Psychology Outline:

Learning: A relatively permanent change in an organisms behavior due to experience. Associative Learning: Linking two events that occur together predicting an immediate behavior. - Process of learning association
Classical Conditioning A. Classical Conditioning: learn to associate two stimuli and thus to anticipate events. a. Respondent behavior: behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus b. EX: STIMULUS 1: Lightning + STIMULUS 2: Thunder Result after repetition STIMULUS: We see lightning Response: We wince, anticipating thunder

We learn that a flash of lightning signals an impending crack of thunder, and so We start to brace ourselves when lightning flashes nearby. c. Pavlovs work also laid the foundation for many of psychologist John B. Watsons ideas. i. Watson believed that its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behaviors. = observable behavior. 1. ALL STIMULI ARE EQUAL IN POTENTIALITY a. Flawed belief*** ii. Behaviorism: The view that psychology should be an (1) objective science (2) that studied behavior without reference to mental processes. (scientists agree with #1 not #2. iii. PAVLOV- Studied salivation of dogs and the effect food has on its salivation d. Acquisition: THE INITIAL LEARNING OF THE STIMULUS RESPONSE RELATION. i. When the neutral stimulus elicits the conditioned response thats why we know then it has become a conditioned stimulus. ii. Extinction: the diminished responding that occurs when the CS no longer signals an impending US. iii. Limitations: Timing: Simultaneous Recovery Conditioning 1. Produces weak conditioning iv. Backwards conditioning: Reverse v. Forward Conditioning: 1. Predictability: CS should always accompany the US.

2. Signal Strength: Stronger UCS, faster UCS as well vi. Spontaneous Recovery: Reappearance after a pause of an extinguished conditioned response. e. Generalization: The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses. i. Changing a factor will still cause the same effect f. Discrimination: The learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus. i. Ability to tell the difference and response to similar stimuli B. Cognitive Processes a. When two significant events occur close together in time, an animal learns the predictability. C. Biological Disposition: a. GARCIA: Among those who challenged the prevailing idea that any associations can be learned equally well. i. They studied reaction between rats drinking the water and radiation. ii. The US immediately follows the CS. D.

PAVLOVS LEGACY: a. MANY OTHER RESPONSES TO MANY OTHER STIMULI CAN BE CLASSICALLY CODITIONED IN MANY OTHER ORGANISMS b. THE PROCESS OF LEARNING CAN BE STUDIED OBJECTIVELY
Unconditioned Response Unconditioned Stimulus Naturally and automatically triggers a response Acquisition The unlearned naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus

Conditioned Stimulus (.5 SECONDS BEFORE) Originally irrelevant stimulus that after association with an unconditioned stimulus comes to trigger a response

Conditioned Response The learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus.

Operant Conditioning: A. Operant Conditioning: a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforce or diminished if followed by a punisher a. Operant behavior: operates on environment to produce rewarding or punishing stimuli. b. Thorndike: fish reward to entice cats to find their way out of a puzzle box through a series of maneuvers. i. Law of Effect: rewarded behavior is likely to recur. c. Skinner: Elaborated on Thorndikes law of effect: i. Operant Chamber, key that an animal presses or pecks to release a reward of food or water, and a device that records theses responses. ii.

PRIVATE THOUGHT AND PROCESSES AND THE BIOLOGICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF BEHAVIOR

B. Shaping Behavior: a. An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforces guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior i. To make it more specific C. Types of Reinforces: a. Reinforcement: Any event that strengthens or increases the frequency of preceding response 1. A tangible reward ii. Positive Reinforcement: 1. Strengthens a response by presenting a typically pleasurable stimulus after a response a. Food is a positive reinforce because its a desirable reward iii. Negative Reinforcement 1. Strengthens a response by reducing or removing an aversive stimulus. a. Taking Aspirin helps relieve pain because its taking away a bad behavior b. Conditioned Reinforcers: i. Primary reinforcers: direct rewards ii. Conditioned Reinforcers: rewards that are given after learned. c. Continuous Reinforcers: i. Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs d. Partial Reinforcers: i. Reinforcing a response only part of the time; resultsi slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement. D. Punishment: a. Decreases behavior! Any consequence that decreases the frequency of a preceding behavior usually by administering an undesirable consequence or withdrawing a desirable one.

b. Positive Punishment: i. Administer an aversive stimulus c. Negative punishment i. Withdraw a desirable stimulus

Latent Learning: A. Latent Learning: a. Evidence of cognitive processes has also come from studying rates in mazes. i. Able to perform as well as being reinforcement b. Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it B. Intrinsic Motivation a. Excessive rewards that undermine intrinsic motivation i. The desire to perform a behavior effectively and for its own sake ii. Work and play in search of enjoyment interest self expression or challenge. iii. Youth sports coaches aim to promote enduring interesting an activity and not just to pressure players into winning. C. Extrinsic Motivation a. The desire to behave in certain ways to receive external rewards or avoid threatened punishment. D. Predisposition a. Constraints predispose organisms to learn associations that are naturally adaptive. Training that attempts to override these tendencies will probably not endure because the animals will revert to their biologically predisposed patterns.

Can you explain acquisition in really simple language? o In classical conditioning, acquisition is the process of associating a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus. Acquisition has been completed when the neutral stimulus provokes a conditioned response -- that is, when youve got it. Example: Your teacher always asks your class to answer the aim in your notebooks just before the bell rings. Acquisition has occurred when you know to expect the end of class anytime your teacher asks you to answer the aim.

A. Habituation is a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated presentations. For example, a novel sound in your environment, such as a new ring tone, may initially draw your attention or even become distracting. After you become accustomed to this sound, you pay less attention to the noise and your response to the sound will diminish. This diminished response is habituation.

Wolfgang Kohler, besides having one of the coolest names around, is well known for his studies on insight learning using chimpanzees. B. Insight learning occurs when one suddenly realizes how to solve a problem. Sometimes when you are taking a test you happen upon a problem that you have no idea how to solve. Then all of a sudden, the answer comes to you. Hopefully before you hand the test in, but most of the time the answer comes to you that night in the shower.

Classical Conditioning Response Acquisition Extinction Automatic involuntary Associating events cs announces us CR decreases when CS is repeatedly presented alone Organisms develop expectation that cs signals the arrival of us

Operant Conditioning Voluntary operates on environment Associating response with a consequence Responding decreases when reinforcements stops Organisms develop expectation that a response will be reinforced or punished they also exhibit latent learning without reinforcement Organisms best learn behaviors similar to their natural behaviors Unnatural behaviors become natural behaviors again

Cognitive processes

Biological predisposition

Natural predispositions constrain what stimuli and responses can easily be associated

Observational Learning A. Observational Learning: a. Learning by observing others i. Younger brother sees older sister get burned so he learns to not touch the stove b. Modeling: The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior. i. Mirror Neurons: 1. The brains mirroring of anothers action may enable imitation B. Banduras Experiment: a. Adult is seen to abuse the bobo doll. b. The child is taken to a room with dolls c. The child is then taken away to a room with barely any dolls d. The child sees the bobo doll e. The child imitates the very acts the adult had on the bobo doll C. Prosocial Models a. Models who have nonviolent helpful behavior can prompt similar behavior in others D.