Download responses

Learning and Conditioning
Chapter 7
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-1
Chapter Outline
• Classical Conditioning
• Classical Conditioning in Real Life
• Operant Conditioning
• Principles of Operant Conditioning
• Operant Conditioning in Real Life
• Learning and the Mind
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-2
-2
Basics of Learning
• Learning: A relatively permanent change in behaviour
(or behavioural potential) due to experience
• Behaviourism: Approach that emphasizes the study of
observable behaviour and the role of the environment
as a determinant of behaviour
• Conditioning: Basic kind of learning that involves
associations between environmental stimuli and the
organism’s responses
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-3
Classical Conditioning
• Pavlov’s works with salivation in dogs led to discovery of
learning principles
• Classical conditioning:
process by which a
previously neutral
stimulus acquires the
capacity to elicit a
response through
association with a
stimulus that already
elicits a similar or related
response
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-4
New Reflexes from Old
• Unconditioned stimulus (US)
– A stimulus that elicits a reflexive response in the
absence of learning (e.g., food)
• Unconditioned response (UR)
– Reflexive response elicited
by a stimulus in the absence
of learning (e.g., salivation)
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-5
New Reflexes from Old
• Neutral stimulus
– Stimulus that does not yet produce a response
– Regularly paired
with unconditioned
stimulus
– Neutral stimulus
becomes
“conditioned” to
elicit a response
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-6
New Reflexes from Old
• Conditioned stimulus (CS)
– An initially neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a
conditioned response after being associated with
an unconditioned stimulus (e.g., food bowl)
• Conditioned response (CR)
– A response that is elicited by
a conditioned stimulus; occurs
after the CS is associated with
the US (e.g., salivation)
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-7
Principles of Classical Conditioning
• Extinction
– The weakening &
eventual disappearance
of a learned response
– Occurs when the CS is
no longer paired with the
US
– May experience
spontaneous recovery of
response after extinction
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-8
Principles of Classical Conditioning
• Higher-order conditioning
– A procedure in which a neutral stimulus becomes a
conditioned stimulus through association with an
already established conditioned stimulus
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-9
Principles of Classical Conditioning
• Stimulus generalization
– Tendency to respond to a stimulus that resembles
one involved in original conditioning
– Occurs when a stimulus that resembles the CS
elicits the CR
• Stimulus discrimination
– Tendency to respond differently to two or more
similar stimuli
– Occurs when a stimulus similar to the CS fails to
evoke the CR
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-10
What is Actually Learned?
• Classical conditioning is most effective when
stimulus to be conditioned precede the
unconditioned stimulus
• Conditioned stimulus becomes a signal for the
unconditioned stimulus
• To become a CS, a neutral stimulus must
reliably signal or predict the US (Rescorla)
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-11
Classical Conditioning in Real Life
• Learning to Like:
– Classical conditioning involved in our positive emotional
responses to objects, people, symbols, events, & places
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-12
Classical Conditioning in Real Life
• Learning to Fear:
– May learn to fear any stimulus that is paired with
something that elicits pain, surprise, or embarrassment
– Humans come biologically “prepared” to learn certain
fears faster than others (evolutionary basis)
• E.g., snakes, spiders, heights
– Phobias: an exaggerated unrealistic fear of a specific
situation, activity, or object
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-13
The Case of Little Albert
• Classic Watson & Raynor (1920) experiment
• Conditioned “Little Albert” to be afraid of white rats by
pairing the neutral stimulus (rats) with an unconditioned
stimulus (loud noises)
• Days later, fear had also generalized to other furry objects
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-14
The Case of Peter
• Jones (1924) and Watson demonstrated that fears can also
be unlearned (e.g., Peter’s fear of rabbits)
• Counterconditioning: process of pairing a conditioned
stimulus with a stimulus that elicits a response that is
incompatible with an unwanted conditioned response
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-15
Classical Conditioning in Real Life
• Accounting for Taste:
– Classical conditioning can explain how we learn to like &
dislike many foods and odours
– Researchers have taught animals to dislike foods/odours
by pairing them with drugs that cause nausea or other
unpleasant symptoms
• E.g., Seligman & dislike of Béarnaise sauce
• E.g., the “Garcia effect” & biological preparedness
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-16
Classical Conditioning in Real Life
• Reacting to Medical Treatments:
– Stimuli associated with drug
treatments that produce nausea
can become conditioned stimuli
• E.g., chemotherapy treatments
for cancer patients
– Placebos may help to reduce
pain & anxiety without side effects
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-17
Operant Conditioning
• Operant conditioning
– The process by which a response becomes
more likely to occur or less so, depending on its
consequences
– Organism’s response operates or produces
effects on the environment which influence
whether response will occur again
– Principles of Thorndike and B.F. Skinner
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-18
Consequences of Behaviour
• Skinner argued that a response (“operant”) can
lead to three types of consequences:
1. A neutral consequence neither increases or decreases the
probability that the response will recur
2. Reinforcement strengthens the response or makes it more
likely to recur
3. Punishment weakens the response or makes it less likely to
recur
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-19
Reinforcement & Punishment
• Reinforcement: the process
by which a stimulus or event
strengthens or increases the
probability of the response
that it follows
• Punishment: the process
by which a stimulus or
event weakens or reduces
the probability of the
response that it follows
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-20
Primary & Secondary
Consequences
• Primary reinforcer
– Stimulus that is inherently
reinforcing, typically
satisfying a physiological
need (e.g., food)
• Secondary reinforcer
– Stimulus that has acquired
reinforcing properties
through association with
other reinforcers
• Primary punisher
– Stimulus that in inherently
punishing (e.g., electric
shock)
• Secondary punisher
– Stimulus that has acquired
punishing properties
through association with
other punishers
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-21
Reinforcement
• Positive reinforcement
– When a response is followed by the presentation or
increase in intensity of a reinforcing stimulus;
response becomes more likely to occur
• Negative reinforcement
– When a response is followed by the removal, delay,
or decrease in intensity of an unpleasant stimulus;
response becomes more likely to occur
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-22
Punishment
• Positive punishment
– When a response is followed by the presentation or
increase in intensity of an unpleasant stimulus;
response becomes less likely to occur
• Negative punishment
– When a response is followed by the removal, delay,
or decrease in intensity of a pleasant stimulus;
response becomes less likely to occur
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-23
Positive & Negative Consequences
• Reinforcement:
• Punishment:
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-24
Principles of Operant Conditioning
• Paradigms often used a Skinner box
– A cage equipped with a device that delivers food into a
dish when an animal makes a desired response
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-25
Extinction
• Extinction
– The weakening and eventual disappearance of
a learned response
– Occurs when a response is no longer followed
by a reinforcer
– Spontaneous recovery of responses also may
occur in operant conditioning
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-26
Generalization & Discrimination
• Stimulus generalization
– Tendency for a response that has been reinforced (or
punished) in the presence of one stimulus to occur (or
be suppressed) in the presence of another similar stimuli
• Stimulus discrimination
– Tendency of a response to occur in the presence of one
stimulus but not in the presence of other, similar stimuli
that differ from it on some dimension
– May involve a discriminative stimulus
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-27
Schedules of Reinforcement
• Continuous schedule of reinforcement
– A schedule where a particular response is always
reinforced
• Intermittent (partial) schedule of reinforcement
– A schedule in which a particular response in sometimes
but not always reinforced
– Can be fixed or variable, and involve the number of
responses (ratio) or interval between responses
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-28
Shaping
• When behaviours are not likely to occur
spontaneously, may use shaping to teach to others
(e.g., animals & children)
• Shaping
– An operant conditioning procedure in which successive
approximations of a desired response are reinforced
– Successive approximations: behaviours that are ordered
in terms of increasing similarity or closeness to the
desired response
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-29
Biological Limits on Learning
• Principles of learning limited by genetic
dispositions & physical characteristics
• Instinctive drift
– During operant learning, the tendency for an
organism to revert to instinctive behaviour
• E.g., animal training
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-30
Operant Conditioning in Real Life
• Behaviour modification
– The application of operant conditioning techniques
to teach new responses or to reduce or eliminate
maladaptive or problematic behaviour
– Also called applied behaviour analysis
• E.g., teaching tasks to mentally challenged adults
• E.g., seat belt program in Quebec
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-31
The Pros of Punishment
• Punishment can be effective when applied
correctly:
– Punishment most effective when it occurs
immediately after the undesirable behaviour
• E.g., radar versus photo radar tickets
– The consistency of punishment is more
important than the severity of punishment
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-32
The Cons of Punishment
1. People often administer punishment inappropriately
2. The recipient of punishment often responds with anxiety,
fear, or rage
3. The effectiveness of punishment is often temporary and
depends on the presence of the punisher
4. Most misbehaviour is hard to punish immediately
5. Punishment conveys little information
6. An action intended to punish may instead be reinforcing
because it bring attention
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-33
Intrinsic & Extrinsic Rewards
• Rewards may not work as planned as they can be
misused, and may backfire
– Extrinsic reinforcers: reinforcers that are not inherently
related to the activity being reinforced
– Intrinsic reinforcers: reinforcers that are inherently
related to the activity being reinforced
• Sometimes people become too reliant on extrinsic
reinforcement and stop experiencing pleasure of doing
something for its own sake
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-34
Learning and the Mind
• Theorists argued that behaviour can be
explained by specifying the behavioural ABC’s
A. Antecedents (events preceding behaviour)
B. Behaviour
C. Consequences
• But is behaviour more than just the ABC’s?
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-35
Latent Learning
• Latent learning
– A form of learning
that is not
immediately
expressed in an
overt response
• Tolman & Honzik’s
(1930) experiments
with rats
– Occurs without
obvious
reinforcement
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-36
Social Cognitive Theories
• Social-cognitive theories
– Theories that emphasize how behaviour is
learned and maintained through observation and
imitation of others, positive consequences, and
cognitive processes such as plans, expectations,
and beliefs
– Learning is more than just standard conditioning
procedures
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-37
Observational Learning
• Observational learning
– Process in which an individual learns new responses by
observing the behaviour of another (a model) rather
than through
experience
– E.g., Bandura’s bobo
doll experiments
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-38
The Case of Media Violence
• Does media violence make people behave more
aggressively?
– Meta-analyses show that the greater the exposure to
violence in movies/TV, the stronger the likelihood of
behaving aggressively
– But some researchers argue that most people who view
violence don’t become aggressive
– Children & adults who are already aggressive are more
drawn to violent media & more affected by them
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-39
Social-Cognitive View
on Aggression
• Social-cognitive theorists would say that there is a
relationship between media violence & aggression
– Repeated acts of aggression model behaviour;
provide people with scripts; promote permissive
beliefs about aggression; desensitization
– BUT ... perceptions, interpretations, and personality
dispositions intervene in determining our responses
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-40
End of Chapter 7
Copyright © 2010 Pearson Education Canada
7-41
-41