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PSY 190: General Psychology
Chapter 6: Learning


Learning is a relatively permanent change in
behavior due to experience
We learn primarily by identifying
relationships between events and noting
regularity of patterns in our world


Was a research physiologist,
not a psychologist
 At age 33, earns MD
 Spends next 20 years
studying the digestive
system
 Russia’s first Nobel Prize
winner in 1904
However, its the novel work
done over the final 30 years of
his life that earns him his
place in scientific history

In classical conditioning, the organism learns a
connection between two stimuli


A form of associative learning


In other words, the organism learns that one stimulus
predicts another stimulus
Learning in which connections are formed between
internal representations of events (e.g., stimuli and
responses) during learning.
Procedure
Classical conditioning is the presentation of two or more
events in an experimentally determined temporal
relationship
 Any change in responding to one of the events is seen as
evidence of a learned association





Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
 In classical conditioning, this is the stimulus that elicits
the unconditioned response (UR) without conditioning
Conditioned stimulus (CS)
 In classical conditioning, this is the stimulus which comes
to elicit a new response by virtue of pairings with the
unconditioned stimulus
Unconditioned response (UCR)
 In classical conditioning, the automatic (involuntary),
unlearned reaction to a stimulus
Conditioned response (CR)
 A learned response elicited as a result of pairings
between that NS and an UCS



UCS ------------------------------------------- UCR
(food)
(salivation)
NS -------------------------------------------- NO RESPONSE
(bell)
(no salivation)
NS + UCS ----------------------------------- UCR
(bell) (food)
(salivation)
* This is repeated several times

CS --------------------------------------------- CR
(bell)
(salivation)
Pavlov’s Participants 

The decline or disappearance of the CR in the
absence of the UCS

Presentation of CS alone
Pavlov’s Paradigm: See next slide 
UCS ---------------------------------------------- UCR
NS ----------------------------------------------- NO RESPONSE
NS + UCS -------------------------------------- UCR
* This is repeated several times
CS ------------------------------------------------ CR

Extinction process is initiated:
CS ----------------------------------------------- CR
CS ----------------------------------------------- CR (less response than before)
CS ----------------------------------------------- CR (less response than before)
CS ----------------------------------------------- CR (less response than before)

Eventually we get………..
NS --------------------------------------------- NO RESPONSE
(bell)
(no salivation)

An extinguished CR will temporarily reappear if
after a time delay the CS is presented again even
without the UCS


This is a reappearance of a CR after extinction despite
no further CS-UCS pairings
Apparently, extinction does not eliminate the CS-UCS
association; just suppresses it
Trial 11 represents a
two-week rest period 

What happens next?
Extinction continues
CS-UCS pairing

After a CR is acquired, stimuli that are similar but not
identical to the CS also will elicit the response
 The greater the similarity between a new stimulus
and the CS the stronger the CR will be
Conditioned to tone of F 

Organisms can be conditioned to learn to
differentiate among similar stimuli

Even a similar tone will not produce a response in
certain situations
 For instance, if two tones are continuously presented but
only Tone 1 is paired with the UCS then CR will only
appear when Tone 1 is presented

A new NS can become a new CS
Kamin (1969)
Procedure
Group
Experimental:
Blocking
Control
Results?
Conditioning
Phase 1
Conditioning
Phase 2
Test Phase
Tone/Shock
Tone/Light/Shock
Tone?
Light?
None
Tone /Light/Shock
Tone?
Light?

Watson & Raynor (1920)

Behavioral psychologists John Watson and grad assistant
Rosalie Raynor taught an 11-month old infant to become afraid
of a gentle white laboratory rat
Little Albert reacting to mask
worn by John Watson 
This illustrates generalization


The idea that people and animals are inherently
inclined to form associations between certain
stimuli and responses
This concept plays an important role in learning,
particularly in understanding the classical
conditioning process
The idea that phobias are
biologically innate?

Drug Tolerance



Drugs have less of an effect when taken repeatedly
(less of a high)
Drug users crave more of the drug despite its
lessening effects
It appears that certain drugs trigger our body to call
upon its defenses against the effects of the drug

Siegel et al. (1982)


Demonstrated that classical conditioning principles
might be in effect during drug-injecting episodes…
Possible reason for overdoses???


UCS ---------------------------------------------- UCR
(drug)
(anti-drug defenses)
NS ----------------------------------------------- NO RESPONSE
(injection ritual)
(no defenses)
NS + UCS -------------------------------------- UCR
(injection ritual) + (drug)
(anti-drug defenses)
* Repeated several times


CS ----------------------------------------------- CR
(injection ritual)
(anti-drug defenses)



Familiar setting----------------------- anti-drug defenses
(usual time, place, etc)
(body reacts)
New setting ---------------------------- no defenses
(place, time are different)
(body doesn't react)
The same dosage now becomes an overdose –
they get too high as their bodies have been
fooled by the new procedure
Procedure


Rats were preconditioned to a tolerance of large doses of
heroin; given daily intravenous injections for 30 days
Placebo or heroin given either in “animal colony” or alone
in “white noise” room on alternate days
Counterbalance of treatment
 For some rats: heroin in WN; placebo in AC
 For others: heroin in AC; placebo in WN
 Control group received only placebo in different rooms
on alternate days
Group 1:
 Received heroin in the Colony room (their normal living
quarters) and placebo in the Noisy room the next day
Group 2:
 Received placebo in the Colony room (their normal living
quarters) and heroin in the Noisy room the next day
Group 3:
 Received placebo in the Colony room (their normal living
quarters) and placebo in the Noisy room the next day
At this point there are the three groups above
 On Day 31, all rats were then injected with a large dose of heroin
(15 mg/kg)
 But the room in which this potentially lethal dose of heroin was
administered was varied between subgroups of rats
See next slide 

On Day 31:
 Group 1A were injected with heroin in the Colony room where they had received all their previous injections of heroin
 Group 1B were injected with heroin in the Noisy room where they had never received any previous injections of
heroin
 Group 2A were injected with heroin in the Noisy room where they had received all their previous injections of heroin
 Group 2B were injected with heroin in the Colony room where they had never received any previous injections of
heroin
 Group 3A were injected with heroin in the Colony room - they
had no previous injections of heroin
 Group 3B were injected with heroin in the Noisy room - they
had no previous injections of heroin
Siegel, Hinson, Krank, & McCully (1982)



Group 3 showed substantial
mortality (96% died)
A group with prior exposure
in the same cage showed
significant tolerance (only
32% died)
A group with the same
history of exposure, but
tested in an environment not
previously associated with
heroin showed significantly
higher mortality (64% died)
Siegel, Hinson, Krank, & McCully (1982)
Siegel, Hinson, Krank, & McCully (1982))


Results
 50% increase in death rate in new room
 Rats show "room-specific" tolerance
Implication
 Some drug users suffer “overdose” reactions
after taking their usual dose, if they take it in
an unusual place or under unusual
circumstances (Siegel & Ramos, 2002)
Siegel (1984)
 In a follow-up study, overdose victims who had
survived were interviewed and 70% reported
they had changed environmental conditions
Typical Procedure
 Rats are given novel taste (saccharin-flavored
water) is followed by an illness-producing drug
 Gastrointestinal distress
 Flavored water is again presented
Typical Results
 Decrease or complete avoidance of the flavored
water (CS)

Rats drink flavored water from tubes that flashed light
and made noise when the tubes were licked

Group 1:
 Rats were given electric shocks to their feet two seconds
after beginning to drink

Group 2:
 Rats were exposed to X rays (which made them sick)
while they drank

Later, both groups were tested with a tube of flavored
water producing lights and noise and a tube of
unflavored water that was not producing lights and
noise… so rats are basically given a choice between
these two tubes to drink from

Results

Group 1 (rats that had been shocked) avoided the tube
producing the lights and noise while Group 2 (rats
that had been made sick) avoided only the flavored
water
Interpretation
 Doesn't fit exactly within all the rules of classical
conditioning; occurs reliably after only a single
trial (one pairing)
 Rats (and other species) have a built-in
predisposition to associate illness mostly with
what they have eaten or drunk (Group 2 rats) and
to associate skin pain mostly with what they have
seen or heard (Group 1 rats); this is an another
example of biopreparedness
Romantic Red: Red
Enhances Men’s
Attraction to Women
Are men classically conditioned to
associate red in a way that leads
them to view a women’s looks more
positively?
Andrew J. Elliot & Daniela Niesta (2008)
University of Rochester
Elliot & Niesta (2008)
Participants
• Sample: 27 male undergraduates
• Mean age: 20.52 years (SD=1.83)
• Majority of participants were Caucasian
Procedure
• Men had 5s to look at the picture followed by a
questionnaire which consisted of questions that
assessed how attractive the participants found the
woman to be.
Results
• There was a main effect for color such that men in the
red condition perceived woman to be more attractive
than did men in the white condition.
See next slide 
Elliot & Niesta (2008)
Elliot & Niesta (2008)
An incentive to make you swim faster???
Is there a conditioning principle applied here as well?
INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING
E. L. Thorndike (1905)
• Law of Effect
•
Responses that are
rewarded are more likely to
be repeated and responses
that produce discomfort are
less likely to be repeated
Rewarded behaviors are more
likely to recur
E. L. Thorndike 
TRIAL-AND-ERROR LEARNING
Thorndike's Puzzle Box
• In his classic experiment, a cat was locked in
the box and enticed to escape by using food
that was placed out of the reach from the box
• Ropes, levers, and latches that the cat could
use to escape
• Trial and error behavior would lead to ultimate
success (usually within three minutes)
• Thorndike felt we learned trial and error
through awareness
Operant Conditioning

A type of learning in which voluntary
(controllable and non-reflexive)
behavior is strengthened if it is
reinforced and weakened if it is
punished (or not reinforced)
B.F. Skinner (1904-1990) 
SKINNER’S OPERANT CONDITIONING
The organism learns a response by
operating on the environment…
Note:
• The terms instrumental conditioning and operant conditioning describe
essentially the same learning process and are often used
interchangeably
• Basically, Skinner extended and formalized many of Thorndike's ideas
Operant Conditioning

Response comes first and is
voluntary unlike classical where
stimulus comes first and response is
involuntary
• Classical: S  R
• Operant:
SRS
that becomes
RS
The Skinner Box

Soundproof
chamber with a
bar or key that
could be
manipulated to
release a food or
water reward
Operant Conditioning

Important terms
• Primary Reinforcers
• Secondary Reinforcers
• Positive Reinforcement
• Punishment
• Negative Reinforcement
Reinforcers

Primary Reinforcers
• Innately rewarding; no learning
necessary
• Food, water, etc.

Secondary Reinforcers
• A consequence that is learned by pairing
with a primary reinforcer
• For people, money, good grades, and
words of praise, etc. are often linked to
basic rewards
Positive Reinforcement

Behavior is strengthened when something
pleasant or desirable occurs following the
behavior
• With the use of positive reinforcement
chances that the behavior will occur in
the future is increased
Punishment

Any stimulus presented immediately after
a behavior in order to decrease the
future probability of that behavior
Negative Reinforcement


One of the most misunderstood terms in
psychology…
Definitely a problem with semantics here
• The word reinforcement means that a response is
strengthened
• The word negative seems to imply that the response is
somehow weakened




This is not the case here!
So how literally can a response be negatively reinforced???
Often, this term is misapplied to term punishment
So lets try to proceed slowly in our attempts
to figure this out…
Negative Reinforcement



Positive Reinforcement is a reward
• That’s easy enough
Punishment is something that weakens a
response
• Again, this is pretty basic
In an attempt to increase the likelihood of a
behavior occurring in the future, an operant
response is followed by the removal of an
aversive stimulus. This is negative
reinforcement.
Negative Reinforcement

So we are learning to do something
to turn off a bad stimulus
• Example: We put on boots to prevent
sitting in class with wet socks on

Increasing a behavior to stop a bad
thing from occurring
Shaping



Training a behavior not in an organism’s behavior
repertoire
Reinforce progressive steps toward the behavior
Reinforcing successive approximations
• Skinner taught pigeons “unpigeon-like”
behaviors
• Others have trained monkeys to help
quadriplegics
Schedules of Reinforcement

Continuous Reinforcement
• Reinforcement delivered every time a
particular response occurs

Partial Reinforcement
• Reinforcement is administered only
some of the time
Partial Schedules of
Reinforcement


Fixed-Interval Schedules
• Provides reinforcement for the first response that
occurs after some fixed time has passed since
the last reward
• Number of responses doesn’t matter only time
Variable-Interval Schedule
• Reinforce the first responses after a certain
amount of time has past
• Again number of responses doesn’t matter
• But this time the amount of time changes
Partial Schedules of
Reinforcement


Fixed-Ratio
• Reinforcement provided after a fixed number of
responses
 Food every tenth bar press
Variable-Ratio
• Reinforcement after a variable number of
responses (works on a average)
 Unpredictable number of responses are
required (slot machines)
Applications of Operant Conditioning:
In the Workplace

Pedalino & Gamboa (1974)
• To help reduce the frequency of
employee tardiness, these researchers
implemented a game-like system for all
employees that arrived on time
• When an employee arrived on time,
they were allowed to draw a card
• Over the course of a 5-day workweek,
the employee would have a full hand for
poker
• At the end of the week, the best hand
won $20
Observational Learning

Major components involved in observational
learning:
 Attention
 Retention
 Reproduction
 Motivation
 Self-efficacy
Albert Bandura 
Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1963)
The “Bobo" Doll Experiment


Note : Bandura did a large number of variations on
the “Bobo doll” experiment…we’ll look at a few
Phase 1
• Pre-schoolers were divided into two groups and
put into two separate rooms and allowed to play
with "attractive" toys while “Bobo” an unattractive
inflatable, adult-sized, egg-shaped balloon
creature (the kind that bounces back after it's
been knocked down) sat by itself at the far end of
the rooms
Bobo 
Bandura, Ross, and Ross (1963)
The “Bobo" Doll Experiment

Phase 2
• Group 1: While playing with the
attractive toys the children
witnessed adults enter the
room and start beating the
daylights out of the clown
• Group2: While playing with the
attractive toys the children
witnessed adults enter the
room and play nicely with Bobo

Phase 3
• The attractive toys were taken
away from each group

Results: What happened
next?
Poor Bobo…
Bandura (1965)
The “Bobo" Doll Experiment



In the 1965, version kids watched films of adults
beating on Bobo – but each had different endings…
Film 1:
• Adult praised and rewarded with candy and soda
by another adult who was heard saying, “You’re a
strong champion”
Film 2:
• Adult is scolded by another adult, “You’re very
bad” or “Hey there, you big bully, you quit picking
on that clown”
Bandura (1965)
The “Bobo" Doll Experiment
Results
 The kids modeled adults
behavior regardless of
the film they watched
Interpretation
 Vicarious reinforcement
and punishment was
received given to
children thus leading to
their vicarious
motivations
Criticism

Well, that’s what the critics
said…”those things are made to
punched aren’t they?”
• Responding to criticism that Bobo dolls
were supposed to be hit, Bandura did a
film of a young woman beating up a live
clown

When the children went into the other room,
what should they find there but -- the live
clown!
Glamorizing Violence

Plagens et al. (1991)
• Typical American child sees
200,000 acts of violence on
TV by age 18
• Children who watch a lot of
violent TV are more violent
towards peers
• Experimental studies, in
which violence is controlled,
also find effects of watching
violence
Other studies have found…

By the end of elementary
school, a typical American
child will have seen:
• 8,000 murders
• More than 100,000 other acts of
violence.


2003 study found 534
separate episodes of primetime violence during a 2 week
period.
The most violent TV shows are
targeted to children (e.g.,
cartoons).
Violent Video Games

Several studies have shown
significant results indicating that
playing violent video games is
associated with a history of
property destruction and hitting
other students…
• Anderson & Dill (2000)
 College students randomly
assigned to play a violent
video game (Wulfenstein)
later had more aggressive
thoughts and feelings than
those who played a
nonviolent game (Tetrix)
Immediate Effects of Media Violence



Aggressive models increase
aggressive behavior among
children and adults
• Models can be live or on
film
Violent imagery in the
music industry associated
feelings of hostility and
aggressive thoughts
Playing violent video games
can increase aggressive
thoughts and behaviors
Long-Term Effects of Media Violence


Exposure to TV violence at ages 6-9
positively correlated with aggression as
adults
• No gender difference
Cross-cultural study found relationship
between early viewing of TV violence and
later aggression
Black & Bevan (1992)

Movie-goers filled out an aggression
questionnaire as they entered and
left: a violent movie, or a nonviolent
movie…
DV: aggression
 IV: type of movie

Modeling can have a positive effect…

Friedrich and Stein (1972):
• The Mister Rogers Study:
 Showed a preschool group Mister Rogers
every weekday for four weeks
 During the viewing period, children from less
educated homes became more cooperative,
helpful, and more likely to state their feelings

Other studies:
• Children, especially males, who watched educational
television became teens who earned higher grades,
read more
Cookie Monster is on a diet..
Sesame Street is doing its part…

All components of observational learning
and operant conditioning are involved
• Kudos to the Cookie Monster and his friends
Maybe a new name?
1993 Nike commercial caused much controversy
After all these years, still not a role model
SpongeBob may cause preschoolers
to act “hurried”

Lillard & Peterson (2011)
• Frantic pace can cause
preschoolers to act “frantically”
SpongeBob and friends 
Conclusion:
Application of Bandura’s Theory


Prosocial behavior
• Bandura feels it can be used to promote
prosocial behavior – helping behavior
Violence in schools
• Bandura feels his theory applies to
today’s violent times as well

Some slides prepared with the help of the following websites:
 http://ibs.derby.ac.uk/~keith/b&b/tolerance.ppt
 http://salmon.psy.plym.ac.uk/year3/DrugAbuse/drugtoleran
ce.htm
 http://drmillslmu.wikispaces.com/file/view/Psych310Romant
icRedPresentation.ppt