i.e., subjects have different sets of responses to the relevant

stimuli when they are trying to learn and when they are not (under intentional and incidental

learning conditions). This can be further proved by the following studies – 

 Peterson (1916): Here, the subjects under intention learning conditions reported

to be using mnemonic aids to improve retention and recall, like associating

experimental items to other existing words in their vocabular, storytelling etc.

Whereas, in non-intentional conditions, little such activity by the subjects was

reported. 

 Poppelreuter (1917): Here, the subjects under intentional conditions were

reported to be spontaneously utilizing devices like pronouncing syllables

rhythmically, while the subjects in the non-intentional conditions didn’t. 

Limitations

One of the limitations of this experiment is that the results obtained here could not be

generalized to a larger population since the sample studied was based on convenience, not

randomly selected and also consisted of just one subject. 

Another limitation is that, due to the situation imposed by the pandemic, the experiment

could not be conducted in laboratory conditions and had to be carried out at the

experimenter’s home. A laboratory setting would have allowed for a more controlled and

scientific study to take place with conditions suitable for the same.

Conclusion
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The aim of this experiment was to compare the outcome of incidental learning and

that of intentional learning.

The hypothesis was that intentional condition would lead to better learning outcomes than the

incidental condition.

The correct recall for intentional learning was higher than that for incidental learning in the

experiment. The subject revealed that prior instruction to learn the words and mnemonic

techniques used by her lead to higher recall in the intentional learning condition.

The results and findings from the experiment prove that the hypothesis is correct.
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Appendix

Consent form
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Purpose of the study:

The study is designed to understand the process of reading.

Voluntary Participation:

Participation in the study is voluntary, you may choose not to participate. If you decide to

participate, you are free to withdraw your consent and discontinue your participation at any

point in time during the course of the study.

Confidentiality:

Any identifying information obtained during the course of study will be kept strictly

confidential. No information about you or provided by you during the research will be

disclosed. Your name will not appear on any report or publication of research work. 

I have read and understood the information provided to me. I have had the opportunity to ask

questions about it and the questions asked ( if any) have been answered satisfactorily. I

hereby voluntarily agree to take part in this study.

Participant's signature 

Date- 4/02/22

Researcher's signature 

Date- 4/02/22
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