How do we learn?

'Know thyself' is an old Greek adage. In my foray into Instructional Designing, I stumbled into this delightful concept pertaining to the realm of teaching and learning. I must admit I am gonna be a little didactic, so, lend me your ears.

What is meant by Attention?

Attention is a process where the individual concentrates all senses on a particular subject matter or object. Out of a multiplicity of stimuli present in the environment, the individual selects one stimulus and gives his/her attention to it. In the choice of a stimulus, the individual is assailed by his/her own aptitude, likes and dislikes and natural interests. In a nutshell, Attention is a process that helps us in our awareness of the environment, which awareness being selective, is born out of our own natural interest, and aptitude.

At any given moment, we can devote our attention to one thing alone. To Cattell, the time for each item decreases up to simultaneous presentation of five objects. These experiments are today regarded as classical experiments on span or range of attention. Focus provided by attention helps us know the details of our desired object. Cattell's findings reveal that the subjects perceive more letters when these letters form a word and they also perceive more words when the words form a sentence. This happens because the combination becomes familiar to the subjects. Cattell also studied reading time in relation to familiarity of language. His results are that reading time for different languages varied with degree of familiarity without awareness of the subjects The reading time of the familiar language is shorter than the reading time of less familiar language.

An effective stimulus attracts attention. Bright color, intensity and complexity of design make any visual stimulus more effective. Movement of the stimulus catches our attention as compared to stationary stimulus. You must have seen that the most attractive advertisements possess elements that move, change, and get reorganized.

What are Sensations?

The responses emitted by the organism towards the stimuli are what are called Sensations. Indeed, the very discipline of Psychology, to Guthrie and Skinner, is the study of responses emitted by the organism towards stimuli. The human mind is an organized entity of sensations, the latter being the elements of perception.

Sensations, let us repeat after Luigi Rolando,are localized in the Medulla Oblongata inside the human brain.

To Ayn Rand, Sensations, as such, are not retained in man's memory, nor is man able to experience a pure isolated sensation. As far as can be ascertained, an individual's sensory experience is an undifferentiated chaos. Discriminated awareness begins on the level of percepts. A Percept is a group of sensations automatically retained and integrated by the brain of a living organism. It is in the form of percepts that man grasps the evidence of his senses and apprehends reality.

There are three stages of development in a human being's mind-

The first stage is a child's awareness of objects, of things- which represents the concept, “entity”.The second and closely allied stage is a child's awareness of specific, particular things which he can recognize and distinguish from the rest of his perceptual field- which represents the concept, “identity.”

The third stage consists of grasping relationships among these entities by grasping the similarities and differences of their identities. This requires the transformation of the concept, “entity” into the concept,”unit.” The ability to regard entities as units is man's distinctive method of cognition, which other living beings are unable to follow.

To Muller, sensations produced in an organism are not affected by the characteristics of the stimuli rather these are directly affected by the nerve connected to the sense organs and the brain centre where the nerve is finally terminated.

In a way, we are directly not aware of objects(stimuli) but of our nerves. In other words, the nerves serve as intermediaries between perceived objects and the mind, thus imposing their own characteristics on what is experienced. There are five types of nerves, each imposing its own specific quality upon the mind. The same stimulus influencing different types of nerves gives rise to the qualities specific to that set of nerves. Conversely, the different stimuli affecting the same nerve always produce the same quality unique to that nerve.

Hilgard and Bower have summarized the principles involved in learning process as under:

• There are individual differences in the capacity of a learner.

• Differential practice leads to different forms of learning curves.

• Motivation is essential for learning.

• The degree of meaning is a dimension over which material can be scaled from the most meaningful to the most nonsensical.

Flourens asserts that thought and voluntary activities are located in Cerebrum inside the brain. The Cerebellum controls efficient or controlled movements of organisms. The Medulla Oblongata is the centre of nervous system. The Corpora Quadrigemina is related to the faculty of sight. The Spinal Cord is responsible for conduction of nerve impulses. The functions of nerve are excitation of central processes and muscles.

To Descartes, the mind or soul acts upon the body and directs its mechanical activities and is acted upon the body through its modes of sensation, emotion and perception. The relation between mind and body is one of interaction. To understand how the interaction takes place, Descartes looked into the brain and its different structures. He reported that we have two eyes, two ears, and even two halves of brain but one little organ in the middle of the brain that has no duplicate, that is, pineal gland. For Descartes, the pineal gland is the point of interaction between body and soul. Take one example to see how the interaction takes place. How do we have sensation of any object or stimulus? The images from the two eyes set up action in animal spirits(material substances that move quickly) which stimulate pineal gland making an impression on it. Through mind we would sense the impression. There are also activities which operated in reversed order. Suppose the mind or soul wishes to remember something, this desire activates the pineal gland which, in turn, sets up animal spirits in pores of brain to find out the traces left by the objects or events encountered previously.

Hobbs, however, rejected Descartes' doctrine of interaction between soul and body. To him, mental activity is simply the motions of atoms in the brain. Hobbs also introduced the concept of association of ideas and rejected Descartes' concept of innate ideas. Hobbs believed that the lawful succession of ideas was, in fact, responsible for all kinds of thought and action. He was of view that this succession occurs in terms of association by continguity. He considered association to be,'trains of thoughts'. He made distinction between uncontrolled association and purposive or directed thinking. The former is unguided, without design and inconstant whereas the latter is orderly and regulated by some desire and design.

To Locke who succeeded Hobbs, it is by Sensations that mind receives experiences from external sources. After such experiences, perceptions are made and ideas are also born. Sensation, as Locke pointed out, is the primary source of all knowledge. Mind also reflects upon itself and through this reflection, mind obtains knowledge of its own operations. This is also called,'internal sense', or more appropriately today as introspection. This is the secondary source of ideas.

It is important to mention the biology of memory here. There are what are called Short term and Long term memory. In short term memory, changes within the neuron change a neuron's ability to release neurotransmitters. Neurotransmitters are biochemical substances that carry messages from one cell to another. Due to short term memory, there is increase or decrease in readiness to release neurotransmitter molecules. Long term memory is associated with lasting structural changes in the brain. In various areas of brain especially in Hippocampus, if electrical stimulation is administered, long term potent disrupts new memories while old ones are not affected. As far as locations of memory are concerned, it is reported that during short term memory tasks, frontal lobe areas of brain are very active. In Long term declarative memory, the Hippocampus plays a critical role. Damage to that area of brain causes amnesia or loss of memory of facts and events. Cerebellum is related to conditioning. Efficient encoding of words and pictures is proved to be a function of Prefrontal cortex and the parts of the temporal lobes. Cerebral cortex is involved in storage of long term memory. Some experts, however, argue that any memory is a cluster of information. It is a combination of vision, sound images and emotions. We have to think about how all these memories combine to activate the memory as a whole unit. Hippocampus must be doing this job to make memory as a coherent meaningful whole.

Research also suggests that some hormones are related to memory. It is proved that hormones released by adrenal glands during emotional arousal enhance memory. It may be due to added level of glucose in blood which may alter effects of neurotransmitters.

The various parts of the brain have specific properties, proper activities, and distinct effects. Despite these diversities or localization of functions, the nervous system operates as a whole. There is overall integration. It is this integration of all the faculties of the human brain that helps us perceive the different objects in our environment.

'Know thyself' is an old Greek adage. When we do know the different faculties within us that help us perceive the environment, we get to 'know ourselves'. Our early education begins thus.