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Learning: relatively permanent change in
behavior caused by experience
18-1 Learning Examples
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Type of learning in
which a stimulus
gains the power to
gain a response
Stimulus: anything in
the environment that
one can respond to
Response: any
behavior or action
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http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=hhqum
fpxuzI
http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=gQmH
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e=true&persist_safety
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One stimulus begins
to produce the same
response as another
stimulus because the
learner has developed
an association
between the two
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Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): the UCS is a
stimulus that triggers a response reflexively
and automatically, just as scalding water makes
someone jump away
Hot shower water is a UCS for jumping away.
Classical conditioning cannot happen without a
UCS. The only behaviors and emotions that
can be classically conditioned are those that are
reliably produced by a UCS
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Unconditioned Response(UCR): the
unconditioned response is the automatic
response to the UCS. If hot water is the UCS,
jumping away is the UCR. This relationship is
reflexive, not learned.
Jumping from hot water
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Conditioned Stimulus (CS): a previously
neutral stimulus that, through learning, gains
the power to cause a (conditioned) response.
The word flush provokes a neutral response,
before conditioning. It is a neutral stimulus
before learning
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Conditioned Response (CR): The CR is the
response to the CS (conditioned stimulus). It is
the same behavior that is identified as the UCR
(unconditioned response)
Jumping away
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Your romantic partner always uses the same
shampoo. Soon, the smell of that shampoo makes
you feel happy.
The door to your house squeaks loudly when you
open it. Soon, your dog begins wagging its tail
when the door squeaks.
The nurse says “Now this won’t hurt a bit” just
before stabbing you with a needle. The next time
you hear “This won’t hurt” you cringe in fear.
You have a meal at a fast food restaurant that
causes food poisoning. The next time you see a
sign for that restaurant, you feel nauseous.
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While George was having a cavity filled by his
dentist, the drill hit a nerve that had not been
dulled by anesthetic, a couple of times. Each time
he cringed in pain. George now gets anxious each
time he sees the dentist.
Every time a psychology instructor enters the
classroom, she goes straight to the board to write
an outline on it. Unfortunately, she has long finger
nails and each time she writes the outline, her nails
screech on the board, making students
cringe. After a few weeks of this, students cringe
at the sight of the teacher entering the classroom.
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Make up your own examples!
How would you experiment to prove learning?
You need:
UCS
 UCR
 CS
 CR
*Can anybody think of some we could test in
the classroom?
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Process of developing a learned response
When a neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired
with a UCS
Each pairing is called a trial
Pavlov repeatedly paired the meat powder
with the tuning fork
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Extinction
Not like what
happened to the
dinosaurs
Diminishing of a
learned response
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Responses tend to
linger
Spontaneous
recovery: return of an
extinguished
classically
conditioned response
after a rest period
Weaker than the
original one
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Generalization:
producing the same
response to two
similar stimuli
Pavlov used a
different tuning fork
with his dogs.
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Discrimination:
producing different
responses to two
stimuli
A child being able to
discriminate between
different animals
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Behaviorism: view
that psychology
should restrict its
efforts to studying
observable behaviors,
not mental processes
Phobias can be
explained by the
principles of classical
conditioning
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Little Albert
http://www.youtube.
com/watch?v=Xt0ucx
OrPQE
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Human Taste
Aversions
Food examples
Soup
cookie
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9 point scale
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1=dislike
5=neutral
9= really like
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John Garcia
Can use nausea
producing drugs as a
UCS to condition an
aversion to a
particular taste
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Taste aversion:
learning to avoid a
food that makes you
sick. The signal or CS
is the taste of a food.
The reflex that follows
it is sickness.
Organisms quickly
learn to associate taste
with sickness.
Examples?
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Type of learning in
which the frequency
of a behavior depends
on the consequence
that follows that
behavior
Candy bar example
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Behaviors with
favorable
consequences will
occur with more
frequency and
behaviors followed by
less favorable
consequences will
occur with less
frequency
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Reinforcement: any
consequence that
increases the future
likelihood of a
behavior
Getting money for
good grades
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Punishment: any
consequence that
decreases the future
likelihood of a
behavior
Bad behaviordetention
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Negative reinforcer:
strengthen a response
by reducing or
removing an aversive
(unpleasant stimulus)
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List of examples
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Negative
reinforcement
strengthens behaviors
If you clean your
room, you will no
longer have to stay
inside
If you do what I want
I will remove an
aversive stimulus
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Punishment weakens
behaviors
Because you did not
clean your room, you
have to stay inside
today
Because you did not
do what I want, I will
supply an aversive
stimulus
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Developed the fundamental principles and
techniques of operant conditioning and
devised ways to apply them in the real world
Shaping: reinforcement of behaviors that are
increasingly similar to the desired one; the
operant technique used to establish new
behaviors or shape new behaviors
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrH
A&feature=related