{Learning

I’m Forcing You to Do It!

How do we define “learning”?

Learning: some experience that results in a relatively permanent change in the state of the learner

How about…

Habituation: general process in which repeated or prolonged exposure to a stimulus results in a gradual reduction in responding

May remind you of a term from the sensation lesson…

Back to Basics

Behaviorism: school of psychological thought

Argues that psychologists should “never use the terms consciousness, mental states, mind, content, introspectively verifiable, imagery, and the like” (J.B. Watson).

Why?

Behaviorism!

Occurs when a neutral stimulus evokes a responses after being paired with a stimulus that naturally evokes a response

Classical Conditioning

Unconditioned stimulus: something that reliably produces a naturally occurring response reaction in an organism

Unconditioned response: reflexive reaction that is reliably elicited by an unconditioned stimulus

Pavlov’s Dog Experiments

Conditioned Stimulus: a stimulus that is initially neutral and produces no response in an organism

Conditioned Response: a reaction that resembles an unconditioned response but is produced by a conditioned stimulus

Pavlov Continued

Research Apparatus

What does the experiment tell us about learning?

What does the experiment tell us about the way humans behave?

Why was Pavlov’s experiment so groundbreaking?

An organism experiences events or stimuli that are observable and measurable, and changes in that organism can be directly observed and measured

No need to resort to explanation about why it had happened, what the dog wanted, or how the animal thought about the situation

No need to consider the mindWhy is Classical Conditioning Attractive?

Second-Order Conditioning: conditioning where the US is a stimulus that acquired its ability to produce learning from an earlier procedure in which it was used as a CS

Can you think of ways this might apply to your life?

Learning on top of learning?

CS can be more than a simple bell or tone; also includes the overall CONTEXT within which the conditioning takes place

Drug tolerance: an organ’s defensive response against a drug

Drug Overdoses

Generalization: CR is observed even though the CS is slightly different from the original one used during acquisition

Octave pitches act as CS

Generalization

Alcoholism: addiction to alcohol

An alcoholic goes out to a restaurant where alcohol is not served. There is no bar in the restaurant and no bottles of liquor anywhere to be seen. But the alcoholic suddenly feels the overwhelming urge to drink. Why?

Alcoholics & Bars

Discrimination: capacity to distinguish between similar but distinct stimuli

Splat the dog!

Discrimination

Little Albert Experiments

What do they tell us about learning?

What do they tell us about human beings?

What do they tell us about psychology?Why Are the Baby Albert Experiments Considered Significant?

Watson: “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one of them at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select—doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and theif, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocation, and race of his ancestors.”

???? vs. ????

Food aversions cut acquisition time between CS and UR

Food aversions can occur even when an animal is unconscious

Less likely to occur in familiar foods

Evolutionary Elements to Classical Conditioning

The natural (innate) ability to learn particular kinds of associations over others

Phobias: examples of biological preparedness? Fear of heights? Fear of snakes?

Biological Preparedness

A type of learning in which the consequences of an organism’s behavior determine whether it will be repeated in the future

Exploration of behaviors that are ACTIVE rather than passive

Operant Conditioning

Thorndike’s Cat in a Box experiment

Over time, ineffective behaviors become less and less frequent and effective behaviors become more common

Law of Effect: behaviors that are followed by a “satisfying state of affairs” tend to be repeated and those that produce an “unpleasant state of affairs” are less likely to be repeated

Cats!

Operant Behavior: behavior that an organism produces that has some impact on the environment

B.F. Skinner

Take a look!

Skinner Box

In Skinner-ese: Punisher: any stimulus or event that

functions to decrease the likelihood of the behavior that led to it

Reinforcer: any stimulus or event that functions to increase the likelihood of the behavior that led to it

Punishers and Reinforcers

Increases Likelihood of Behavior

Decreases the Likelihood of Behavior

Stimulus is presented

Positive reinforecement

Positive punishment

Stimulus is removed

Negative reinforcement

Negative punishment

Positives and Negatives

*Reinforcement is generally more effective than punishment in promoting learning

*Punishment signals that a behavior is ineffective but provides no alternative

Extrinsic reinforcement: rewards that come from external sources

Overjustification effect: when external rewards undermine intrinsic satisfaction of performing a behavior

Reinforcement = Punishment?

In Operant Conditioning rewards are given out only when the correct behavior is undertaken—and sometimes not even then!

Schedule of reinforcement—when rewards are presented relative to correct behavior—drastically effect on behavior

Classical vs. Operant Conditioning

Fixed Interval Schedule: reinforcement presented every two minutes as long as correct behavior is undertaken

Bursts of correct behavior just before interval is up

Procrastination?

Fixed Interval Schedule

Responses are reward on average every two minutes but not after each two minute interval

Produces steady, consistent responding because the time until the next reinforcement is more variable

Variable Interval Schedule

Reinforcement is delivered after a specific number of responses have been made

Eat five pizzas and get the sixth one free!

Fixed Ratio Schedule

Delivery of reinforcement is based on a particular average number of responses

Slot machines

Intermittent-Reinforcement Effect: the fact that operant behaviors that are maintained under intermittent reinforcement schedules resist extinction better than those maintained under continuous reinforcement

Skinner got a pigeon to peck 10,000 before it got a food pellet!

Variable Ratio Schedule

Reward Schedule and Superstition

Edward Chace Tolman designed experiments to show that rats seemed to have BELIEFS about the rewards they would receive

Latent Learning: something is learned but it is not manifested as a behavioral change until sometime in the future

Cognitive Map: a mental representation of the physical features of the environment

But What About the Mind

Observational Learning: learning takes place by watching the actions of others

Challenges behaviorism’s reinforcement-based explanations of classical and operant conditioning

That Looks Bad…