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Chapter 8 - Learning
Reading Map
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Essay 1997 #1 will be due on Jan 10
Wed, Dec 18
309 – 312
Wed, Dec 18
Essay 2001 #2 due
Thur, Dec 19
312 – 322
Fri, Dec 20
322 - 334
Mon, Jan 6
334 – 341
Tue and Wed
Chapter 9 lectures
Thu, Jan 9
Quiz/Cards/SG
Fri, Jan 10
Essay 1997 #1 due
True and False Quiz (TG 8-1)
• 1. Lowly animals, like sea snails, behave by instinct and
are incapable of learning.
• 2. Humans are the only animals that can learn behaviors
merely by observing others perform them.
• 3. The study of inner thoughts, feelings and motives has
always occupied a central place in psychology.
• 4. A person can be more readily conditioned to fear
snakes and spiders than to fear flowers.
• 5. With training, pigeons can be taught to discriminate a
Bach composition from a Stravinsky composition.
True and False Quiz (TG 8-1)
• 6. Negative reinforcement is another term for
punishment.
• 7. Psychologists agree that punishment, regardless of its
form, has little effect on behavior.
• 8. Animals learn only when rewards (AKA reinforcers)
are given.
• 9. Animals can learn to make virtually any response if
consistently rewarded for it.
• 10. Research indicates that televised violence leads to
aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch
the programs.
3 Types of Learning
This chapter discusses:
• 1. Classical Conditioning
• 2. Operant Conditioning
• 3. Observational Learning
Learning (309)
• Def - a relatively
permanent change in
an organism’s
behavior due to
experience.
• What has been learned
can be changed by
new learning ---- leads
to counseling,
coaching, teaching
Adaptability (309)
• Is the capacity
to learn new
behaviors to
cope with new
circumstances.
Associative Learning (309)
• Locke, Aristotle and Hume all say that we learn by
association.
• Associative learning is the linking of 2 events that
occur close together.
• The Jerk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcwz8-EfFYE
• Simple animals can learn simple associations
Conditioning (309)
• Is the process of
learning associations
• In classical condition
we learn to associate
two stimuli and thus
anticipate events
• In operant
conditioning we
associate a response
and its consequence.
Classical Conditioning (312)
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
• First studied digestion
• By mistake he noticed that
his dog was salivating in
response to meat, but also
in response to the person
giving it the meat
• Pavlov experiment clip ( 3
min)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=
CpoLxEN54ho
UCS/UCR and the CS/CR (312)
• Meat automatically
causes dog to salivate
• Bells do not!
• But, if a bell is rung
just before the dog is
given meat, eventually
the dog will salivate to
the bell ALONE
UCS/UCR and the CS/CR (312)
• Conditioned = learned
• Unconditioned = unlearned/automatic
• UCS (meat) --- UCR (salivation)
• CS (bell) -- UCS (meat) ---UCR (salivation)
• Eventually CS (bell) --- CR (salivation)
Classical Conditioning (314)
Acquisition Stage
• Acquisition has
occurred when the
learner associates the
CS (bell) with the
UCS (meat). Put
another way, it is
when the CS (bell)
alone will cause the
CR (salivation).
Acquisition (314)
• It is best if there is very little time between
the CS (bell) and the UCS (meat)
• The UCS (meat) must follow the CS (bell) CC is biologically adaptive - the animal
learns the needed behavior to survive. The
snap of the twig (CS) has to precede the
predator (UCS)
Classical Conditioning (316)
Extinction
• Extinction is when the CS (bell) no longer
causes the CR (salivation). This happens
after a length of time where the CS is
presented without the UCS (meat).
Classical Conditioning (316)
Spontaneous Recovery
• AFTER extinction happens, spontaneous
recovery is when, after a rest period, the
CR(salivation) once again occurs in
response to the CS (bell) alone.
• The CS magically reappears.
Classical Conditioning (316)
Generalization
• This is when the dog
will salivate to the bell
and also to similar
stimuli - other bells, a
buzzer, etc.
Classical Conditioning (316)
Discrimination
• This is when the dog will
be able to tell the
difference between similar
stimuli but will only
respond (salivate) to ONE
BELL
• Discrimination has an
adaptive and survival
function. Ex. Police dogs
will only eat food from
their master.
Find the UCS/UCR and CS/CR
• Martin likes to take a shower in the men’s
locker room after working out. During one
shower, he hears someone flushing a nearby
toilet. Suddenly boiling-hot water rushes
out of the shower head, causing Martin to
jump away from the water as he is burned.
The next day during his shower Martin
hears a toilet flush and immediately jumps
out from under the shower head.
Find the UCS and the CS
• Watch this clip from
the office and find the
UCS and the CS.
• (1 minute)
http://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=WfZfMIHwSkU
Updating Pavlov’s
Understanding (317)
• Pavlov and Watson both underestimated
– the importance of cognition and
– how biological constraints effect an organism’s
capacity to learn
Example of cognition - spiking alcohol with a
nausea drug doesn’t work to condition people
not to drink because they THINK and blame
their nausea on the drug not the alcohol
Cognitive Processes and
Classical Conditioning (317)
• In classical conditioning, predictability of
the UCS is important. Animals will be
more easily conditioned if the UCS is
predictable.
• Expectancy - conditioning is best with the
CS and UCS have a relationship where one
would expect a connection
Biological Predispositions (317)
• Kimble - 1951 - says ANY stimulus that an
animal can perceive works for classical
conditioning
• Kimble - 1981 - Whoops!!! - now says the
animal’s capacity for conditioning is
constrained by its biology. Animals are
disposed to learn associations that help
them SURVIVE
John Garcia and Taste Aversion
Garcia discovered that with
nausea, the UCS (the need to
be sick) does not need to
immediately follow the CS
(the food you ate). It makes
sense that there can be a
delay because there IS a
delay between eating tainted
food and getting sick.
Pavlov’s Legacy (319)
• Learned that cc is one way that almost all
organisms learn to adapt to their
environment
• Showed us that learning can be studied
objectively (there were no subjective
guesses about what was in the dog’s mind)
• Pavlov advanced the scientific-ness of
psychology
Pavlov - Watson (320)
• Pavlov was Watson’s
foundation for the idea
that psychology should
disregard inner thoughts,
feelings and emotions and
should focus on
observable behavior
(Behaviorism)
• Remember that Watson
did the Little Albert
experiment
Pavlov and Watson (320)
• Watson took Pavlov’s classical conditioning and
tested it on a human subject - Little Albert. The
UCS was the loud noise and the CS was the rat in
the Little Albert experiment.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt0ucxOrPQE
• Watson claimed that he could train anyone to
become anything ----
Operant Conditioning (322)
• The organism
associates its
voluntary behaviors
with consequences
• Behaviors that are
reinforced are repeated
• Studied by
behaviorists like B.F.
Skinner
Classical Conditioning v Operant Conditioning
• Remember that classical conditioning deals
with RESPONSIVE BEHAVIORS
(automatic behaviors like salivating)
• Operant Conditioning deals with
VOLUNTARY BEHAVIORS (purposeful
behaviors like the dog sitting up)
Classical v Operant
Classical
Operant
Learner forms
associations between 2
stimuli that it doesn’t
control
Respondent behavior
(automatic behaviors)
Learner associates its
behavior with
consequences
Operant behavior
(voluntary/thought-out
behavior)
B. F. Skinner (323)
• 1904 - 1990
• Behaviorist
• Expanded upon
Edward Thorndike’s
“law of effect” --rewarded behavior is
likely to reoccur
• Known for the Skinner
box
Shaping Behavior (324)
• Start with the animal’s
natural behavior
• Uses successive
approximations - reward
responses that get closer to
the desired behavior
• As animal gets closer to
the goal reward the newest
behavior but no longer
reward the older behavior
that has now been
improved upon
Smartdog1.wmv
Shaping Behavior (324)
• The fact that shaping
works also shows us
that animals can
perceive the difference
between different
stimuli
• Humans can
unknowingly shape
behavior - the wining
kid
Reinforcement (325)
• A reinforcer is anything that strengthens a
response/behavior that it follows. Kid
whines - give it candy. Candy is the
reinforcer that strengthens the whining
behavior.
Positive and Negative
Reinforcers (325)
• Reinforced behaviors get
strengthened and are
repeated.
• Positive reinforcement is
when a good thing that is
added to the person
• Negative reinforcement is
when a bad thing is taken
away from the person
• Both are reinforcers and
strengthen the behavior
that precedes
Primary and Conditioned
Reinforcers (325)
• Primary - inborn
reinforcing stimuli ex. Giving food or
taking away electric
shock
• Conditioned - are
learned - they become
associated with
primary reinforcers ex. money
Immediate and Delayed
Reinforcers (325)
• Animals need to have the reinforcer occur
immediately after the behavior - sit - treat
• Humans can learn if the reinforcement is
immediate or delayed. Work - get paid in 2
weeks
• Delayed gratification - (Mischel 1989) - 4 year
olds who chose a big candy tomorrow over a
smaller candy today mature to be more socially
competent and high achieving.
• Nicotine???????? Good Health ?????????
Continuous v Partial
Reinforcement (326)
• Continuous reinforcement happens every
time after the behavior happens. Dog gets a
treat every time he sits.
– Learning is fast but so is extinction
• Partial or Intermittent reinforcement
happens once in a while
– Learning is slower but so is extinction.
Reinforcement Schedules (326)
(Partial)
Fixed Ratio
Variable Ratio
Fixed Interval
Variable Interval
R after a set # of R after a variable R after a fixed
responses
# of responses
time period
R after varying
time periods
Ex. Piecework
Ex. Fishing
Ex.Gambling
Will pause
Highly effective
briefly after R
Low extinction
but then go back
to responding
Ex. Paycheck
every month
Produces a
choppy stop-start
pattern rather
than a steady
rate of response
Produces slow,
steady responses
Punishment (328)
• Is anything that decreases the behavior it
follows
• Can be negative punishment (take away
something good - candy) or positive
punishment (giving something bad - slap)
Problems with Punishment (328)
• Punished behavior is suppressed but not forgotten
BUT the suppression negatively reinforces the
parent’s behavior of slapping you!
• Children might just learn to discriminate - swear at
school but not at home where you get punished
• Punishment causes child to fear the punisher
• If punishment is unpredictable and inescapable, it
leads to the concept of learned helplessness
Reinforcement/Punishment
type
+ or -
Something
good or bad
Behavior
continues or
stops
Positive
reinforcement
+
Good
candy
continues
Negative
reinforcement
-
Bad
dishes
continues
Positive punishment +
Bad
dishes
stops
Negative
punishment
Good
candy
stops
-
Operant Conditioning
Acquisition
Strengthening of reinforced response (dog
sits)
Extinction
You stop reinforcing the sit and the dog stops
sitting.
Spontaneous Recovery
After extinction and without reintroducing the
reinforcement, the dog sits again.
Generalization
Dog will sit for a cookie, a cake OR dog will
sit at anyone’s command
Discrimination
Dog will only sit for a cookie OR dog will
only sit at one person’s command
Operant Conditioning
• Check out this clip
from Big Bang
http://www.youtube.co
m/watch?v=euINCrDb
bD4&feature=related
Skinner Review Clip
• 6 minute clip from Extra Credits
Updating Skinner (329)
• Skinner acknowledged private processes,
cognition and biological underpinning of behavior,
but he discounted their importance. Listen
carefully to this 4 min clip of Skinner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA
• However, if cognition isn’t important, how do we
explain that in fixed-interval reinforcement, the
animal seems to “expect” the reinforcement as it
gets closer to the time it normally happens????
Latent Learning (329)
• Is learning that becomes
apparent only when thee is
some incentive to demonstrate
it
• Is learning that occurs without
reinforcement/punishment
• Ex. Rats living in a maze later
do as well with a reward offered
as rats trained in that maze with
reinforcements.
• The rats seem to develop a
cognitive map of the maze even
when they just live in the maze
and are not trained through it
with reinforcements
Cognitive Map (330)
• Cognitive map is generally defined as a
mental representation of the layout of one’s
environment.
• It applies to people in neighborhoods and
rats in mazes!
Overjustification (330)
• People that argue that cognition
is part of operant conditioning
use the idea of overjustification
to support their argument.
• Overjustification happens when
we reward already pleasurable
activities. The person may then
start to focus on the reward
rather than on the intrinsic
pleasure of the activity. He
might also start thinking less of
the activity - if you have to
reward me to do it, it must be a
crappy activity!
Intrinsic and Extrinsic
Motivation (330)
• Intrinsic - desire to perform behavior for its own
sake
• Extrinsic - desire to perform behavior to get the
outside reward or to avoid the outside punishment
• A good reward should boost your own feelings of
competence after doing good work. (it shouldn’t
just be given out when the job is done). This type
of reward fosters a sense of intrinsic motivation.
Biological Predisposition (331)
• Our natural predispositions constrain or
help our capacity for operant conditioning
• We best learn behavior tat is naturally
adaptive
• It’s easy to train a pigeon to peck but hard
to train it to flap its wing
Skinner’s Legacy (332)
• He said that external influences shape our
behavior and urge the use of these external
rewards. He believed that we are driven by
reward/punishment so we might as well admit it
and make the best use of this principle
• Critics say Skinner dehumanized people by
ignoring their personal freedom and cognition
Applications of Operant
Conditioning (332)
•
•
•
•
Teaching machines???
Sports???
Work place???
Visa cards???
Learning by Observation (336)
• Observational Learning need not occur
through experience. We learn by observing
and imitating.
• Modeling - observing and imitating a
specific behavior
Learning by Observation (336)
• Memes- ideas,
fashions, habits that
“magically” transmit
cultural to culture
• Mirror Neurons frontal lobe neurons
that fire when
observing other’s
actions or when we
perform the action
ourselves.
Bandura’s Experiments (337)
• Bandura was the pioneer of observational learning
• In his bobo doll experiment his hypothesis was
that children would mimic violent action modeled
by an adult model
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHdovKHD
NU
• BUT - he learned that the children also devised
their own version of violence to use on the doll!!!
• Catharsis theory
Models (337)
• We are more likely to
imitate models we
perceive as
– similar to ourselves,
– admirable
– successful
Application of Observational
Learning (337)
• Antisocial models have antisocial effects
• After Columbine all states except Vermont had
threats or incidents of school violence
• Abusive behavior is learned
• Prosocial models have prosocial effect
• Models are most effective when their actions and
word are consistent
• Children tend to imitate hypocrites by doing what
the hypocrite does and saying what the hypocrite
says!
TV and Observational Learning
(338)
• Correlation studies link
violence-viewing to
violent behavior
• The more time spent
watching tv, the more
violence performed
• ????? Do violent people
just like violent tv?
• ????? Do neglectful
parents just allow violent
tv?
Violent Models
• Have more effect
when they are
– Attractive
– The violence seems
justified
– The violence goes
unpunished
– The violence causes no
visible pain or harm
Desensitization
• After prolonged
exposure to violence
we become less
bothered by the
violence and less
sympathetic to the
victim of the violence
True and False Quiz (TG 8-1)
• 1. Lowly animals, like sea snails, behave by instinct and are
incapable of learning.
• 2. Humans are the only animals that can learn behaviors merely by
observing others perform them.
• 3. The study of inner thoughts, feelings and motives has always
occupied a central place in psychology.
• 4. A person can be more readily conditioned to fear snakes and
spiders than to fear flowers.
• 5. With training, pigeons can be taught to discriminate a Bach
composition from a Stravinsky composition.
True and False Quiz (TG 8-1)
• 6. Negative reinforcement is another term for
punishment.
• 7. Psychologists agree that punishment, regardless of its
form, has little effect on behavior.
• 8. Animals learn only when rewards are given.
• 9. Animals can learn to make virtually any response if
consistently rewarded for it.
• 10. Research indicates that televised violence leads to
aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch
the programs.
AP Psych T Shirt Ideas
• Every year the AP Psych students design a
class t shirt.
• Ideas for this year???????