Unit 3

Development and Learning: the one-page sheet

3.1 Themes and Methods in Developmental Psychology

Developmental psychology asks how people change and stay the same across life, framed by nature and nurture, continuity and discontinuity, and stability and change. Cross-sectional studies compare age groups at once and risk cohort effects; longitudinal studies follow the same people and risk dropout and long timelines. Neither assigns age, so neither alone shows cause.

Three themes frame every developmental question: nature and nurture (they interact), continuity and discontinuity (a ramp or a staircase), and stability and change (does a trait hold steady in a person?).
A cross-sectional study tests different age groups once: fast, but age is tangled with birth year, so watch for a cohort effect.
A longitudinal study tests the same people again and again: it shows change within people, but it is slow, costly and loses participants.
Age cannot be randomly assigned, so developmental designs describe and predict; they do not prove that age causes a change.

each age group is also a different birth cohort a difference between age groups can be a cohort effect, not aging it shows change within each person, but people drop out and the study takes years neither one, alone, shows that age causes a change

developmental psychology: The study of how people change, physically, mentally and socially, and how they stay the same, from conception to death.
stability and change: A theme in development: does a trait such as shyness stay steady in a person over time (stability), or does it shift as they grow (change)? Research usually finds some of each.
continuity and discontinuity: A theme in development: does change happen gradually and smoothly (continuous development) or in distinct steps or stages, each a different way of functioning (discontinuous development)?
cross-sectional study: A research design that compares people of different ages at the same point in time. It is fast, but age groups also differ in birth year, so cohort effects can creep in.
longitudinal study: A research design that follows and retests the same people over a long period. It shows change within individuals but is slow, costly and loses participants (attrition).
cohort effect: A difference between age groups caused by the times they grew up in (schooling, health care, technology, history) rather than by age itself; a key weakness of cross-sectional studies.

3.2 Physical Development Across the Lifespan

Physical development runs from before birth to old age. Teratogens can harm the developing baby. Newborns have reflexes, and motor milestones follow maturation in a similar order with varied timing. Critical and sensitive periods show that timing matters. Puberty brings sex characteristics, menarche and spermarche, while the brain keeps maturing into the 20s. Adulthood brings gradual sensory and motor decline and menopause.

Teratogens (alcohol, nicotine, some medicines and infections) can harm development before birth; there is no known safe amount of alcohol in pregnancy.
Newborns arrive with reflexes such as the rooting reflex; motor development follows a similar order in most babies, with wide variation in timing.
A critical period is a window when an experience is needed (imprinting in geese); a sensitive period is when learning is easiest (accent-free language).
Puberty brings primary and secondary sex characteristics, menarche and spermarche; the brain’s frontal areas keep maturing into the 20s.
In later adulthood, vision, hearing and reaction time decline gradually and menopause ends menstruation, often around 50.

they can harm the developing baby, often for life motor milestones appear in a similar order, at ages that vary between healthy babies missing the window can leave lasting effects primary and secondary sex characteristics develop, with menarche and spermarche adults adjust, while practiced knowledge and skills stay strong

prenatal development: Development before birth, from conception to delivery, when the baby gets nutrients and some harmful substances through the placenta.
teratogen: A substance or infection that can harm development before birth, such as alcohol, nicotine, some medicines and the rubella virus.
maturation: Biological growth that unfolds on a largely genetic timetable, setting when skills such as walking or puberty can appear.
motor development: The growth of body movement skills (rolling over, sitting, standing, walking), which appear in a similar order in most babies with wide variation in age.
rooting reflex: A newborn’s automatic response of turning toward a touch on the cheek and opening the mouth, which helps it find food.
visual cliff: A glass table with a shallow side and an apparent drop, used by Gibson and Walk (1960) to show that most crawling babies perceive depth and avoid the drop.
critical period: A limited window early in life when a specific experience is needed for normal development; if it is missed, the ability may not develop fully.
sensitive period: A window when an experience has its strongest effect and learning is easiest, though learning is still possible later (as with learning a language without an accent).
imprinting: The process by which some young animals, such as geese, form a strong bond with the first moving object they see during a critical period after hatching.
adolescence: The period from the start of puberty to adult independence, roughly ages 11 to 18 or later, marked by physical, mental and social change.
puberty: The time of sexual maturation, when rising sex hormones make a person able to reproduce and bring primary and secondary sex characteristics.
primary sex characteristics: The body structures directly involved in reproduction (ovaries, uterus, testes, penis), which mature during puberty.
secondary sex characteristics: Sex-related traits not directly involved in reproduction, such as breasts and wider hips, a deeper voice, and body and facial hair.
menarche: The first menstrual period, a milestone of puberty; in the United States it typically comes around age 12.
spermarche: The first ejaculation, a milestone of puberty in boys, typically around age 13 or 14.
menopause: The time when menstruation stops for good and a woman can no longer become pregnant, usually around age 50.

3.3 Gender and Sexual Orientation

Sex refers to biology; gender to identity and to the roles a culture expects. Gender identity is a person’s inner sense of their gender, and gender typing is how children learn their culture’s gender roles. Sexual orientation is a separate, lasting pattern of attraction, shaped by many factors and not by parenting. Most average differences between girls and boys are small.

Biological sex is about the body; gender is the set of meanings a culture attaches to being female or male, plus a person’s own sense of self.
Gender identity is a person’s inner sense of being a woman, a man, both or neither. A transgender person’s identity differs from the sex they were assigned at birth.
Gender roles are a culture’s expectations for women and men; gender typing is how children learn and adopt them, through adults, peers and their own mental frameworks.
Sexual orientation is a lasting pattern of attraction. Genes and prenatal factors play a part, it is not chosen, and no way of raising a child has been found to cause it.

most bodies fit male or female patterns, and some people have intersex traits children learn those gender roles, a process called gender typing they use labels to choose toys and activities for themselves no single cause explains them, and how a child is raised has not been found to set orientation

sex (biology): The biological characteristics (chromosomes, hormones, reproductive anatomy) usually used to classify a body as female or male; some people are born with intersex traits.
gender: The roles, behaviors and identities a culture links with being a woman or a man, along with a person’s own sense of their gender; different from biological sex.
gender identity: A person’s inner sense of being a woman, a man, both or neither. It can match the sex assigned at birth (cisgender) or differ from it (transgender, nonbinary).
gender roles: A culture’s expectations for how women and men should act, dress and work; they differ across cultures and change over time.
gender typing: The process by which children learn and adopt their culture’s traditional gender roles, such as which toys, jobs and behaviors are "for girls" or "for boys."
sexual orientation: A lasting pattern of romantic or sexual attraction to people of the other sex (heterosexual), the same sex (gay or lesbian), more than one sex (bisexual), or little or no sexual attraction (asexual).

3.4 Cognitive Development Across the Lifespan

Piaget described four stages of thinking, from object permanence in infancy, through the egocentrism and failed conservation of the preschool years, to logical and then abstract thought; research supports his order more than his ages. Vygotsky added that learning moves forward with scaffolding in the zone of proximal development. In adulthood, crystallized intelligence holds while fluid intelligence slowly declines, and dementia is a disease, not normal aging.

Piaget: children build understanding by assimilating new experiences and accommodating their schemas, moving through four stages.
Sensorimotor (birth to about 2): object permanence. Preoperational (about 2 to 7): make-believe play, egocentrism, no conservation. Concrete operational (7 to 11): logic about real things. Formal operational (12+): abstract thought.
Theory of mind, understanding that others have their own beliefs, usually appears around age 4 to 5.
Vygotsky: learning happens in the zone of proximal development with scaffolding from others. In adulthood, crystallized intelligence holds or grows while fluid intelligence declines; dementia is disease, not normal aging.

they assimilate what fits and accommodate their schemas when it does not they develop object permanence by about their first birthday they play make-believe, but are egocentric and fail conservation they conserve; by adolescence many reason about abstract and hypothetical ideas children learn more than they could alone (Vygotsky)

Piaget's stages: Jean Piaget’s theory that children’s thinking develops through four stages (sensorimotor, preoperational, concrete operational, formal operational), each a qualitatively different way of understanding the world.
sensorimotor stage: Piaget’s first stage, from birth to about age 2, when infants learn about the world through their senses and actions and develop object permanence.
object permanence: The understanding that objects continue to exist when they cannot be seen, heard or touched; it develops during the first year.
preoperational stage: Piaget’s second stage, from about 2 to 7, when children use words and images and play make-believe, but are egocentric and do not yet reason logically about changes such as pouring.
egocentrism: In Piaget’s theory, a young child’s difficulty taking another person’s point of view; it means seeing the world only from one’s own perspective, not selfishness.
conservation (Piaget): The understanding that an amount (of liquid, number or mass) stays the same when its shape or arrangement changes; it usually develops in the concrete operational stage.
theory of mind: The understanding that other people have their own thoughts, feelings and beliefs, which can differ from one’s own and can be false; usually clear by age 4 to 5.
concrete operational stage: Piaget’s third stage, from about 7 to 11, when children reason logically about concrete, real situations and understand conservation.
formal operational stage: Piaget’s fourth stage, from about age 12, when people can reason about abstract ideas and hypothetical situations.
zone of proximal development: Vygotsky’s zone of proximal development: the range of tasks a learner cannot yet do alone but can do with help from someone more skilled.
scaffolding: Temporary support (hints, steps, demonstrations) from a more skilled person that helps a learner in the zone of proximal development, removed as skill grows.
crystallized intelligence: Crystallized intelligence: accumulated knowledge and skills such as vocabulary and facts; it holds steady or grows into later adulthood.
fluid intelligence: Fluid intelligence: the ability to reason quickly and solve new problems; it tends to decline gradually from early adulthood.
dementia: A decline in memory and thinking severe enough to interfere with daily life, caused by brain disease (most often Alzheimer’s disease); it is not a normal part of aging.

3.5 Communication and Language Development

Language has layers, from phonemes to morphemes to words, organized by grammar: semantics for meaning and syntax for order. It is generative, so rules make endless new sentences. Children move from cooing to babbling, single words and telegraphic speech, tuning in to their home language’s sounds in the first year and overgeneralizing grammar rules as they learn them.

Language is built in layers: phonemes (sounds) form morphemes (units of meaning), which form words; grammar includes semantics (meaning) and syntax (word order).
Language is generative: a limited set of rules can produce an unlimited number of new sentences.
The sequence: cooing (about 2 months), babbling (about 6 months), the one-word stage (about 12 months), telegraphic speech (about 18 to 24 months), then full sentences.
Overgeneralization ("goed," "mouses") shows a child has learned a rule and applies it too widely.

by about their first birthday they tune in to the phonemes of their own language babbling comes to sound like the home language by about 2, children combine key words in telegraphic speech they overgeneralize rules ("goed") and generate sentences they never heard

language: A system of spoken, written or signed words and the rules for combining them to communicate meaning.
phoneme: The smallest distinct unit of sound in a language, such as the "b" in "bat"; languages use different sets of phonemes.
morpheme: The smallest unit of language that carries meaning, such as "un," "happy" and "ness" in "unhappiness."
semantics: The rules for deriving meaning from words, word parts and sentences, such as knowing that "-ed" makes a verb past tense.
grammar: A language’s system of rules that lets people communicate and understand one another; it includes semantics and syntax.
syntax: The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences, such as word order ("The dog bit the man").
generativity (language): The ability to combine a limited set of words and rules to produce and understand an unlimited number of new sentences.
cooing: An infant’s early vowel-like sounds, such as "ooh" and "aah," starting at about 2 months.
babbling: The stage, starting at about 6 months, when infants make repeated consonant-vowel syllables ("ba-ba-ba") that gradually come to sound like the home language.
one-word stage: The stage, around the first birthday, when children speak mostly in single words that often stand for a whole idea ("Out!" for "I want to go out").
telegraphic speech: Early speech, around 18 to 24 months, that keeps key content words in the right order and leaves out small words ("Daddy go car"), like a telegram.
overgeneralization: Applying a grammar rule to words it does not fit, such as "goed" or "mouses"; it shows a child has learned the rule.

Social and emotional development happens inside nested systems, from family to culture. Attachment grows from contact comfort and responsive care and is classified as secure, avoidant, anxious or disorganized. Parenting styles and temperament shape each other. Erikson’s eight psychosocial stages, identity statuses, the imaginary audience and personal fable, emerging adulthood and the social clock mark later development, and adverse childhood experiences raise average risk without deciding any one life.

Ecological systems theory: a child develops inside nested layers (micro, meso, exo, macro), all changing over time (chrono).
Attachment grows from contact comfort and responsive care. In the strange situation, babies are secure, avoidant, anxious or disorganized; separation anxiety appears around 8 months.
Parenting styles: authoritative (warm and firm), authoritarian (strict, cold), permissive (warm, few limits). The links to outcomes are correlational and vary by culture; temperament shapes parenting too.
Erikson’s eight psychosocial stages run from trust versus mistrust to integrity versus despair. Teens explore identity status and possible selves; adults face the social clock and, in many countries, emerging adulthood.

a secure attachment forms, and the child uses the caregiver as a base to explore warm, firm (authoritative) parenting is linked with better outcomes, though not as a simple cause meeting it builds strengths such as trust, identity and intimacy they move through identity statuses, with the imaginary audience and personal fable along the way average health risks rise, while supportive relationships help many children do well

ecological systems theory: Bronfenbrenner’s theory that a child develops within nested systems: the microsystem (family, school), mesosystem (links between them), exosystem (settings that affect the child indirectly), macrosystem (culture, laws) and chronosystem (change over time).
parenting style: A parent’s general approach to raising a child, combining how warm and responsive they are with how many rules and demands they set.
authoritarian parenting: A parenting style with strict rules, little explanation and little warmth ("Because I said so").
authoritative parenting: A parenting style that combines warmth with clear, explained rules and listens to the child; linked with good outcomes in many US studies.
permissive parenting: A parenting style that is warm but sets few rules or limits and makes few demands.
temperament: A person’s inborn, partly heritable style of emotional reactivity and activity, such as easygoing, fussy or slow to warm up, visible from infancy.
attachment: A deep emotional bond between a child and a caregiver, shown by seeking closeness and by distress at separation.
strange situation: Ainsworth’s laboratory procedure in which a 1-year-old is briefly separated from and reunited with a caregiver in an unfamiliar room; the child’s behavior, especially at reunion, classifies attachment.
secure attachment: An attachment pattern in which a child explores using the caregiver as a safe base, may be upset at separation, and is readily comforted at reunion.
avoidant attachment: An attachment pattern in which a child shows little distress at separation and ignores or turns away from the caregiver at reunion.
anxious attachment: An attachment pattern (also called anxious-ambivalent) in which a child is very upset at separation and both clings to and resists the caregiver at reunion.
disorganized attachment: An attachment pattern in which a child shows confused or contradictory behavior with the caregiver, such as freezing or approaching while looking away.
separation anxiety: An infant’s distress when separated from a familiar caregiver, typically appearing around 8 months and peaking in the second year.
contact comfort: The comfort an infant gets from soft physical touch; Harlow’s monkeys showed it matters more than feeding for forming attachment.
parallel play: Play in which young children (often around age 2) play side by side with similar toys but with little interaction.
pretend play: Make-believe play in which children use objects and actions to stand for something else, such as a block as a phone; it blossoms in the preschool years.
psychosocial stages: Erikson’s eight stages of life, each with a social challenge: trust versus mistrust, autonomy versus shame and doubt, initiative versus guilt, industry versus inferiority, identity versus role confusion, intimacy versus isolation, generativity versus stagnation, and integrity versus despair.
identity status: Marcia’s four ways of approaching identity, by whether a person has explored options and made commitments: achievement (both), moratorium (exploring), foreclosure (committed without exploring) and diffusion (neither).
imaginary audience: A teenager’s belief that others are watching and judging them far more than they really are.
personal fable: A teenager’s belief that their experiences are unique and that they may be invulnerable to risks that affect others.
social clock: A culture’s expected timing for life events such as leaving home, marriage, parenthood and retirement.
emerging adulthood: A period from about 18 to the mid-20s, common in wealthy countries, when many people have left adolescence but have not yet taken on full adult roles.
adverse childhood experiences: Adverse childhood experiences: stressful events in childhood such as abuse, neglect or a household member’s substance use, mental illness or incarceration; more ACEs are linked to higher average health risks in adulthood.
possible selves: The images people hold of who they might become, both hoped-for and feared, which can motivate present behavior.

3.7 Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning is learning by association. A neutral stimulus that comes just before an unconditioned stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus that triggers a conditioned response. Extinction weakens that response, spontaneous recovery shows the learning is still there, generalization spreads it and discrimination narrows it. Biology sets limits: some links, such as taste with illness, form after one pairing.

Find the UCS first: the thing that causes a response with no learning (food, a shot, a loud noise). Its automatic response is the UCR.
The CS is the once-neutral stimulus that came before the UCS. The learned reaction to it is the CR. The UCR and CR are often the same movement, triggered by different things.
Extinction weakens a CR when the CS comes without the UCS; spontaneous recovery brings it back after a rest. Generalization spreads a CR to similar stimuli; discrimination limits it.
Taste aversion can form after one pairing with hours between taste and illness, an example of biological preparedness. Habituation, a fading response to a repeated stimulus, needs no pairing at all.

the tone starts to predict the food (acquisition) the tone alone triggers salivation: it is a conditioned stimulus and the salivation is a conditioned response the conditioned response fades (extinction) the response can return for a while (spontaneous recovery), so the learning was suppressed, not erased

learning: A relatively lasting change in behavior or knowledge that comes from experience.
behaviorism: The view that psychology should study observable behavior and how the environment shapes it, setting aside inner mental states that cannot be observed.
classical conditioning: Learning in which a neutral stimulus, after being paired with a stimulus that already triggers a response, comes to trigger a similar response on its own. Also called Pavlovian conditioning.
neutral stimulus: A stimulus that, before conditioning, does not trigger the response being studied (a tone before it is paired with food).
unconditioned stimulus: Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): a stimulus that triggers a response naturally, with no learning (food, a puff of air, a loud noise).
unconditioned response: Unconditioned response (UCR): the unlearned, automatic response to the unconditioned stimulus (salivating to food).
conditioned stimulus: Conditioned stimulus (CS): a once-neutral stimulus that, after pairing with the UCS, triggers a learned response on its own.
conditioned response: Conditioned response (CR): the learned response to the conditioned stimulus (salivating to the tone).
acquisition (conditioning): The first stage of conditioning, when the neutral stimulus is paired with the UCS and the link to the response is learned.
extinction: The weakening of a conditioned response when the CS is repeatedly presented without the UCS.
spontaneous recovery: The return of an extinguished conditioned response after a rest period, usually weaker than before.
stimulus discrimination: Learning to respond to the conditioned stimulus but not to similar stimuli that were never paired with the UCS.
stimulus generalization: The tendency for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to trigger the conditioned response too.
higher-order conditioning: Higher-order (second-order) conditioning: pairing a new neutral stimulus with an established CS, so the new stimulus also comes to trigger the CR without the UCS ever being present.
counterconditioning: Pairing a conditioned stimulus with a new stimulus that triggers a response incompatible with the old CR (calm instead of fear), so the new response replaces the old one.
taste aversion: A learned dislike of a food or taste after it was followed by illness. It can form after a single pairing, even with hours between the taste and the illness.
biological preparedness: Biological preparedness: an inborn readiness, shaped by natural selection, to learn some associations (taste with illness, fear of snakes) faster and more lastingly than others.
habituation: A decrease in response to a stimulus that is repeated without any consequence. The simplest form of learning; it needs no pairing.

3.8 Operant Conditioning

Operant conditioning changes voluntary behavior through its consequences. Reinforcement, positive or negative, increases a behavior; punishment, positive or negative, decreases it. Shaping builds new behaviors step by step, while instinctive drift, superstitious behavior and learned helplessness show its limits. Ratio schedules produce faster responding than interval schedules, and partial reinforcement makes behavior last longer than continuous reinforcement.

Ask two questions. Does the behavior go up (reinforcement) or down (punishment)? Is a stimulus added (positive) or removed (negative)? Positive and negative are math signs, not good and bad.
Primary reinforcers meet biological needs (food, warmth); secondary reinforcers (money, grades, points) work because they lead to primary ones.
Shaping reinforces closer and closer steps. Limits and side effects: instinctive drift, superstitious behavior from accidental reinforcement, and learned helplessness after uncontrollable events.
Ratio schedules pay for responses (fast responding); interval schedules pay for time (slower). Variable schedules give steady responding and resist extinction; fixed ones show pauses or scallops.

the law of effect: satisfying consequences make it more likely, unpleasant ones less likely the behavior increases (positive or negative reinforcement) the behavior decreases (positive or negative punishment) the behavior is learned more slowly but lasts much longer when reinforcement stops

operant conditioning: Learning in which a voluntary behavior becomes more or less likely depending on the consequences that follow it. Also called instrumental conditioning.
law of effect: Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by satisfying consequences become more likely and behaviors followed by unpleasant ones become less likely.
reinforcement: Any consequence that makes the behavior it follows more likely. A reinforcer is the stimulus that does this.
positive reinforcement: Adding a wanted stimulus after a behavior, which makes the behavior more likely (praise after homework).
negative reinforcement: Removing an unpleasant stimulus after a behavior, which makes the behavior more likely (buckling up stops the beeping). It increases behavior; it is not punishment.
punishment: Any consequence that makes the behavior it follows less likely.
positive punishment: Adding an unpleasant stimulus after a behavior, which makes the behavior less likely (extra laps for being late).
negative punishment: Removing a wanted stimulus after a behavior, which makes the behavior less likely (losing a phone after missing curfew).
primary reinforcer: A reinforcer that satisfies a biological need and works without learning, such as food, water or warmth.
secondary reinforcer: A reinforcer that has value because it is linked to primary reinforcers, such as money, grades, points or praise. Also called a conditioned reinforcer.
shaping (operant): Teaching a new behavior by reinforcing successive approximations: steps that come closer and closer to the target behavior.
instinctive drift: The tendency of a trained animal to slide back toward inborn, species-typical behavior, even when that behavior delays reinforcement.
superstitious behavior: Superstitious behavior: a behavior strengthened by accidental reinforcement, because a reward happened to follow it although the behavior did not cause the reward.
learned helplessness: Passive giving up that follows repeated unpleasant events a person or animal could not control, even after control becomes possible.
continuous reinforcement: Reinforcing every correct response. Learning is fast, but the behavior extinguishes quickly when reinforcement stops.
partial reinforcement: Reinforcing only some responses (intermittent reinforcement). Learning is slower, but the behavior is much more resistant to extinction.
fixed-ratio schedule: A schedule that reinforces after a set number of responses (every 20 boxes packed). It produces high response rates with a brief pause after each reinforcer.
variable-ratio schedule: A schedule that reinforces after an unpredictable number of responses (a slot machine). It produces the highest, steadiest response rates and the most resistance to extinction.
fixed-interval schedule: A schedule that reinforces the first response after a set amount of time. Responding speeds up as the time approaches and drops after each reinforcer, a scalloped pattern.
variable-interval schedule: A schedule that reinforces the first response after an unpredictable amount of time (checking for new messages). It produces slow, steady responding.

Not all learning needs direct reinforcement. In observational learning, people attend to and remember what models do and imitate them more when models are rewarded (vicarious reinforcement) and less when they are punished (vicarious punishment), even though the behavior is learned either way. Latent learning and cognitive maps show learning that stays hidden until it is useful, and insight learning is a sudden whole solution. Brain reward circuits are one biological part of how consequences strengthen behavior.

Social learning theory (observational learning): people learn by watching models. Attention and memory come first, then the ability to reproduce the act, then a reason to do it.
Vicarious reinforcement and vicarious punishment work through the model's consequences, not the observer's own. They change performance more than learning.
Cognitive factors: latent learning stays hidden until there is a reason to show it; a cognitive map is a mental layout of a place; insight learning is a sudden whole solution, not gradual trial and error.
Neurological factors: the brain's reward circuits, using dopamine, respond most to rewards that are better than expected, which helps strengthen the behavior that came before.

the behavior is learned without the observer ever being reinforced the observer is more likely to perform the behavior the observer is less likely to perform it, though it is still learned it builds a cognitive map that shows only when a reward gives it a reason (latent learning)

social learning theory: Social learning theory (observational learning): learning by watching others and imitating them. It depends on attention, memory (retention), the ability to reproduce the behavior and the motivation to do so.
vicarious conditioning: Vicarious conditioning: learning from the consequences that happen to a model. Vicarious reinforcement (the model is rewarded) makes imitation more likely; vicarious punishment (the model is punished) makes it less likely.
modeling: Observing and imitating a specific person's behavior. Models who are similar, admired or rewarded are imitated more.
insight learning: A sudden understanding of how to solve a problem, reached as a whole rather than by gradual trial and error.
latent learning: Learning that happens without reinforcement and is not shown until there is a reason (an incentive) to use it.
cognitive map: A mental representation of the layout of a place, formed by exploring it.