Final answer:
The infant crying when seeing another baby cry involves an innate empathic response, which is related to but not directly indicative of observational learning. Mirror neurons facilitate the capacity to imitate others, contributing to the development of social learning.
Step-by-step explanation:
The empathy displayed by infants when they see another baby crying is not a learned response through operant or classical conditioning, but rather an example of observational learning. Infants naturally engage in social referencing, which is the process of looking to others in order to gauge how to respond in a given situation. However, the specific example of an infant crying upon seeing another baby cry is not necessarily a taught behavior, but more likely an innate empathic response, which can be viewed as a precursor to more complex forms of observational learning that develop as the child grows.
Mirror neurons play a significant role in observational learning. When we observe someone else performing an action, mirror neurons in our brains fire as if we were performing the action ourselves. This neural activity underlies our capacity to imitate and learn from others' behaviors.
In conclusion, the learning described in this scenario can best be characterized as the result of observational learning and an innate empathic reflex, laying the groundwork for more complex social learning as the individual matures.