Download Learning - Morgan Park High School

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Learning and Conditioning
 Learning
o We learn from experience --- we obtain flexibility and adaptability
o We learn new behaviors that enable us to cope with changing circumstances
o The topic of learning is closer to psychology than any other
o Learning is a relatively permanent change in an organism’s behavior due to
experience
o Learning breeds hope … what is learnable, we can potentially teach
o What has been learned can be potentially change and altered by new learning
– an assumptions that defines our everyday life
o We learn by association, our minds naturally connect events that occur in
sequence
 Examples:
o Eating your favorite meal, again and again
o Listening to our favorite recording artist
o A spooky looking place or situation that will forever seem spooky
o The theme song from “FRIENDS”
 The significance of learning can be demonstrated by looking at captive bred animals
when reintroduced into the wild
o 11 Mexican gray wolves
o The wolves learned how to hunt and to stay a good distance away from people
o However, they had not learned to run away from humans with guns
o Only one wolf survived
 Humans and Facial Expressions
o We learn at an early age to associate different facial expressions with
accompanying behaviors and tones of voice
o We learn to read faces and assess emotions, or rather apply an emotion to the
facial expression
 With Learning comes Conditioning
o Conditioning is the process of learning associations
 Classical conditioning
 Operant conditioning
 Observational learning
 The concept of conditioning raises several questions:
o What principles influence the learning and the loss of associations?
o How can we apply these principles?
o What really are the associations?
 Classical conditioning
o A type of learning in which an organism comes to associate stimuli
o A neutral stimulus is conditioned or paired with another stimulus (UCS) that
elicits a response (UCR), thus over time the neutral stimulus will elicit a
response (CR)
 Example:
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o Pavlov’s classic experiment
 Before conditioning;
 Food (UnConditioned Stimulus) makes the dog salivate which
is the (UnConditioned Response)
 Neutral stimulus presented which is the bell
 During conditioning;
 Food + Bell are paired together over time which elicits
salivation (UnConditioned Response
 After conditioning;
 The bell is now conditioned to have the dog elicit salivation
(Conditioned Response)
 Bell is now a conditioned stimulus
The terms
o Unconditioned stimulus (UCS); a stimulus that naturally and automatically
triggers a response
o Unconditioned response (UCR); a naturally occurring response to an
unconditioned stimulus
o Conditioned response (CR); the learned response to a neutral conditioned
stimulus
o Conditioned stimulus (CS); what a neutral stimulus becomes after being
paired with a UCS and thus will elicit a conditioned response
Conditioning is usually considered an acquisition process, the learning process in
which an organism has acquired a response
Classical conditioning gives animals and humans a reproductive edge
Conditioning serves the function of helping animals survive and reproduce – by
responding to cues that help it gain food, avoid dangers, defeat rivals, locate mates,
and reproduce offspring
Objects, smells, and sights associated with sexual pleasure become conditioned
stimuli for sexual arousal
Extinction and Recovery
o Extinction; the diminishing of a conditioned response, by which the
conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with the unconditioned stimulus --the unconditioned responses do not occur as often then
o Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of the conditioned response after
the CS and the UCS have been paired together again
Generalization; the tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the CS
o Toddlers taught to fear moving cars, as well as fear moving trucks and other
vehicles
o Fear of a dog because of being chased once, can translate to fear of all dogs
o Dirty restaurant ----- bad food
Discrimination; the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and
other stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus
Slightly different stimuli are at times followed by vastly different consequences
o Reaction to a pitbull versus a poodle
o Reaction to a pop gun versus a real gun
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 Predictability; when two significant events occur close together in time, we learn to
predict the second event
 The more predictable the association, the stronger the conditioned response
o Example:
 Light flash + loud noise then shock of electricity given to animal
 Animal fears the noise, not the light
 Expectancy; the awareness that the UCS will occur
o Example:
 Alcohol and nausea
 Classical conditioning in daily life
o Drug addicts bodies react not only to effects of the drug but also in an
anticipatory way to the sight of needles, drugs, and locations in which they
have done their drugs at
o Sports training; coaches and athletes relationship
o Doctors office visit; train tracks near doctor’s office + getting a shot a doctors
office ----- fear of train tracks near doctors office
o Why we like TV sitcoms, drama, etc?
 Themes of the show
 Music during show
 Characters we associate with, that are like us
 Conditioning of the immune system
o Why people survive surgery and recovery
o Why people do not survive surgery and recovery
o The will to live is very important
 Garcia effect
o Chemotherapy patients and eating
o Taste aversion; when people avoid foods or fluids that have made them sick in
the past
o We are aware of aversions to taste, rather than time, place, situation, or sight
o Nature prepares species to learn those things crucial to their survival
o All sorts of bad feelings, from nausea to anxiety to pain, serve good purposes
o Example:
 Dog and cat repellent story
 Poisoned dog food to kill the neighbor’s dumb pets
 Sheep, coyotes, ranchers, and drugs
 Biological restraints on learning affirms a deep principle: learning enables animals to
adapt to their environments
 Animals are very responsive to stimuli that announce significant events, such as food
or pain
 Animals are generally predisposed to associate a CS with a UCS that follows
predictability and immediately – for causes often immediately precede effects
 John B. Watson and Rayner “Little Albert”
o Loud noises and white furry animals
 Higher order associations
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o Conditioning may lead to a better understanding of how behavior can be
established and maintained by thoughts, images, and anticipation of events, all
which can lead to conditioned and sometimes maladaptive responses.
o “CRASH”
o How we are conditioned to hate each other?
o How is prejudice, racism, discrimination perpetuated?
o Conditioning of rape victims
o Learning to kill in war and society
Operant conditioning
o A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a
reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher
o Actions operate on the environment to produce rewarding or punishing
stimuli.
Learning is associated between behavior and resulting events
Law of effect: rewarded behavior is likely to occur
Shaping; procedure in which reinforcers, such as food, gradually guide an animal’s
actions toward a desired behavior
We reward and shape the behavior of each other each day. We unthinkingly reward
behaviors we find annoying.
o A child whining because he wants something, thus to quite the child the
parents give in to his/her demands
Reinforcement; any event that increases the frequency of a preceding response
Positive reinforcement; presenting a favorable stimulus after a response
o Example;
 Giving food, attention, approval, and money
 Drinking and dugs to have a good time
Negative reinforcement; reducing or removing an aversive stimulus after a response
o Example:
 Student studying to reduce the anxiety and feeling of failure on an
exam
 Taking aspirin to relieve headache
 Doing cocaine to relieve feelings of withdrawal
 Drugs to relieve feelings of loneliness
Primary reinforcers; satisfying the primary needs, food drink, etc
Secondary reinforcers; satisfaction through money, good grades, affirmation, praise,
which are usually linked with other rewards
A big step toward maturity and toward gaining the most satisfying life – is learning to
delay gratification, to control one’s impulses in order to achieve more valued rewards
However, small immediate consequences are sometimes more alluring than big
delayed consequences.
Reinforcement schedules
o Continuous reinforcement
o Partial (intermittent) reinforcement
o Fixed ratio schedule
o Variable ratio schedule
o Fixed interval schedule
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o Variable interval schedule
Punishment
o The effect is opposite to that of reinforcement
o Punishment attempts to decrease behavior, while reinforcement attempts to
increase behavior
o Administering an undesirable consequence or taking away a desirable one
o Punishment does not always work the way we want it to.
o For example, a child may be beat for swearing around his parents, thus learns
not to swear around his parents or other adults. He/she learns to swear in a
safe environment away from adults. The behavior does not cease entirely, just
in that situation.
o Punishment may increase aggressiveness by demonstrating aggressive ways to
cope with problems
o Punishment tells you what not to do, not what to do
o Punishment creates fear
o Fear might be associated with the undesirable behavior, as well as with the
person administering the punishment
o If punishment is not explained, and occurs in a unpredictable and inescapable
manner. The person being punished might develop a sense of self helplessness
and depression, like things are not within and beyond their control
Cognition and Operant Conditioning
o Latent learning; learning that occurs without reinforcement or punishment,
and is apparent when there is some incentive to demonstrate what was
learned.
o Cognitive map; mental representation of one’s environment
o Overjustification effect; occurs when an already rewarding activity becomes
overjustified by the promise of an added rewarded
Unnecessary rewards sometimes carry hidden costs, like the person losing intrinsic
interest for doing the activity
If the person has to be persuaded to do the activity, then it must not be worth doing it
for its own sake
Intrinsic motivation; the desire to perform the task for its own sake
Extrinsic motivation; seeking external rewards for doing a task, or doing it to avoid
punishment.
Rewards should signal a job well done, and not serve as a bribe to do the activity
Applications of Operant Conditioning
o At school
o At work
o At home
 Give children attention and other reinforcers when they are behaving
well.
 Target a specific behavior
 Ignore whining – it will diminish if not reinforced
 When children misbehave, explain to them what they did apply
negative reinforcement
o On ourselves
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 State your goal
 Monitor
 Reinforce
 Reduce the incentives
 Observational learning
o Learning by observing others
o We do this through modeling; the process of imitating a specific behavior
o We mimic ideas, trends, fashions, and habits of a cultural nature – memes
o There have been recent discoveries that shed light on mirror neurons, located
in the frontal lobe area adjacent to the brain’s motor cortex; this provides a
neural basis for observational learning
o When we watch and mimic, mirror neurons fire for both task.
o These neurons allow children to learn simply by observation how mimic
simple movements, linguistic skills, how to be empathetic towards others
 This theory allows for the bad and good habits to form
o Example:
 Bandura’s experiment: bolba doll
 Fathers abandoning their children
 Husbands beating their wives
 Mothers not knowing to care for their children
 Media and observational learning
o Movies predicting real life alternate situations
o Violent movies
o BET
o MTV
o UFC and WWF/ backyard wrestling