Download Biology, Cognition, and Learning

Biology, Cognition,
and Learning
Module 29
Biological Constraints on
Classical Conditioning
• An animal’s capacity for conditioning is constrained by
its biology
• Predispositions prepare animals to learn the
associations that enhance its survival
• Organism’s strong trait/sense will be more likely and
easily conditioned
• Strength of taste aversion (only one pairing needed) –
James Garcia’s rat experiment
• Two finding: 1. getting sick hours later forms an association
2. sickened only to taste, not sight/sound
Biological constraints on
operant conditioning
• Type of reinforcer must match the biologically
predisposed behavior
• (ex) can train a hamster to dig with food because their
natural behavior to obtain food is through digging
• If trained against biological predisposition it will
result in: instinctive drift – trained animals revert
back to their biologically predisposed patterns
Cognition’s influence
on conditioning
• Cognitive processing accompanies the CS and
UCS
• Organisms learn to expect an UCS, predictability
• Ex. Alcohol laced with nauseating drug
• Associations influence attitudes
Cognition’s influence on
conditioning
•
fixed-interval schedules – animals respond
more frequently at the time approaching a
reward (expectation)
• Cognitive map – a mental representation of
the layout of one’s environment . (rat/maze)
• Latent Learning – E.C. Toleman– learning that
occurs but is not apparent until there is an
incentive to demonstrate it
Cognition’s influence on
conditioning
• Insight – a sudden realization of a problem’s solution
• Intrinsic motivation – a desire to perform a behavior
effectively for its own sake
• Overjustification effect – the effect of promising an
award for doing what one already likes to do. The
person may now see the reward, rather than intrinsic
interest, as the motivation for performing the task
• Extrinsic motivation – a desire to perform a behavior
to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened
punishment.
Learning and
personal Control
• Coping – alleviating stress using emotional,
cognitive, or behavioral methods
• Problem-focused coping – attempting to
alleviate stress directly – by changing the
stressor or the way we interact with that
stressor.
• Emotion-focused coping – attempting to
alleviate stress by avoiding or ignoring a
stressor and attending to emotional needs
related to one’s stress reaction
Learning and Personal
Control
• Learned Helplessness – the hopeless and passive
resignation an animal or human learns when unable
to avoid repeated aversive events
• Martin Seligman’s dog experiment
• It’s important that we create environments that
enhance our sense of control
• People thrive under these conditions
• But: “excess of freedom” in western cultures
contributes to decreasing life satisfaction, increased
depression, and sometimes decisional paralysis
Learning and Personal
Control
• Personal control – the extent to which we
perceive control over our environment
• External locus of control – the perception that
chance or outside forces beyond our personal
control determine our fate
• Internal locus of control – the perception that
you control your own fate
Personal Control
• Self-control – the ability to control impulses and
delay short-term gratification for greater long-term
rewards
• Willpower – finite resource that can be easily
depleted
• Individual differences in this trait in childhood
• Marshmallow study:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lgCL3GnmIfY
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amsqeYOk--w