Tolman's Study on Latent Learning:

Tolman conducted a famous experiment to illustrate latent learning using three groups of rats navigating a maze:

1. Group 1 (Rewarded Daily):
   These rats received a food reward every time they successfully reached the end of the maze. Over time, they showed a steady improvement in navigating the maze.

2. Group 2 (Never Rewarded):
   These rats were not given any rewards for reaching the end of the maze. Their performance improved only slightly and inconsistently.

3. Group 3 (Reward Introduced Midway):
   For the first 10 days, these rats received no rewards and showed behavior similar to Group 2. However, once a reward was introduced on Day 11, their performance improved dramatically, even surpassing the performance of Group 1.

 

Key Findings:

    Tolman concluded that the rats in Group 3 had learned the maze during the unrewarded trials but had not demonstrated this learning until they were motivated by the reward. This challenged the behaviorist perspective, which emphasized that learning requires direct reinforcement.

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                                                                References

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             Simply Psychology. Edward Tolman: Latent learning. Simply Psychology.

   Retrieved December 3, 2024, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/tolman.html