Download Learning

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Learning
 A relatively permanent change in behavior that is
brought about by experience
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Types of Learning
 Classical conditioning
 Operant conditioning
 Cognitive and social learning
Classical Conditioning
 What is learning?
 How do we learn to form associations between
stimuli and responses?
Classical Conditioning
Discovered (accidentally) by Ivan Pavlov
• Components
– Unconditioned stimulus
(US)
– Unconditioned response
(UR)
– Conditioned stimulus (CS)
– Conditioned response (CR)
Pavlov’s Experiment: Phase 1
 Food (US): salivation (UR)
 Reflexive response
 Tone (CS): nothing (CR)
Pavlov’s Experiment: Phase 2
 CS is repeatedly paired with the US
 A tone is sounded before the food is presented
Pavlov’s Experiment: Phase 3
 Eventually, the CS elicits a new CR
 Hearing the tone by itself causes salivation
Classical Conditioning
NEUTRAL STIMULUS
UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS
will
elicit
NO REACTION
will
elicit a
REFLEX ACTION
will
elicit a
REFLEX ACTION
UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS
NEUTRAL STIMULUS
CONDITIONED
STIMULUS
CONDITIONED
STIMULUS
will
elicit a
CONDITIONED
RESPONSE
Factors Affecting Classical Conditioning
 Relationship in time: contiguity
 NS/CS and US must occur close together in time
 NS/CS should precede the US
 Consistency and reliability: contingency
 NC/CS should reliably predict the onset of the US
Let’s Review
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Classical Conditioning of Physiological Responses: The Special
Case of Taste Aversion
 Taste aversion – sight, smell, idea of food make
person sick; classically conditioned through
experience
 Quickly learned, lasts long
 Real life applications
 Coyotes and sheep
 Bears and military
 Aversion therapy and alcoholism
Behaviorism
 The attempt to understand observable
activity in terms of observable stimuli
and observable responses
 John B. Watson (1913)
 B. F. Skinner (1938)
Classical Conditioning:
Conditioned Emotional Response
Avoidance learning
Conditioned phobias
 Little Albert
• Biological preparedness
• Contrapreparedness
– Easy to develop a snake phobia
– Hard to develop a car door phobia
You Tube Connection
Classical Conditioning
 Stimulus generalization
 Stimulus discrimination
Classical Conditioning of Emotional Responses
 Little Albert– white rat, noise
 Stimulus generalization – stimuli similar to CS, same
power to elicit CR (rats to dogs, rabbits
 Counterconditioning – conditioned to have positive
(systematic desensitization)
 Stimulus discrimination – CR occurs in response to
only specific stimuli
 Advertisers use classical conditioning
You Tube Connection
Extinction of a
Conditioned Response
 Occurs when a previously conditioned response
decreases in frequency and eventually disappears
 Spontaneous Recovery

Reemergence of an extinguished conditioned response after
a period of rest and with no further conditioning
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Extinction of a Conditioned Response
Acquisition, Extinction, & Spontaneous
Recovery in Classical Conditioning
Classical Conditioning Applied
 Drug overdoses
 Smoking: environmental cues
 Systematic desensitization
 Advertising: sex appeal
 Taste aversion
 Conditioning and the immune system
Types of Learning
 Classical conditioning
 Operant conditioning
 Cognitive and social learning
Operant Conditioning
 Learning in which a voluntary response is
strengthened or weakened, depending on its
favorable or unfavorable consequences
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Operant Conditioning
 Thorndike’s puzzle box
 Law of Effect: actions that have positive outcomes are
likely repeated
 Skinner box
Operant Conditioning: Principles
 Stimulus-Response
 Reinforcement
 Positive reinforcement
 Negative reinforcement
• Punishment
– Positive punishment
– Negative punishment
Operant Conditioning: Examples
 Tantrums are punished: fewer tantrums
 Tantrums bring attention: more tantrums
 Slot machine pays out: gamble more
 Reward dog for sitting: dog is likely to sit
How does this happen?
How Operant Conditioning
Works
 Reinforcement
 A process by which a stimulus increases the
probability that a preceding behavior will be repeated

Reinforcer
 Primary
 Secondary
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How Operant Conditioning
Works
 Positive Reinforcers
 Stimulus added to the environment that brings about
an increase in a preceding response
 Negative Reinforcers
 Unpleasant stimulus whose removal leads to an
increase in the probability that a preceding response
will be repeated
How Operant Conditioning
Works
 Punishment
 Stimulus that decreases the probability that a prior
behavior will occur again


Positive punishment
 Adding something
Negative punishment
 Removing something
Effective Punishment
 Should be
 Swift
 Consistent
 Appropriately aversive
 Challenges
 Physical punishment may be imitated
 May fear the person who punishes
 Most effective when paired with reinforcers
Problems with Punishment
 Does not teach or promote alternative, acceptable
behavior
 May produce undesirable results such as hostility,
passivity, fear
 Likely to be temporary
 May model aggression
Table 5-3, p. 236
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5 Minutes and 23 seconds Paper
5 Minutes and 23 seconds Paper
You have a child who you adopted from an Eastern European orphanage when the
child was seven years old. For the first two years with you, her behavior was fine
and she spent a great deal of energy learning to speak English and adjust to life in
the US.
When she was nine, she began running away from home, always found hiding
close to home. Eventually she began to take/make weapons and threaten to use
them against anyone who tried to capture her.
By the time she was fifteen, she had been hospitalized at least ten times and given
many different diagnoses. Her self-abusive behaviors worsened as well. She
needed to be on constant 1:1 within the intensive residential treatment program and
still found multiple means of harming herself such as swallowing batteries, putting
paperclips under her skin or piercing her stomach with them (required surgery),
hanging herself, bang her head until she had a concussion, starved herself until
she needed to be tube fed, etc.
You are at your wit’s end and don’t know where else to look. You hear about Judge
Rottenburg center and the aversive treatment available there. What would you do?
A Review: How Operant
Conditioning Works
Reinforcement and Punishment
Figure 3 of Chapter 5
Operant Conditioning Terms
Shaping
Extinction
Spontaneous Recovery
Discriminative Stimulus
Schedules of Reinforcement
Building Complex Behaviors
 Shaping
 Gradual reinforcement of successive approximations of
target behavior
 Used to train animals to do complex tricks
The Power of Shaping
Discriminative Stimuli
Environmental cues that tell us when a particular
response is likely to be reinforced
Reinforcement Schedules
 Continuous—every correct response is reinforced;
good way to get a low frequency behavior to occur
 Partial—only some correct responses are reinforced;
good way to make a behavior resistant to extinction
Partial Schedules—Ratio
 Ratio schedules are based on number of responses
emitted
 Fixed ratio (FR)—a reinforcer is delivered after a
certain (fixed) number of correct responses
 Variable ratio (VR)—a reinforcer is delivered after
an average number of responses, but varies from
trial to trial
Ratio Responses
 FR—highest level of
responding
 VR—high rate with few
breaks
Partial Schedules—Interval
 Interval schedules are based on time
 Fixed interval (FI)—reinforcer is delivered for the
first response after a fixed period of time has
elapsed
 Variable interval (VI)—reinforcer is delivered for
the first response after an average time has
elapsed, differs between trials
Interval Responses
 FI—steady schedule
with “scalloped” look,
responses drop off
right after reinforcer
 VI—steady,
consistent schedule
of response
Schedules of Reinforcement
 Fixed-Ratio Schedule
 Reinforcement is given
only after a specific
number of responses.
 Variable-Ratio
Schedule
 Occurs after a varying
number of responses
Figure 4 of Chapter 5
A Review: Schedules of
Reinforcement
Schedules of Reinforcement
 Fixed-Interval Schedule
 Provides reinforcement for a response only if a fixed
time period has elapsed
 Overall rates of response are relatively low.
 Variable-Interval Schedule
 The time between reinforcements varies based on an
average rather than being fixed.
Contemporary Views of Operant
Conditioning
 Cognitive map—term for a mental representation of
the layout of a familiar environment
 Latent learning—learning that occurs in the absence
of reinforcement, but is not demonstrated until a
reinforcer is available
 Learned helplessness—phenomenon where exposure
to inescapable and uncontrollable aversive events
produces passive behavior
Discrimination and
Generalization in Operant
Conditioning
 Stimulus control training
 Behavior is reinforced in the presence of a specific
stimulus, but not in its absence.
 Discriminative stimulus
 Signals the likelihood that reinforcement will follow a
response
Behavior Analysis and Behavior
Modification
 Techniques
 Identify goals and target behaviors
 Design a data-recording system and record
preliminary data
 Select a behavior-change strategy
 Implement the program
 Keep careful records after the program is implemented
 Evaluate and alter the ongoing program
Cognitive Approaches
to Learning
 Can all learning be explained by operant and
classical conditioning processes?
 What is the role of cognition and thought in learning?
Cognitive Learning Theory
 An approach that states that learning is best
understood in terms of thought processes, or
cognitions
 People develop an expectation that they will receive
a reinforcer after making a response.
Latent Learning
 New behavior is learned but not
demonstrated until some incentive is
provided for displaying it.
 Learning occurs without reinforcement.
Insight Learning
 “Aha” experience
Observational Learning:
Learning Through Imitation
 Learning by watching the behavior of another
person, or model
 The social cognitive approach to learning
 Albert Bandura
Observational Learning
 Bandura’s Bobo doll study
You Tube Connection
Violence in Television
and Video Games:
Does the Media’s Message
Matter?
 Recent research supports the claim that watching
high levels of media violence makes viewers more
susceptible to acting aggressively.
Does Culture Influence
How We Learn?
 Relational learning style
 People master material
best through exposure to
a full unit or phenomenon.
 Analytical learning style
 People master material
best when they can carry
out an initial analysis of
the principles and
components underlying a
phenomenon or situation.
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Does Culture Influence
How We Learn?
Analytical versus Relational Approaches to Learning
Figure 7 of Chapter 5