Download Learning Learning: A relatively permanent change of an organism`s

Learning
 Learning: A relatively permanent change of an organism’s behavior due to experience.
 Associative Learning: learning that certain events occur together.
--Classical conditioning: we learn to associate two stimuli and to anticipate events (See Recap Handout on
Classical and Operant Conditioning)
--Coined by John B. Watson. Also supported by Ivan Pavlov.
--Ivan Pavlov: Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning with Dogs
--Contiguity Model: believed in a temporal association between two events that occur closely together in
time. The more closely in time two events occurred, the more likely they were to become associated.
--UCS (unconditioned stimulus): a stimulus that naturally &
unconditionally triggers a response. (food)
--UCR (unconditioned response): an unlearned naturally
occurring response to the US) (salivation)
--NS (Neutral Stimulus): does not elicit a UCR from the
subject (the tone)
-- CS (Conditioned stimulus): originally the NS, but after
associating the NS with the US, it becomes a trigger for the
CR (conditioned response). (the tone)
--CR (Conditioned response): a learned response to the CS after conditioning has occurred. (salivation)
--Acquisition: in classical conditioning, when NS is paired and
elicits a CR
--Extinction: the diminishing of a conditioned response (CR).
--Spontaneous Recovery: occurs after extinction without
training, the CS (NS) again elicits the CR for a short time.
--Generalization: stimuli similar to the CS also elicit the CR
without training.
--Discrimination: the ability to tell the difference between
stimuli so that only the CS elicits the CR.
--Higher Order Conditioning: A well learned CS is paired with another NS to produce a conditioned
response (CR) to the new NS.
--Delayed Conditioning: NS is presented just before the UCS, with a brief overlap between the two
Ex - a bell begins to ring and continues to ring until food is presented; generally produces the strongest
conditioning
--Trace Conditioning: when the NS is presented & then disappears just before the UCS appears.
ex - a bell begins ringing and ends just before the food is presented; produces moderately strong
conditioning
Simultaneous Conditioning: occurs when the US and NS are paired together at the same time.
ex - the bell begins to ring at the same time the food is presented. Both begin, continue, and end at the same
time; produces weak conditioning
--Backward Conditioning: the US comes before the NS. ex - the food is presented, then the bell rings.
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Produces no conditioning except in rare cases
--Aversive Conditioning (counterconditioning): learning that involves an unpleasant or harmful
unconditioned stimulus
 John B. Watson & Rosalie Raynor: the case of Little Albert
 Conditioned 9 month old Little Albert to fear a rat. His fear generalized to other animals as well.
 Although unethical, this study demonstrated bow phobias or other human emotions might develop
through classical conditioning
--Conditioned Taste Aversion: an intense dislike & avoidance of a food because of its association with an
unpleasant or painful stimulus through backward conditioning.
--Garcia Effect: when rats were exposed to a tastes (NS) and then exposed them to radiation or drugs (UCS)
that led to nausea and vomiting (CR). The rats developed aversions for those tastes, even if they did not get
sick for hours after the initial exposure
--Contingency Model (Robert Rescorla) challenges Pavolv’s contiguity model
 states that the CS tells the organism that the UCS will follow.
--Blocking Effect: another challenge to Pavlov’s model.
 rats that were classically conditioned to fear (CR) the sound of a tone (CS) using electric shock (UCS)
could not be conditioned to also fear a light alone (after paired with the tone).
 Since they already associated the tone with the impending electric shock, the light alone offered no
new information, so the conditioning effect of the light was blocked.
--Instrumental Learning (EL Thorndike): a form of associative learning in which a behavior becomes more
or less probable depending on its consequences.
 E.L. Thorndike: research with hungry cats using fish as a reward to entice cats to find their way out
of a puzzle box. The cats’ behavior tended to improve with
successive trials, illustrating Thorndike’s Law of Effect that
rewarded behavior is likely to recur.
--BF Skinner: called instrumental behavior OPERANT
CONDITIONING because subjects operate in their own
environments in order to produce desired outcomes.
 Operant Conditioning: learning in which behavior is
strengthened if followed by a reinforce or diminished if
followed by a punisher.
 Operant Chamber (Skinner Box): contained a bar or key that
an animal could manipulate to obtain food or water
reinforcer with attached devices in record the animal’s rate of bar pressing or key pecking.
 Developed four different training procedures working with rats, pigeons and other animals.
 Reinforcer: any event that strengthens the behavior that follows.
 Positive Reinforcement (reward training): increasing behaviors by presenting positive rewards such
as food.
 Premack Principle: a more probable behavior can be used as a reinforcer for a less probable one.
 Negative Reinforcement: increases behaviors by stopping or reducing the aversive stimulus
 Negative Reinforcer: any stimulus that, when REMOVED after a response, strengthens the response.
**Avoidance behavior takes away the unpleasant stimulus before it begins
**Escape behavior takes away the unpleasant stimulus after it has already started.
**Learned Helplessness: feelings of futility & passive resignation that result from the inability to avoid
repeated aversive events. Even if it becomes possible to avoid or escape the aversive stimuli, it is
unlikely that the learner will respond.
 Punishment: a learner’s response is followed by an aversive consequence which is unwanted, so the
learner stops exhibiting the behavior.
**Punishment should be immediate so that the consequence is associated with the misbehavior,
strong enough to stop the undesirable behavior, and consistent.
**Punishment should not be overused; does NOT teach the learner what should be done; suppresses
rather than extinguishes behavior; may evoke hostility or passivity.

Omission Training: A response is followed by taking away something of value from the learner
By changing his/her behavior, the learner can get back the positive reinforcer. ex: Time-out
 Primary Reinforcer: something that is biologically important, so it is rewarding, such as food &
drink.
 Secondary (Conditioned) Reinforcer: something neutral that when associated with a primary
reinforcer, becomes rewarding such as gold stars, money, & tokens.
 Generalized Reinforcer: a secondary reinforcer that can be associated with a number of different
primary reinforcers, such as money, which can buy food.
 Token Economy: operant training system used extensively in institutions (mental hospitals, jails)
where tokens (secondary reinforcers) are used to increase a list of acceptable behaviors. Learner
accumulates tokens & then exchanges them for privileges.
 Shaping: procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer & closer approximations of
the desired behavior.
 Chaining: used to establish a specific sequence of behaviors by initially positively reinforcing each
behavior in a desired sequence & then later rewarding only the completed sequence. Often used to
teach animals a complex series of behaviors
 Operant Conditioning – Reinforcement Schedules
--Continuous Reinforcement: reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs.
 Problem: not reinforcing the behavior even once or twice
could result in the extinction of the behavior.
--Partial Reinforcement (intermittent schedule): reinforcing the
behavior only some of the time.
 Results in slower acquisition of the behavior but greater
resistance to extinction.
 Fixed Ratio schedule: reinforces only after a fixed number
of responses. The learner will pause briefly after a
reinforces & then will return to a high rate of responding.
--Variable Ratio Schedule: reinforces a behavior after an
unpredictable number of responses. Ex. Slot machines
--Fixed Interval Schedule: reinforces behaviors only after a specified time has elapsed.
 Results in lots of behavior as the time for reinforcement approaches, but little behavior until the next
time for reinforcement approaches. Ex. Cramming for an exam.
--Variable Interval: reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals Ex. Studying every night because
the teacher gives pop quizzes.
 Superstitious Behavior
--Skinner gave pigeons when they performed some idiosyncratic behavior; reinforcing the pigeons to repeat
this individually characteristic behavior often to get more food. would tend to repeat the behavior to get
more food, resulting in superstitious behavior.
 There is a correlation between the idiosyncratic behavior and the food, but there is NO causal
relationship between the two.
 Humans – lucky numbers or lucky jeans, or even lucky charms.
 Latent Learning: learning without rewards
 Maze experiment with rats:
**The first group of rats were given a reward each time they navigated a maze correctly. This trial
was repeated over 10 days.
**The second group were not given a reward for going through the maze – they made significantly
more errors than the rats in the rewarded group.
**On the 11th day both groups were rewarded for completing the maze correctly.
**On the 12th day the second group navigated the maze as well as the first group demonstrating
latent learning.
**It was hypothesized that the rats had made a mental picture of the maze during the previous
unrewarded trials – when they were rewarded, they were motivated to improve.
 Instinctive Drift: a conditioned response that drifts back toward the natural or instinctive behavior of the
organism. For example, wild animal trainers must be vigilant after training animals because the animals
may revert to dangerous behaviors.
 Observational Learning: learning by observation, experience, and examples.
--Modeling: the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior.
--Mirror Neurons: frontal lobe neurons that fire when performing certain actions or observing another
doing so; transform the sight of someone else’s actions into the motor program you would use to do the same
thing; may enable imitation, language training, & empathy
 Albert Bandura: behaviorism pioneer in research on observational learning
--Social Learning Theory: proposed that direct reinforcement could not account for all types of learning.
 people can learn through observation.
 internal mental states are an essential part of this process.
 just because something has been learned, it does not mean that it will result in change in behavior.
--Observational learning requires attention, retention (the ability to store information) & reproduction (
(perform the observed behavior)
--Asserted that Intrinsic Motivation was another important factor to learning.
--Motivation: must be motivated to imitate the behavior that has been modeled
--Reinforcers play an important role in motivation. While experiencing these motivators can be highly
effective, so can observing these reinforcers with individuals exhibiting similar behavior.
Ex: if you see another student rewarded with extra credit for being to class on time, you might start to show
up a few minutes early each day.
--Prosocial Modeling: positive, constructive, helpful behavior.
 Children tend to imitate what a model does & says, whether the behavior is prosocial or antisocial.
 If the model’s actions are inconsistent, they may model the hypocracy they see.
--Bandura (BoBo doll experiment)
 demonstrated that children learn and imitate behaviors they have observed in other people.
 The children in Bandura’s studies observed an adult acting violently toward a Bobo doll.
 When the children were later allowed to play in a room with the Bobo doll, they began to imitate the
aggressive actions they had previously observed.
 It was also found that boys engaged in twice as many acts of aggression to the BoBo doll than girls &
that boys were more prone to imitate physical acts of violence where girls tended to imitate verbal
aggression.
 Wolfgang Kohler
--Insight: the sudden appearance of an answer or solution to a problem.
--demonstrated that animals can arrive at a solution through insight rather than trial and error.
 He placed chimps (Chica, Grande, Konsul, and Sultan) in an enclosed area and presenting them
with bananas suspended from the roof. The chimps first tried to knock them down by using a stick.
Then, the chimps learned to stack boxes on top of one to reach the bananas.\
Kohler also placed bananas outside Sultan's cage and two bamboo sticks inside his cage. Neither stick was long
enough to reach the bananas. Sultan put the two