Associative and Nonassociative Learning

In previous blog posts, we have discussed how people learn. However, we have yet to define learning. So what is it? Learning is the acquiring of knowledge through experience that creates a change in behavior. There are several extrinsic factors that can influence learning. But it is also important to note that there are many biological factors that can limit us and other organisms. This tells us that there is knowledge that we may never possess, but also that biology has so much to do with learning.

We can teach chimpanzees basic sign language, but their vocal chords will never let them speak to us. Biology also tells us what is absolutely necessary for our survival. We learn quickly how to ask for food, how to communicate our necessities, and how to move in the most efficient manner. So when we incorporate stimuli that correlates to survival mechanisms, we call that associative learning. In associative learning, the cerebellum and the amygdala fire to help us learn for future or recurring events. These events might incite fear or simply a feeling strong enough to be relevant to survival.

An exaggerated example of associative learning is well demonstrated by food aversions. Though food aversions are usually the result of bitter foods on underdeveloped taste buds, if a food with a strong taste of turmeric makes us feel sick after eating it, we might (wrongfully) associate the smell and taste of turmeric to the nausea we felt and thus avoid it when ordering dishes at restaurants and when cooking with it. This type of learning can be broken down into stimulus and an effect; where effect taints every characteristic of the stimulus.

Nonassociative learning relies less on emotion and visceral feelings associated with survival, but rather retention through the use of habituation or sensitization. It does not associate a stimulus with a behavior. An example of nonassociative learning would be exemplifying that a deep pool of water is harmless with swimming lessons every week. A big difference between nonassociative and associative learning is that they use different parts of the brain to get through to us.

In both a positive and negative way, associative learning can be hard to unlearn. It easily allows us to convert a behavior into a long-term memory through consolidation— a vetting process that lets information be temporarily stored in short-term memory and possibly remain in one’s long-term memory. What we learn from these types of learning is how little things can become significant in our lives. We can tie behaviors that might have otherwise been considered insignificant to important stimuli so that they can remain in our memory for longer. The next step would be understanding how to retrain bad habits. How do we fix poorly learned behaviors through associative learning?