Download enduring change

Definition of Learning
• From a Dictionary: “To gain knowledge or understanding of, or skill
in, by study, instruction, or investigation.”
– Problems
– 1. Learning does not always involve a “gain” or benefit; for example,
psychological disorders, prejudices, and maladaptive behaviors like
procrastination.
– 2. Learning is not always intentional. “Incidental learning” occurs without
intent or instructions to remember the information later. For example...
Remembering the location of your classrooms.
• Domjan Textbook: “Learning is an enduring change in the
mechanism of behavior involving specific stimuli and/or responses
that result from prior experience with those of similar stimuli and
responses.” p.14
– 1. "Enduring Changes" to rule out behavioral changes that result from
• Short-term memory
• Fatigue
• Change in stimulus conditions – loud noise
Definition of Learning
•“Learning is an enduring change in the mechanism of behavior
involving specific stimuli and/or responses that result from prior
experience with those of similar stimuli and responses.” p.14
• 2. "Mechanisms of behaviour" because behaviour is determined by many
factors
• learning as an internal process, a state of knowledge
• learning often takes place without immediately being shown in
behavior
• Studies of latent learning support a distinction between learning, an
internal process, and behavior or performance, an observable process.
• may be changes in performance due to factors other than learning such as
motivational state “hunger” (see learning performance distinction)
• 3. "Resulting From Prior Experience" to rule out changes that result from
• maturation (neuromuscular development) which is generally seen as
preparing a species to learn a skill rapidly
• examples would be the development of walking and the learning of
language
Learning – Performance Distinction
•Evidence of learning
• Learning is inferred by change in performance
• To say that learning has taken place, we must observe a change in behavior
either as
• a new response
• suppression of previous responses
• Learning is inferred from behavior but is not the same thing as behavior
•Other than learning what could influence the performance of behavior?
• Fatigue —"the mind is willing but the flesh is weak"
• Motivation — latent learning example;
• rat in a maze is not motivated to perform
• adding food to the maze improves performance
• Maturation — could also affect performance but would not call it learning (i.e.,
child reaching cookie jar on top of counter)
• Change in stimulus conditions, change
•“Therfore, a change in performance cannot automatically be considered
to refect learning.” p. 14
Functional Basis of Learning
• The importance of learning for survival appears obvious
• Learning enables animals to deal with the demands of a changing
environment.
• Animals learn about stimuli in their environment
– serve as signals for some important outcome
– a particular odor could indicate that there is food or a predator nearby.
• Animals also learn about their own behavior
– A certain action will produce a particular outcome
– running to escape from a predator
• Why is learning a central issue in psychology?
– 1. "Profiting by experience" seems increasingly important as one looks at
phylogenetically more complex animals.
– 2. Learning is automatic and more pervasive than most people think.
– 3. Almost all areas of psychology use learning principles. Developmental;
Educational; Clinical; Behavioural Neuroscience
The Principles of Learning and Behavior, 7e by Michael Domjan
Copyright © 2015 Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
Levels of Analysis
Behaviorism - focuses on an individual's behavior
Neuroscience - to the entire science of the nervous system
Neurobiology - the biology of the nervous system
The Unconscious Mind
• Contemporary psychological explanation of the unconscious mind
– subliminal information processing makes the unconscious mind appear dumb
• This is an unrealistic model of unconscious processing
• Recent social psychology research on unconscious processes
– unintentional nature and the inherent lack of awareness
– People are often unaware of the reasons and causes of their own behavior
– conscious decision making is not the only influences on behavior
• Evidence from neurology, patients with frontal lobe damage
• Evidence from priming studies
– Priming is the presentation of a stimulus that activates a concept in memory
– People asked about their life on sunny days reported being more satisfied than
those on rainy days. Effect disappears if the weather is brought to their attention
– When primed with “elderly” words like Florida, gray, wise, wrinkle, forgetful
walked 20% slower than control participants
The Unconscious Mind
•Unconscious control of individual social behavior
–behavior produced by environmental factors and not by the individual’s
conscious awareness and intentions
• access to unconscious processing of information is limited
• actually this is know from many examples of cognitive research on
information process
• a limited attentional cognitive mechanism
•Yet the priming and the patient studies do complement and support
each other in demonstrating the same two principles:
•that an individual’s behavior can be directly caused by the current environment,
without the necessity of an act of conscious choice or will;
•and that this behavior can and will unfold without the person being aware of its
external determinant.
The Unconscious Mind
•We are predisposed to prefer certain objects and aspects of our
environment over others
• our tendencies to approach or avoid aspects of our environment
• faster to make approach movements of the arm when responding to positive
situations
• faster to make avoidance movements when responding to negative situations
•Social Behavior as Unconsciously Guided by the Current Context
•“chameleon effect”
• mimic posture and gestures of others during social interactions
• priming the professor stereotype results in higher scores on a knowledge
quiz
• priming the elderly stereotype results in slower walking and poorer
memory
• Without some consideration of these issues, automatic behavior,
judgment, and goal pursuit will continue to seem somewhat
magical and mysterious to many people
The Unconscious Mind
• THE UNCONSCIOUS AS THE SOURCE OF BEHAVIORAL
IMPULSES
• The idea that action precedes reflection is not new.
Several
• theorists have postulated that the conscious mind is not
the
• source or origin of our behavior; instead, they theorize
that impulses
• to act are unconsciously activated and that the role of
• consciousness is as gatekeeper and sense maker after
the fact
Methodology in the Study of Learning
• Analysis of learning as causes of behaviour study the effect of
prior experience on behaviour
• Types of Causal Mechanisms
• Efficient Cause
• Necessary and sufficient conditions for producing a behavioural outcome
• Experience with specific stimuli that produce learning
• Material Cause - (Proximal) physical changes in the nervous system that
mediate learning
• Formal Causes - Theories or models of learning expressed as
mathematical, computational, or theoretical constructs
• Final Causes - (Ultimate) explanations of learning in terms of biological
function of the learning, survival and reproduction
Methodology in the Study of Learning
• Experimental Approach
–
–
–
–
efficient causes inferred by experimental manipulations
experimental manipulations constitute the "training procedure"
use experimental techniques to infer causal factors
to separate actual learning from other sources of behavioral change,
systematic experimentation must be performed
– learning research usually done with the use of experimental (as opposed to
observational or correlational) methodology
– See Figure 1.7
Baseline
FIGURE 1.7
Two versions of the fundamental learning experiment. In the left panel, two groups of individuals are
compared. The training procedure is provided for participants in the experimental group but not for those
in the control group. In the right panel, a single individual is observed before and during training. The
individual’s behavior during training is compared to what we assume its behavior would have been
without training.
The Principles of Learning and Behavior, 7e by Michael Domjan
Copyright © 2015 Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.
Methodology in the Study of Learning
•The General-Process Approach
– General laws expressed in terms of basic or elemental processes
– Assumption: learning phenomena are products of elemental processes that
operate similarly in different learning situations
– Applicable to many species and situations
•Methodological implications of general-process assumptions
• Most principles of learning elucidated with use of nonhuman animal subjects
• Learning studied in convenient situation, in expectation that principles widely
applicable i.e. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning See Figure 1.8
•Proof of the Generality of learning Phenomena
• Confirmation of general-laws of learning requires study of diverse species
across different situations
Use of Nonhuman Animals in Research on Learning
•Comparison across species
• Evolutionary and biological considerations
• Neuroscience grounded in behavioural science
•Advantages
• Principles may be simpler
• Practical
• Control in laboratory experiments of previous experience
• Some manipulations possible only with nonhuman animals
•Disadvantages
• Abnormal behavior in laboratory animals
• Comparison to humans is difficult
• Ethics of nonhuman animal research
The Principles of Learning and Behavior, 7e by Michael Domjan
Copyright © 2015 Wadsworth Publishing, a division of Cengage Learning. All rights reserved.