Download Learning: Principles and Applications

Learning: Principles and
Applications
Learning is basic to understanding
our behavior. It is part of nearly
every aspect of our lives.
Learning
• Learning is a relatively
permanent change in
behavior that results
from experience.
• Not all behaviors that
we learn are acquired
in the same way.
• Furthermore, the same
behavior can be
learned in different
ways.
Learning
Three basic types of learning:
Classical Conditioning
Operant Conditioning
Modeling
Classical Conditioning
• Pavlov’s Dog
• Ivan Pavlov (1927) began his experiments by
ringing a tuning fork and then immediately placing
some meat powder on the dog’s tongue.
• The tuning fork was a neutral stimulus – it had
nothing to do with the response to meat prior to
conditioning.
Classical Conditioning
• After only a few times, the dog
started salivating as soon as it
heard the sound, even if food
was not placed in its mouth.
• Pavlov had demonstrated that a
neutral stimulus will cause a
formerly unrelated response if it
is presented regularly just
before the stimulus (food) that
normally induces that response
(salivation).
Classical Conditioning
• In the experiment:
• Food was the unconditioned
stimulus (UCS) – an event that
leads to a certain, predictable
response without previous
training.
• Salivating was the
unconditioned response (UCR)
– a reaction that occurs naturally
and automatically when the
unconditioned stimulus is
presented.
Classical Conditioning
• Under normal conditions, the sound
of a tuning fork would not cause
salivation.
• The dog had to be taught, or
conditioned, to associate this sound
with food.
Classical Conditioning
• An ordinary neutral event
that, after training, leads to a
response such as salivation
is termed a conditioned
stimulus (CS).
• The salivation it causes is a
conditioned response (CR).
Classical Conditioning
• A conditioned response is learned.
• Controlling responses in this way so that
an old response becomes attached to a
new stimulus is called classical
conditioning.
Classical Conditioning