LEARNING Chapter 5

Introduction

Learning: process by which expertise or practice result in relatively permanent change in behavior or potential behavior Encompasses classroom learning and studying, but also covers

other forms of learning like turning off the lights when you leave a room, locking the door when you leave the house and learning how to dance

Conditioning: acquisition of specific patterns of behavior in the presence of well-defined stimuli Basic form of learning

EX: a dog getting their leash when their owner puts on their shoes Dog knows that they are going for a walk because of past

experiences

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING Section 1

Pavlov’s Conditioning Experiments Classical conditioning was discovered on accident by Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

Russian physiologist who was studying digestive processesWanted to measure how much a dog would salivate when food was paced in their mouths so he placed tubes into the salivary glands Noticed that the dogs would salivate when they heard the feeders footsteps and before they were even fed

Changed experiment and set out to teach dogs to salivate when a bell was sounded before they were fed

Learned to salivate at the sounds of the bell

Elements of Classical Conditioning

Classical conditioning involves pairing a response that is usually triggered from one stimuli with a different neutral stimuli

Pavlov’s experiment illustrated the 4 basic elements of Classical Conditioning Unconditional Stimulus (US): stimulus that causes an organism to respond a specific way EX: Food

Unconditional Response (UR): a response that takes place in an organism whenever an unconditional stimulus occurs EX: salivation

Classical Conditioning is also know as Pavlovian Conditioning Reflexive behaviors happen because of a neutral stimuli

EX: when you get anxious during a scary movie because you have heard the same eerie music in other scary movies

Classical conditioning is contrasted with Operant Conditioning or Instrumental Conditioning Selected behaviors are practiced to gain a reward or avoid punishment EX: teaching a dog to sit and then rewarding them with a treatWill sit again to receive another reward

Conditioned Stimulus (CS): originally neutral stimulus that is paired with an unconditional stimulus and eventually produces desired response in an organism when presented alone EX: ringing bell

Conditioned Response (CR): after conditioning, the response an organism produces when only a conditioned stimulus presented EX: hearing the bell and then salivating

Classical Conditioning in Humans

Human beings learn behaviors through classical conditioning

Irrational fears and anxieties are learned or conditioned

Cats, spiders, snakes, heights, closed spaces Wolpe discovered that they could be unlearned or conditioned

Desensitization Therapy: conditioning technique designed to gradually reduce anxiety about a particular object or situation Step 1: teaches patient deep muscle relaxation techniques

Step 2: Construct a list of situations that cause a variety of levels of fear and anxietyRate them form 1-100

Step 3: enter into deep relaxation and imagine the least stressful situation and work their way up

Classical Conditioning is Selective

Humans must be prepared to develop fear responses and phobias for survival Likely to be scared of heights and falling and dying them about a flower

Preparedness also underlies conditioned Food (or Taste) AversionConditioned avoidance of certain foods id there is only one pairing of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli Only need to get sick from food poisoning to not eat that food again

OPERANT CONDITIONING

Elements of Operant Conditioning

Operant Behavior: behavior designed to operate on the environment in a way that will gain some kind of desired or avoid something unpleasant

Edward Lee Thorndike (1874-1949)American psychologist and educatorCat and Puzzle Box Experiment Put hungry cats in a box where they could see and smell their food

Each time the cat would be placed in the box it would take less and less time to get out of the box to eat

Reinforcer: stimulus that follows a behavior and increases the likelihood that the behavior would be repeated

Punishers: stimulus that follows a behavior and decreases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated

Law of Effect: Thorndike’s theory that behavior consistently rewarded will be “stamped in” as a learned behavior, and behavior that brings about discomfort will be “stamped out” Also, known as principle of reinforcement

Types of Reinforcement

Positive and Negative ReinforcementPositive Reinforcements: any event whose presence increases the likelihood that an ongoing behavior will occurAdds something

EX: food, pleasant music, anything rewarding Negative Reinforcements: any event whose reduction or termination increases the likelihood that ongoing behavior will recur Subtract something unpleasant EX: Animal learning to press a button to open a cage door to escape loud noises

Punishment

Punishment: any event whose presence decreases the likelihood that ongoing behavior will recur EX: fine for speeding or littering

Punishments should be…Effective, it must be imposed properly Swift—be punished right awaySufficient—make sure punishment sis proportionate to action

Consistent—punish each and every time they misbehave

Significant drawbacks to punishments Punishments only suppress behavior—doesn’t teach more desirable behavior

Punishments often stir up unpleasant emotions that can impede learning the behavior we want to be substituted EX: when children are scolded fro mispronouncing a word child may become frightened and confused and then they may mispronounce more words because they are distracted

Punishments may convey the notion that inflicting pain on other is justified

As a method for controlling behavior, punishment is one of the least pleasant options because it is ineffective and can have negative side effects

Avoidance Training: learning a desirable behavior to prevent the occurrence of something unpleasant such as punishment

Operant Conditioning is Selective

Some behaviors are easier to train than othersLeaning was most successful in situation that would occur in natural training sessions EX: eating with silverware v. hands

Superstitious Behavior

Humans learn superstitions through Operant Conditioning EX: If we are wearing a pair of shoes and win a basketball game you might want to wear those shoes to every game

Learned Helplessness

Learned Helplessness: failure to take steps to avoid or escape from an unpleasant or averse stimulus that occurs as a result of previous exposure to unavoidable painful stimuli EX: children raised in abusive homes where punishment is unrelated to child’s behavior often developed a sense of powerlessness

Even when child is removed from environment and in a relatively normal environment the child still remains listless, passive and indifferent

Little attempt to seek reward or avoid discomfort

COMPARING OPERANT AND CLASSICAL CONDITIONING Section 3

Response Acquisition

Classical Conditioning Requires repeated pairings of Conditioned Stimulus and Unconditioned stimulus

Each pairing builds on the learners pervious experience Response Acquisition: the “building phase” of conditioning during which the likelihood or strength of the desired response increases

Each pairing of Conditioned Stimulus and Unconditioned Stimulus is called a trialFor the best learning trials should occur and a consistent interval of time...not too many to close together or far apart

Operant Conditioning Most difficult but the behavior taught is usually a voluntary trail such as not talking while someone else is talking

Need to wait until the subject lands on the correct response on their own

Can be a slow process

There are ways to speed up the process and make it more likely that the desired response will happen Increase motivation Reduce or eliminate the opportunities for making the

wrong choice Shaping: reinforcing successive approximations to a

desired behavior Rewarding each step in learning a behavior and setting

the expectations a little higher each time EX: reward for being to class on time, then a reward

for being to class on time and in uniform, finally a reward for being to class on time, in uniform and working on the Do Now

Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery

How long does a learned behavior last, and once lost can it be recovered?

Classical Conditioning Extinction: a decrease in the strength or frequency of a learned response because of failure to continue pairing the Unconditioned Stimulus and Conditioned Stimulus (Classical Conditioning) or withholding of reinforcement (operant conditioning) Eventually you are desensitized, or no longer sensitize to certain things after experiencing them so much

Spontaneous Recovery: the reappearance of an extinguished response after the passage of time, without further training

Extinction does not erase conditioned responses, extinction occurs because new learning interferes with pervious learned response

We overcome this interference with renewal effect

Operant Conditioning Extinction happens when the reinforcement is being withheldDoes not result in immediate decrease in frequency

Extinction does not erase the response foreverSpontaneous recovery may occurWill advert back to pervious behaviors but is capable of still demonstrating learned behavior The stronger the original learning the longer it takes to stop action from being preformed

The greater the variety of settings in which learning takes place the harder to extinguish

Behaviors learned through punishment rather than reinforcement are especially harder to distinguish

Generalization and Discrimination

Classical Conditioning Remember the Little Albert and white rat experiment?

Later tried to show him a white RABBIT and he was still frightened, cried and tried to crawl away Stimulus Generalization: the transfer of a learned response to a different but similar stimuli

Albert was afraid of the rabbit because it looked like the white rat

Stimulus Discrimination: learning to respond to only one stimulus and to inhabit the response to all other stimuli If they would have given Albert the white rat, rabbit, cotton balls and other white fluffy things and only made the loud sound when he touched the rat he would be able to discriminate the only “scary” item as the rat

Operant Conditioning Stimulus Generalization

EX: the skills you learn in ping pong you may generalize when playing badminton or tennis

Response Generalization: giving a response that is somewhat different from the response originally learned form the stimulus EX: a baby who called everyone “mama” might start using word like “gaga” and “baba” because they should similar—generalized as the same thing

DiscriminationOnly reinforcing a very specific response and only in the presence of a specific stimulusEX: only showing praise to a baby that says “mama” will stop saying gaga and baba

New Learning Based on Original Learning

Higher-Order Conditioning in Classical Conditioning Conditioning based on pervious learning; the conditioned stimulus serves as an unconditioned stimulus for further training EX: Pavlov was able to get his dogs to salivate at the sight of a black squareOriginally they would salivate when they heard bell but now he would show them a black square and then ring the bell

The black square became the object that made them salivate not the bell

Difficult to achieve because it races against extinction

Secondary Reinforces in Operant Conditioning Primary Reinforcer: a reinforcer that is rewarding in itself, such as food and water

Secondary Reinforcer: a reinforcer whose value is acquired through association with other primary or secondary reinforcerEX: money

Just holding the paper doesn’t do much for you, but being able to buy things is what you want money for

Contingencies Classical Conditioning

Contingency: reliable “if- then” relationship between 2 events such as Conditioned Stimulus and Unconditioned StimulusEX: If I hear a loud sound and get shocked but sometimes when I hear the sound I don’t get shocked, then I will be startled every time I hear a loud sound

Blocking: a process whereby conditioning prevents conditioning to a second stimulus even when the two stimuli are presented simultaneously EX: if you add a flash of light to the above example they only showed fear when the heard the sound…they had be conditioned to be scare of the sound not the later added light

Operant Conditioning Schedule of Reinforcement

Schedule of Reinforcement: in operant conditioning, the rule for determining when and how often reinforcers will be delivered

A fixed-IntervalCorrect response is reinforced after a fixed length of time since the last reinforcementEX: Midterms and final exams—student stress peak right before them and hten drop dramatically when they are over

Variable-Interval ScheduleReinforced after varying lengths of time following the last reinforcement EX: giving students candy at different time periods with no pattern in mind

Fixed-Ratio ScheduleReinforced after a fixed number of correct response

EX: getting paid only for working 4 hr shifts. Work less then 4 hrs don’t get paid and if you work 6hrs you only get paid for one 4 hr shift

Variable-Ratio ScheduleVarying number of correct responses must occur before reinforcement is presentedEX: Casino slot machine

You will win but you have no idea of whenThere is always a chance of hitting a jackpot so the temptation to play is high

COGNITIVE LEARNING Section 4

Latent Learning and Cognitive Maps

Cognitive Learning: learning that depends on mental processes that are not directly observable How we learn our way around building or neighborhood, we

learn what to expect from a given situation, abstract concepts, etc

Latent Learning: learning that is not immediately reflected in a behavior change Learn something but don’t use it right away…use it later on

when it makes sense to use it Cognitive Map: learned mental image of a spatial environment

that may be called on to solve problems when stimuli is the environment change

Insight and Learning Sets

Insight: learning that occurs rapidly as a result of understanding all the element of a problem

The sudden coming together of elements of a situation

“oohhhh that makes sense now” moments Pervious learning can also be used to speed up new learning

Learning sets: ability to become increasingly more effective in solving problems as more problems are solved With practice and experience problem solving becomes easier and easier

Learning by Observing

Many psychologists believe that leaning comes form conditioning

Others believe that is stems from social learning theoriesSocial Learning Theory: emphasizes that ability to learn by observing a model or receiving instructions, without firsthand experience by the learner We cam learn a behavior without ever doing it

Observational Learning: learning by observing other peoples behavior By watching someone else do something we can do it to

Vicarious Reinforcement and Vicarious PunishmentReinforcement or punishment experiences by model that affects the willingness of other to perform behaviors they learn by observing those models Will or will no do something because of the consequences that are experienced by others

Bandura’s Experiment in Learned Aggressive Behavior

Watch video answer following questions 1. 2. 3.