CHAPTER FIVE

PSYCHOLOGY AND LEARNING

LEARNING is any relatively permanent change in behaviour brought about by experience or practice. RELATIVELY PERMANENT: brain is physically changed to register what was just learned. CHANGE: any kind of change in the way an organism behaves is learning. Other changes, like that in height, are called MATURATION. EXPERIENCE/PRACTICE: what happened before reflects in what actions of the present.

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING is learning to instill a reflex response to stimulus, other than the original, natural stimulus that usually elicits the reflex. IVAN PAVLOV: Russian physiologist who figured out the basic principles of learning. REFLEX: involuntary response; automatic. STIMULUS: any object, event or experience that causes a response. RESPONSE: reaction from the organism. ELEMENTS 1. UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS [UCS]: the original, naturally occurring stimulus that leads to an involuntary [reflex] response. 2. UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE [UCR]: an involuntary [reflex] response to a naturally occurring or unconditioned stimulus. Occurs due to genetic wiring in the nervous system. 3. CONDITIONED STIMULUS: any kind of stimulus can be associated with the unconditioned stimulus if they are paired together often enough. So at first, something is a NEUTRAL STIMULUS [NS], but

after repeatedly being paired with the unconditioned stimulus, it causes the same reflexive response, making it CONDITIONED STIMULUS [CS]. 4. CONDITIONED RESPONSE: comes as a response to the conditioned stimulus, so the response may not be as strong as the unconditioned response. BASIC PRINCIPLES The conditioned stimulus must come before the unconditioned stimulus. Both stimuli must come almost simultaneously [ANTECEDENT STIMULI]. Longer interval, no response, but it depends on the nature of the conditioning task. Neutral stimulus must be paired with the unconditioned stimulus before conditioning happens. The conditioned stimulus is distinctive and it must stand out from other competing stimuli. STIMULUS GENERALIZATION: Similar stimulus to the conditioned stimulus will not cause exactly the same responsethe closer it is the conditioned stimulus, the closer the response. STIMULUS DISCRIMINATION: Pavlov did not give dogs food if they responded to a general stimulus, and they learned the exact sound. Thus, an organism learns to respond to different stimuli in different ways. EXTINCTION: disappearance or weakening of a learned response following the removal or absence of the unconditioned stimulus [in classical conditioning] or [in operant conditioning]. REINFORCER: any event or object that, when following a response, increases the likelihood of that response occurring again. SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY: the reappearance of a learned response after extinction has occurred. HIGHER-ORDER CONDITIONING: occurs when a strong conditioned stimulus is pared with a neutral stimulus. A conditioned stimulus plays the

part of the unconditioned stimulus and the neutral stimulus becomes a second conditioned stimulus. CONDITIONED EMOTIONAL RESPONSES [CER] are emotional responses that have become classically conditioned to occur to learned stimuli. BEHAVIOURISM: John Watson said that all behaviour could be learned, that all PHOBIAS, or irrational fear responses, could be explained in learning. VICARIOUS CONDITIONING: classical conditioning of a reflex response learned by watching another persons reaction. OTHER CONDITIONED RESPONSES 1. CONDITIONED TASTE AVERSION: liquid or food that shouldnt taste bad eventually does because of the liquid or food that comes after. 2. BIOLOGICAL PREPAREDNESS: survival mechanism where you avoid food by smell or taste that was digested before becoming ill. WHY DOES CLASSICAL CONDITIONING WORK? STIMULUS SUBSTITUTION: activated same place in brain by association. COGNITIVE PERSPECTIVE: Conditioned stimulus must provide some kind of information about the coming of the unconditioned stimulus in order to achieve conditioning.

OPERANT CONDITIONING is the kind of learning that applies to voluntary behaviour. EDWARD THORNDIKE: Cat, lever, box; the cat had to learn to push the leaver, but Thorndike kept moving it around, and each time the cat would learn to look for it in the place where it previously was. LAW OF EFFECT: If an action is followed by a pleasurable consequence, it tends to be repeated. If its followed by a displeasing consequence, it wont be.

 B.F. SKINNER: operant is any behaviour that is voluntary. The heart of operant conditioning is the effect of consequences on behaviourlearning depends on what happens after the response. REINFORCEMENT: any event or stimulus that when following a response increases the probability that the response will occur again. It is the key to learning in operant conditioning. PRIMARY REINFORCER: naturally reinforcing by meeting a basic biological need like hunger or thirst. SECONDARY REINFORCER: reinforcer that reinforces by pairing with a primary reinforcer. Personally, that makes no sense grammatically, but okay nalang. NEGATIVE AND POSTIVE REINFORCEMENT: it all boils down to two kinds of consequencesthings they like and things they dont like. Positive is adding, whether reward or punishment; negative is subtracting, whether reward or punishment. o PUNISHMENT BY APPLICATION: occurs when something unpleasant is added to the situation. o PUNISHMENT BY REMOVAL: punishment of a response by the removal of the pleasurable stimulus. o PROBLEMS WITH PUNISHMENT 1. Only suppresses behaviour temporarily. 2. Punisher may be avoided instead of the punishment. 3. Lying to avoid punishment. 4. Punishment creates fear and anxiety, emotional responses that dont promote learning. 5. Hitting encourages aggression. Behaviour by modeling. o HOW TO MAKE PUNISHMENT EFFECTIVE 1. Punishment should immediately follow behaviour. 2. Punishment should be consistent. 3. Punishment of wrong behaviour should be paired with reinforcement of correct behaviour.

SHAPING: reinforcement of simple steps in behaviour that lead to a desired, more complex behaviour. EXTINCTION: removal of the reinforcement. DISCRIMINATIVE STIMULUS: any stimulus that provides a cue for making a certain response to obtain reinforcement. PARTIAL REINFORCEMENT EFFECT: the tendency for a response that is reinforced after some, but not all, correct responses to be resistant to extinction. Better for ze long term. CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT: the reinforcement of each and every correct response. Will learn more quickly but heh, so whut. FIXED: the same in each case. VARIABLE: a different number or interval is required in each case. VARIABLE SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT: schedule of reinforcement in which the interval of time that must pass before reinforcement becomes possible is different for each trial or event. VARIABLE SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT: the number of responses changes next. Rapid change in response.

INTERVAL SCHEDULE: timing of the response.

FIXED INTERVAL SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT: reinforcer is received after a certain fixed interval of time has passed. Does not produce a fast rate of responding.

RATIO SCHEDULE: certain number of responses required for reinforcement.

FIXED RATIO SCHEDULE OF REINFORCEMENT: the number of responses required to receive same number. Fast rate of responding.

reinforcement is always the from one trial to the

INSTINCTIVE DRIFT: tendency to revert back to genetically controlled patterns.

 BEHAVIOUR MODIFICATION: application of operant conditioning to change undesirable behaviour into desirable behaviour. TOKEN ECONOMY: use of tokens to modify behaviour. APPLIED BEHAVIOUR ANALYSIS [ABA]: modern term for a form of behaviour modification that uses the shaping process to mold a desired behaviour or response. BIOFEEDBACK: feedback of a persons biological information [such as heart rate] to create a modification plan. NEUROFEEDBACK: trying to change brain-wave activity.

COGNITIVE LEARNING THEORY involves the thoughts, feelings, expectations that influence observable behaviour and eventually begin to develop a cognitive learning theory to supplement the more traditional theories of learning. EDWARD TOLMAN: Gestalt psychologist with his rat maze. First rat group had reinforcement, second rat group only had reinforcement on the tenth day and OMG OMG OMG SHOCKED ZE WORLLLDDDD when they solved the maze almost immediately, the third group had no reinforcement whatsoever. LATENT LEARNING: information remained latent until there was a reason to use it. Rats created a COGNITIVE MAP in their minds. WOLFGANG KOHLER: Gestalt psychologist. Sultan the chimp with the banana that he could reach with his arm, then with a stick, then with two sticks. INSIGHT: the sudden perception of relationships among various parts of a problem allowing the solution to come more quickly. MARTIN SELIGMAN: harnessed dogs were shocked. When put in a large group with a jumpable fence and no harness, they stayed in place. LEARNED HELPLESSNESS: the tendency to fail to act on a situation because of a history of failure.

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING is learning new behaviour by modeling. ALBERT BANDURA AND THE BOBO DOLL: Child played with the toys minded by the models. Reinforcement? The kids that were shown a reward copied the model beating up the Bobo doll. The ones who were shown a punishment did not copy the model until they were given a reward. FOUR ELEMENTS 1. ATTENTION: learner must pay attention. Certain characteristics of models can make attention more likely. 2. MEMORY: learner must retain memory of what was done; in other words, remembering steps. 3. IMITATION: learner must be capable of imitating. 4. MOTIVATION: learner must have desire or motivation to perform the action.