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Chapter 7
Learning and Conditioning
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Learning & Conditioning
• Learning
– Learning is defined as a relatively permanent change
in behavior that occurs due to experience
– Two basic kinds of learning
• Non-associative – involves learning about a single stimulus &
includes habituation and sensitisation
• Associative – more complex as it involves learning about
relationships among events, and includes classical
conditioning and instrumental conditioning
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Classical Conditioning
• Classical conditioning
– Learning process in which previously neutral stimulus
becomes associated with another stimulus through
repeated pairing with that stimulus
• Pavlov’s experiments
– Pavlov’s research involved measuring dogs’ salivation
in response to food and found that the dogs began to
salivate when they saw food dish
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Classical Conditioning
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Unconditioned stimulus (US) – food
Unconditioned response (UR) –
salivation
Neutral stimulus (NS) – unrelated
event, e.g. light on
During conditioning, pair presentation of
food with light
After number pairings, dog will salivate
when light on
Conditioned stimulus (CS) – light
Conditioned response (CR) – salivation
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Classical Conditioning
• ...Pavlov’s experiments
– Drug tolerance
• Refers to the decreased effect of a drug when taken repeatedly
• Regular intake of drug will trigger compensatory response of
the body, e.g. caffeine raises blood pressure so compensatory
response lowers it. If caffeine then taken under unusual
circumstances, e.g. by injection, compensatory response,
which has been learned through classical conditioning, does
not kick in and blood pressure raised
– Acquisition – early stage of process where repeated
pairings of CS & US take place – the learning curve
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Classical Conditioning
• ...Pavlov’s experiments
– Extinction – CR gradually diminishes if US omitted
– Spontaneous recovery – if participant allowed to rest
and then presents only CS again, CR reappears
– Stimulus generalisation – adaptive ability to react to
new stimulus which is similar to familiar one by
generalising response
– Stimulus discrimination – adaptive ability to react to
differences if negative association with aspect of
stimulus
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Classical Conditioning
• ...Pavlov’s experiments
– Second-order conditioning – possible to condition
participant to produce CR to novel stimulus by pairing
novel stimulus to CS repeatedly even though novel
stimulus never paired with US
– Conditioning and fear – CS leads to CR because it
predicts occurrence of certain US – also true for
emotional reactions. If particular CS reliably predicts
pain, then absence of CS predicts pain not coming
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Classical Conditioning
• Cognitive factors
– Pavlov & others believed conditioning occur if CS &
US were temporally contiguous (occurred close
together in time)
– Some argued that a critical factor behind classical
conditioning is what is known – classical conditioning
provides new knowledge of relationship between two
stimuli
– Research has shown a predictive relationship
between CS & US more important than temporal
contiguity or frequency of pairings
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Classical Conditioning
• Biological constraints
– To some extent animals are “pre-programmed” to
learn particular things in particular ways
• Learned taste aversion – bad experience with certain food
puts a person off that particular food but this conditioning
does not entirely comply with classical conditioning – taste
aversions common after just one bad experience (no
repeated pairings), & CS-US interval usually very long
(number of hours rather than immediate)
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Instrumental Conditioning
• Instrumental conditioning
– Involves learning the relationship between responses
and their outcomes
– Thorndike carried out experiments where animals
engaged in trial-and-error learning where behavior
strengthened if immediately followed by reward (law
of effect)
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Instrumental Conditioning
• Skinner’s experiments
– Skinner’s experiments involved putting a hungry
animal in box which is bare except for a bar with food
dish under. Animal’s initial rate of pressing bar
through exploration = baseline level
– Acquisition & extinction – after the baseline is
established, each time the bar is pressed food is
released which results in frequent pressing of the bar.
If food stops being released then similar extinction of
response, as in classical conditioning.
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Instrumental Conditioning
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Instrumental Conditioning
• ...Skinner’s experiments
– Shaping
• If desired behavior is novel there is a need to condition it by
reinforcing only variations in behavior which deviate in the
desired direction
– Conditioned reinforcers
• Conditioned reinforcer – almost any stimulus consistently paired
with a primary reinforcer (which satisfies basic drives)
– Generalization and discrimination
• Organisms generalize learning - can be curbed by discrimination
training which is effective where discrimination stimulus clearly
identifies cases for response or response suppression
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Instrumental Conditioning
• ...Skinner’s experiments
– Schedules of reinforcement
• Ratio schedules – reinforcement depends on the number of
responses an organism makes: fixed ratio schedule (FR) –
number of responses needed fixed at particular value
whereas for variable ratio schedule (VR) – value for
responses needed varies unpredictably
• Interval schedules – reinforcement is available only after
certain time interval elapsed (& animal makes a response):
fixed interval schedule (FI) – organism reinforced for first
response after time interval elapsed since last reinforcement
whereas for variable interval schedule (FR) – interval
duration varies unpredictably
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Instrumental Conditioning
• ...Skinner’s experiments
– Aversive conditioning
• Receiving a negative event immediately after an undesired
response results in response weakening or being suppressed
– Escape and avoidance behavior
• Punishment training can be used to learn new responses –
escape learning is where a response terminates aversive
event & avoidance learning is where a response is learned to
prevent an aversive event
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Instrumental Conditioning
• Cognitive factors
– In an instrumental conditioning situation, temporal
contiguity is again an important factor for it occur
– Another key factor is control – instrumental response
is conditioned only when an organism interprets
reinforcement as being controlled by its response
– Contingency – in classical conditioning, a behavior is
contingent on a particular stimulus; in instrumental
conditioning, a behavior is contingent on a particular
response
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Instrumental Conditioning
• Biological constraints
– As with classical conditioning, biology imposes
constraints on what may be learned through
instrumental conditioning – organisms find it easier
and faster to learn response if the behavior required
makes sense on an ethological level
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Learning and Cognition
• Observational learning
– Humans often learn without behavior being reinforced
immediately through imitation & observational learning
– copying behavior of others you deem successful
– Bandura
• Models inform us about consequences of behavior – so
reinforcement is “vicarious”
• Studied observational learning of aggressive behavior in
children – found a learner needs to pay attention to a model’s
behavior, remember & be able to reproduce behavior & be
motivated to do so
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Learning and Cognition
• Prior beliefs
– With learning relationships between stimuli that are
not perfectly predictive, people often invoke prior
beliefs which constrain learning
• Non-existent but plausible relationships detected by
participants referred to as spurious associations
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Learning and the Brain
• Neural plasticity
– Ability of neural system to change through experience
• Change in the synapse is the neural basis of learning and the
effect of this change is to make synapse more (or less) efficient
• Habituation and sensitization
– Types of non-associative learning
– Habituation – a behavioral response decreases over
successive presentations of a stimulus
– Sensitisation – a behavioral response increases during
presentations of an intense stimulus
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Learning and the Brain
• Classical conditioning
– Eye-blink conditioning – conditioning an eye to blink
at just a sound, is associated with changes in
synaptic transmission in the cerebellum, known as
long-term depression (which leads to decrease in
synaptic transmissions)
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Learning and the Brain
• ... Classical Conditioning
– Fear conditioning
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Learning and the Brain
• Cellular basis of learning
– What causes the changes in synaptic transmissions?
Possibilities include:
• Learning results in increase/decrease in a neurotransmitter
secreted because of an increase/decrease in the number of
axon terminals that secrete a neurotransmitter
• There may be no change in a neurotransmitter but change in
number of postsynaptic receptors
• Synapse could change in size, or entirely new synapses
could be established
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Learning and Motivation
• Arousal
– Physiologically – arousal refers to the level of alertness
of an organism
– Psychologically – arousal refers to the tension that can
accompany different levels of arousal, ranging from
calmness to anxiety
– Hebb proposed that organisms are motivated to
maintain levels of arousal appropriate to the behavior it
is engaged in
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Learning and Motivation
• From incentives to goals
– Early theorists focused on incentives (behavior
motivated by expected reward) but not all behavior
could be motivated in this way – our ability to
anticipate long-term consequences of current
behavior is an example of goal-oriented behavior
• Intrinsic motivation and learning
– In a cognitive approach to the study of motivation,
emphasis is placed upon an individual’s
understanding and interpretation of their own actions
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning
Learning and Motivation
• ...Intrinsic motivation and learning
– People intrinsically motivated are motivated by
internal feelings, whereas those extrinsically
motivated are motivated by anticipated external
rewards
– Intrinsically motivated individuals more persistent at a
task, their memory of complex concepts is better and
they handle complex material in more creative ways
– External rewards can harm intrinsic motivation
Use with Atkinson & Hilgard’s Introduction to Psychology 15th edition
Nolen-Hoeksema, Fredrickson, Loftus, Wagenaar
ISBN 9781844807284 © 2009 Cengage Learning