psych weeks 9-12

Language is organised hierarchically 

sentence > phrase > word> morpheme > phoneme

Speech sounds: phonemes 

Phonemes (sounds): 

• Acoustic speech sounds that express meaning 

• Single unit of sound that changes meaning 

Around 200 different types of human made sounds are used in language 

• Each langauge has its own set of sounds (phonemes) 

Different languages may have different phonemes: 

• Languages may differ in the sets of phonemes that make up that language 

• Example: English uses around 45 phonemes, Tongan uses 17 phonemes 

 

• In English, /p/ is a different phoneme from /b/ 

• In Japanese /l/ is not heard differently from /r/ 

• In Tongan, “glottal stop” is a phoneme 

P and b are phonemes t and d are phonemes 

In tongan, two phonemes p and b do not change meaning of word, just make is sound pronounced weird

Same speech sound, different meaning 

Languages may have similar speech sounds but use them in different ways to signal meaning 

• Example: use of aspirated and unaspirated /p/ in English and Thai 

 

• Aspirated [ph ] and unaspirated [p] in English and Thai 

English Example: spill versus pill – 

• Allophonic – acoustically different but not functionally different 

• Sounds same, but doesn’t play functionally phonemic role, doesn’t change meaning 

Thai Example: [paa] versus [phaa] 

• Phonemic – signals difference in meaning 

• Ph and p are two seperated phonemes, mean different things 

morphemes 

The smallest language units that carry meaning are morphemes 

WORDS, SUFFIXES and PREFIXES (inflections) 

• Unbound/free morphemes (word) 

• Bound morphemes (suffixes, affixes) 

Content morphemes 

• Eg words, dog, jar, etc 

• Linked to unbound morphemes 

Function morphemes 

• Eg a, to, in etc 

• Linked to both bound and unbound morphemes 

• Grammatical function morphemes 

Content morphemes 

• Semantic processing relies on processing content words 

Content words map onto concepts 

• Concept is a unit of semantic memory 

• Categories – Lecturers, caves, dogs 

Function morphemes 

unbound 

• Important for grammatical function 

• Syntactic processing relies on processing function words (unbound morphemes) 

• Examples: And, or, but, a, the, she , he, it 

Bound morphemes 

Plural – s 

• The umpires talked to the players 

Possessive – s 

• the girls’ essays were amazing 

Third person singular – s 

• The girl’s essay was amazing 

Regular past tense –ed 

• She jumped through some hoops 

Comparative –er 

• His sandwich is larger than mine 

Superlative –est 

• He works in the greatest University 

Syntax/Semantics Distinction 

Semantic processing relies on processing content words 

• Nouns (dog, book, peace, student) 

• Verbs (walk, swim, sleep, teach, learn) 

• Adjectives → modify nouns (warm, beautiful, good, kind) 

• Some Adverbs → modify verbs (well, poorly) 

Syntactic processing relies on processing function words 

• Pronouns (she, he, it, we, they) 

• Prepositions (in, of, on, out, at, by) 

• Conjunctives (and, but, or) 

• Words such as that, this, a the, if, to 

Broca’s area 

Language-Relevant Brain Areas: 

• Right-handed People: left hemisphere, mostly lower edge of frontal lobe and upper edge of temporal lobe 

Broca’s Area:  

• located near areas that control speech muscles 

Syntax 

• Refers to the structure of language→ phrases and sentences 

Rules for ordering words are learned implicitly 

• Some sequences of words are allowed, but others are not 

• Who is doing what to whom 

Syntax is cued by … 

Morphology 

• English examples: 

• I talk versus he talks 

• He (subject/doer) hit him (object/receiver) 

• John loves Mary 

• *John Mary loves 

• Word order 

• Who is doing what to whom 

Languages differ in their word order 

• Subject – Object – Verb: Mele the apple ate 

• Subject – Verb – Object: Mele ate the apple 

• Verb - Subject – Object: Ate Mele the apple 

Word class (adjective, noun, verb) → word order helps us identify the word class 

Wernickes aphasia 

• Aphasia: The inability to produce and/or understand language 

Werniche’s aphasia characteristics 

• Difficultly with producing meaningful language 

• Uses very few content words, strings words with syntax, uses neologism (made up words) instead of content words 

Language-Relevant Brain Areas: 

• Right-handed People: left hemisphere, mostly lower edge of frontal lobe and upper edge of temporal lobe 

Wernicke’s Area:  

• left temporal lobe → next to primary auditory cortex → translates sounds into meaning 

-Representing words: 

--Phonological sequence  

• dog 

--Semantic ‘word sized’ representation 

• DOG, CHASE 

--Mapping between phonology and semantics 

• dog <--> DOG 

Language conveys meaning 

• Syntax cues meaning → Semantics 

Structure of language maps onto ‘who is doing want  to whom’ 

• Proposition --‘Statement that expresses an idea’ 

• Action – Verb 

• Performers – Doer and receiver of action (semantic roles 

Elements of language 

• Language is processed hierarchiarlly, from the small units of sound to the complex combination of words and sentence they produce to convey menaning,  

• Children aged 15 months can recignise familiar words spoken by native speakes of their own language only. Familiar words spoken by non-native recognised at 19 month 

• A string of randomly connected phonemes do not convey any message, and must be combined into morpheme 

Nature and nature in language development 

• By young adulthood, the average person knows the menaing of ~60, 000 words 

• Nature appears to have selected a brain that is remarkably responive to particular kinds of nurture, so the question of nature vs nurture needs ot be reframed.  

Case for nurture: 

• Language behaviour requires no soecial orinciples, uses same as otehr types of behaviour 

• Children learn language in part by imation, suggesting a substantial role for social learning in language acquisition 

Case in nature: 

• Children effortlessly use grammatical rules far earlier than they can elanr less complicated mental opperations, eg multiplication, turninga doorknob. 

• Acqure languae at a similar pace across cultures, despite very different learning environments 

Specialised neural circuits 

Exist in the left frontal love for processing grammar and in the left temporal love for processing word meanings 

• This further suggests the tendency to follow syntactic rules and to learn word meanings is an innnate potential in humans 

Some data suggest gramamr may have evoved through evolution of neural circuits involved in imitation 

Early infant speech production 

Newborns able to perceive many basic phoneme contrasts (hearing the differences between sounds) 

• This helps them learn which sounds are needed for their language and which are not 

This ability is not restricted to the sounds in the language they are growing up in 

• Born receptive to udnerstanding any language -  can differentiate sounds across all languages (All sounds humans are able to produce in language) 

testing early infant speech production

To test if 1- to 4-month olds can differentiate between phonemes, use “high amplitude sucking” to test. 

• Babies suck more if exposed to stimulus they find interesting 

• Give dummy, when baby sucks on dummy, plays sound 

• The more baby sucks, the more the sound plays, baby learns to control the sound, tells how to what degree baby can differentiate between sounds 

To see if baby can hear difference between two phonemes (eg “ba” and “ga”) use HAS

If play “ba” sound, baby learns to make it happen more (first line). After time, baby gets bored, and number of sucking responses decreases (habituation: used to sound, not as exciting as once was) 

• Then give baby break (vertical dotted line) 

• Then give new sound “ga” (second line). If bring “ga” sound after break, get high response.  

This suggests can hear difference, as if could not, habituation would continue and still be bored of sound and second line would only be half as high 

Categorical speech perception 

• Perception of consonant sounds becomes categorical → different categories of sound 

• Sounds are not said exactly the same way everytime, and yet are able to categorise it together 

• ba and pa ➔ 25msec difference in VOT 

VOT: time interval between release of consonant and onset of voicing 

• Each sound is voiced a different amount but spoken the same way (physically) (ba more voiced than pa) 

VOT example 

By manipulating onset time, can test to which degree sound is recognised 

In large part this effect os determined by ambient language, language you are around most and which phonemes are used in that language 

• If sounds are not meaningful in that language, the change is not meaningful, therefore ability to detect difference is decrease  

• Eg for tongan, ba and pa are not needed to differentiate, so VOT is longer before sounds can be fullt differentiate 

Sounds belonging to group “ba” have short onset time. 

• At 10-20 ms, everyone categorises sound as “ba”, but at 30ms, less than half recognise it as “ba” but instead as “pa” 

VOT and language development 

Perception of consonant sounds becomes categorical → different categories of sound 

• Detection of phonemic change is modified by experience 

9 months: Children fine tune their perception to the language they are growing up in 

• This is why learning language young is very useful (particualry for speaking without an accent) 

Older infant speech perception 

Detection of phonemic change and categories is modified by experience 

English speaking babies of different ages listening to Hindi and Salish phonemes 

• hindi sounds ta and ta and salish sounds ki and qi are important to differentiate in thos elanguages, but not in english 

Between 6-8 month, english speaking babies can differentiate sounds in hindi and salish very well 

• Between 8-10 month, hindi distinction is still there, but salish distinciton has diminshed 

• Between 10-12 month, barely therefore both languages and after 11 months completely diminished for both 

Producing language 

• These effects extend to sign language as well, babies babble in sign language by approximating adults sign langauge grew up around 

• Learning language is a social activity 

Infants make a limited range of sounds and gradually increase variation, why? 

the shape of the infant vocal tract, 

• In adults and children, vocal tracts are very different, 

• Tongue i infants is protruding forward, so many first so\unds babies make ar eproduced int he front of the month 

• Adults mouth is mre developed, can make wider range of sound 

development of motor cortex 

• Adults have more motor control over lips, tongue etc to make more complex sound 

Producing speech sounds (babbling in early language development) 

includes:

• Cooing 

• Reduplicated babbling 

• Variegated babling 

Cooing: 

• In 2 month old child 

• Attended to adult while trying to produce sounds 

• Start of understanding articulation of lips, month, tongue etc can be used ot make sound to communicate 

Reduplicated babbling 

• 6-7 month old 

• Baby repeats same syllable over and over again, practicing 

• They do this practise everywhere, not just in front of adult, helps them to train articulaters, learn to hear slight difference in volume, pitch etc 

Variegated babbling 

• 11-12 months 

• Produce syllables with different constants and vowels 

Still meaningless, but sounds become more language specific 

• Sounds are more varied int he same stream 

children begin to learn how ot sue language in a way thats more recognisable

Comprehension vs production 

• Word comprehension (receptive vocabulary) precedes productive vocabulary by an average of 4 months 

• Initial acquisition rate for comprehension is twice that of production 

• Even phoneme production lags behind phoneme comprehension (discrimination)  

Vocabulary burst 

• Major increase in productive vocabulary acquisition rate after first 50 words are learned 

Why? 

Start to understand symbolic nature of language 

• This word is related to this object 

Control over articulation 

• Motor development allows them to learn faster, gain greater control over months, lips 

Easier retrieval 

• Memory development allows them to make more words, more words means more acces to wider range of phonemes to produce more sounds 

Overextension and Underextension of Meaning 

Underextension 

• “dog” only for family dog but not other dogs 

• Restricted understanding of word 

Overextension 

• “dog” to refer to dogs and cats 

• “moon” for orange, lamp, fingernail clipping 

• “milk” for white blanket, puddle 

• Categorisation of objects, dont have a very large vocabulary, want to talk about world but dont have enough words to describe 

When are words overextended 

Words Acquired and % Overextended 

1‐25 

• 45% 

26‐50 

• 35% 

51‐75 

• 20% 

Learning to communicate beyond single words 

• Protowords 

• Non-verbal functions of language 

• Turn-taking, pitch 

holophrases 

• A single word that stands for an entire statement 

• When a child says, “water”, what does she mean? 

• Can i have water, i see water, im playing in water  etc 

Later syntactic development 

• By 4 years syntax beginning to resemble adult language 

Examples of a 4-year-old’s language. 

• England? 

• what planet is England on?  

• I'm going to kick Mummy into the sky. Then we'll have no more Mummy 

Early sentences 

• Around two years children begin to combine words 

Children have specific meaning (semantic) relations they like to convey 

• Possession -- MY toy 

• Naming – THAT ball, THAT cat 

• Attributes – BIG cat, BIG house 

• Action -- GO home 

What is learning 

an experiential process resulting in a relatively permanent behaviour change that cannot be explained by temporary states, maturation or innate tendencies. (Klein, 1996 

According to this definition of learning

There must be a change in behaviour. 

Could be: 

• development of new behaviours, 

• modification of old ones, or 

• a reduction in behaviour. 

The change is relatively permanent. 

• e.g. sneezing only when in presence of pollen is NOT learning. 

Learning is the result of experience. 

• Therefore, many instances of behaviour change ARE NOT examples of learning: 

• genetically predetermined behaviours (reflexes), 

• changes brought about by maturation (e.g., growing or hormonal influence on sexual development). 

• temporary states (e.g. fatigue, drug effects) 

The major goal of the learning research is to establish general principles of behaviour 

• - i.e. rules & laws that govern learning across different settings, situations & even species. 

• This approach is similar to that of other areas of psychology & science generally. 

Some special features of learning research: 

• An emphasis on effect of environmental events on behaviour (as opposed to genetic influences). 

• Typical subjects are individuals (as opposed to groups) and many studies employ non-human animals as subjects (e.g. rats & pigeons). 

• An emphasis on external / observable phenomena (i.e. the only way we can infer that learning has occurred is by actually seeing an observable behaviour change) 

Learning researchers identify a number of different learning processes (learning is not one single process!), e.g... 

• habituation 

• classical conditioning 

• reinforcement 

• punishment 

• stimulus control 

• observational learning 

• rule-governed learning 

An Example of Classical Conditioning. 

• A person with hypersensitivity to the Japanese wax tree is told: 

• " I'm going to touch your arm with leaves from a wax tree " 

• A harmless leaf is applied to the person's exposed forearm 

Possible outcomes ... 

• person jerks their arm away 

• person reports that their arm itches 

• redness develops on their arm 

• subject develops blisters on their arm 

ALL of the ABOVE! (Ikemi & Nagakawa, 1962) 

• How can this be explained? 

• The answer emerges when we understand the basics of a learning process called classical conditioning. 

In this example: poison= uncondition stimulus (UCS) that elicits allergic reaction(also unconditioned response 

The leaf is a neutral stimulus that ellicits no reaction 

During conditioning 

• Poison and leaf effectively paired together by telling person that leaf is one they are allergic to ... 

After conditioning: 

• Leaf is conditioned stimulus that ellicits conditioned response (reaction)

What is classical conditioning (Pavlovian Conditioning) 

• Measure how much dogs salivated at presence of meat powder. 

• Paired meat powder with tone to try and get it to associate the tone with meat powder. 

• Before conditioning:  

• Meat made the dog drool 

• Tone products oreinting response but no salivation 

• During conditioning 

• Meat and tone pairing produce salivation 

• After conditioning 

• Tone by itself produces salivation 

classical conditioning is all about learning to associate stimuli (an UCS with a CS) such that we now react to the CS in a way we never did before, i.e. our behaviour in the presence of the CS has changed. 

But can more complex human behaviours (like emotions and thoughts) be conditioned in this way? ... YES 

John watson (1978-1958) 

Examined whetehr humans could be classically conditioned in same way to dogs 

Conditioned fear (watson and rayner, 1920) 

• The story of 'Little Albert' and how he came to fear rats and other things white & fluffy. 

• Paired rat with loud noise 

• This classically conditioned fear of rats generalised to other similar objects (e.g. white rabbits & a seal skin coat) 

Through classical conditioning we learn to react to stimuli that predict important events are about to occur. In many cases this is very adaptive (e.g. learn to avoid dangerous events), but it can also be maladaptive (e.g. development of phobias). 

Basic Features of Classical Conditioning 

what factors influence how much learning takes place 

• Acquisition 

• STIMULUS GENERALISATION & DISCRIMINATION 

• Extinction 

acquisition  in classical conditioning

Fear conditioning in rats 

• Rats fear response is to freeze, condited rats to freeze when hear tone by shocking feet when hear tone 

• Rats with damage to amygdala show less conditioned response than control rats 

Acquistion of an eye blink response in rabbits 

• Blow air upon tone 

• Control rabbit aquire conditoned response relativly quickly 

• Rabbits who have been given morphine are slow to condiition response 

• LSD has increased response 

Although conditioning can be established in a single trial, typically a number of pairings of a CS with a UCS are required before a CR emerges as a response to the CS alone.

Variables that alter the degree of classical condition (eg albert) 

Greater 

• UCS more intense UCS less intense (e.g. very loud noise) 

• short delay between UCS and CS (eg 1s between rat and noise 

• UCS reliably follows CS (eg loud noise onky ever occurs in presence of rat) 

Less 

• UCS less intense 

• Long delay between UCS and CS or UCS occurs before CS 

• UCS only soemtimes follows CS (eg loud noise sometime occurs in teh absence of rat) 

Stimulus generalisation and discrimination in classical conditioning

• Once a CS has been established, other similar stimuli will also elicit the CR (e.g. ‘white rabbit’ in Little Albert case) = generalisation.  

However... 

• Not all stimuli elicit the CR (e.g. ‘people’ did not produce fear in Albert) = discrimination. 

Generalisation allows learning to carry over to new situations / stimuli without requiring further learning.  

• Whereas discrimination restricts new learning from being inappropriately applied to ALL situations. 

extinction in classical conditioning

If the CS continues to be presented without the UCS occurring then the CR is eventually eliminated. 

• This extinction of the CR only happens if the CS occurs but the UCS does not. 

• Thus, a learned CR can persist a very long time if CS only happens very rarely (common with phobias). 

Some Examples of Classical Conditioning. 

Preferences  

• Like and dislikes, clothing or cosmetics preferences 

• Political preferences 

• Food preferences 

operant conditioning

Operant conditioning means learninging to opperate on the enviornment and produce a cinsequence. Operants are behaviours that are emitted rather than by elicted by the environment 

law of effect - operant conditioning

Law of effect: an animal's tendency to reproduce a behaviour depends one that behaviour effect on the environment and the consequent effect on the animal 

Problems with punishment 

• Difficulty distinguishing which operant is being punished 

• Fear person handing out punishment instead (classical conditioning) 

• May not eliminate existing rewards for a behaviour 

• Punishment is typically used when angry, so lead to poor design of punishments 

• Aggression that is used to punish behaviour often leads to further aggression 

reinforcement schedule types

Continuous reinforecment schedule: behvaiour is continuously reinforced (eg when the conseqeucne is same each time an animal emits a behvaiour) 

• More effective during intiation/learning 

Partial or intermittent schedule of reinforcement: action sometime leads to inforcement but soemtimes does not 

• Can be ratio schedule (payoff tied to number of responses emitted), only fraction of correct behaviours receive reinforcement 

• Interval schedule (rewards delivered only after some intercal of time, no matter how many responses are emitted 

Fixed-ratio scheduke: 

• Recieve reinforcement for a foxed proportion of the sponses it emits 

Variable-ratio  schedule 

• Receives reward for some percentage of responses, nut bumber required is unpredictable 

Fixed interval schedule 

• Receive inforcement for its response only after fixed amount of time 

Variable interval schedule 

• Ties reinforcement to interval of time, but how long it is cannot be predicted 

Introduction to operant conditioning (aka instrumental conditioning) 

Many behaviours are influenced by the CONSEQUENCES that follow behaviour 

• (e.g. studying behaviour maintained by grades achieved). 

• This type of learning is called OPERANT CONDITIONING 

OC is learning about the relations between environmental stimuli and our own behaviour. 

• The basic principle underlying OC is that 'we tend to repeat behaviours that lead to desirable outcomes and we tend to stop performing behaviours that lead to undesirable outcomes'. 

• Behaviours “emitted” (made by) organism, not elicted (made/influenced by environment) 

• First described by B.F. skinner 

Edward throndike (1874-1949) and his puzzled cats 

Puzzle box 

• Place a cat inside a box 

• Once inside, had had to perform specific behaviour to exit the box and access food 

• Eg press specific lever to open the box 

Did not show cat what to do, just put in until it accidentally made response required to open door 

• Over multiple trials, took less time to open the box 

• Lead to thorndikes law of effect 

Throndikes law of effect 

Thorndike (1898, 1911) said that if a response in the presence of a stimulus leads to satisfying effects, the association between that stimulus and response is strengthened 

• NB 'satisfying effects' has been replaced by term 'reinforcement' ... but otherwise Thorndike's Law of Effect is still considered a valid description of operant conditioning. 

B.F. skinner (1904 – 1990) and his rats and pigeons 

• Reasponsible for large body of research investigating behaviour 

• Came up with term operant/instrumental conditoning 

• Critics didn’t like his environment influences behaviour theory and thought it violates humans free wall 

• However still relevant today 

B.F skinner alterations to thorndikes puzzle box

Knew about thorndikes puzzle box, moddifed to make it more effective to understand learning 

• Thorndikes box took very long time (had to set up box, wait until cat made response, do all over) wasnt very effective for getting lots of trials in a single session 

He altered it to make operant/skinners box 

• Delivered food/reinforced inside box, rat press lever, speaker and lights to indicate food is ready/induce behaviour in rat 

• Controls for extraneous variables (time between pressing lever, how many times need press lever, etc) can be designed for other animals (eg pigeons, use to peck on different discs instead of lever, since can discriminate between colour, use colour as well) 

Operant chambers 

• Skinner was interested in how changing environmental events such as the payoff for lever pressing resulted in changes in behaviour. 

Operant chamber a very controlled environment in order to rule out confounding influences. 

• Be sure due to experiemntal manipulations not other environmental variable 

Behaviour from operant boxes is usually measured by calculating the rate of responding. 

3- Term contingency (skinner) 

• Describes the relationship between environmental events and behaviour.  

A--> B--> C--> 

• A = antecedent stimulus or discriminative stimulis 

• B = the behaviour 

• C = the stimuli that occur as a consequence of the behaviour (normally just called 'consequences’) 

Eg phone rings --> answer it --> a friend starts talking to you 

Stimulus Control (3-term contingency) 

• is the relationship between A and B 

Antecedent / discriminative stimuli set the occasion for responding, i.e. signal what behaviour is now appropriate. 

• e.g. ringing signals that picking up phone is now appropriate behaviour 

• Stop at a red light 

Allows us to behave in certain ways only in specific contexts 

Schedule control (3-term contingency) 

• Is the relationship between B & C. 

Skinner said the reason you continue to perform particular behaviours in the presence of particular antecedent stimuli was because you had gained desirable consequences when performing those behaviours in the past. 

• We call such desirable consequences REINFORCERS. 

• However, aversive consequences that reduce the occurrence of a learned behaviour are called PUNISHERS. 

Positive punishment 

• (also simply called 'punishment', or 'aversive punishment') 

when responding decreases as a result of the delivery of an aversive stimulus. 

• e.g. trying to drink beer thru' your nose --> nasty sensation --> don't do it again! 

• Important Note... 

punishment (like reinf.) is defined in terms of its effects on behaviour - this is different from way we tend to use such terms in everyday language. 

Eg experiment to see if punishment leads to decrease in behaviour 

• Trying to see whether use of water mister reduce self-injurious behaviour (mouthing, biting, skin tearing, head banging)  

• In each case see decrease in self-injurious behaviour when mist is used 

• But when water mist is gone, behaviours rapidly reinstate themselves 

• Punisher doesn’t work long term – not long lasting impact 

Positive reinforcement 

A consequence that causes an increase in the rate of responding is called a POSITIVE REINFORCER. 

• e.g. rat pressing lever for food 

• e.g. turning up to work to earn pay 

Important note … if the rat does not press lever for food (or you don’t go to work) then food (or pay) are NOT acting as reinforcers 

Although +ve reinforcement seems at first glance to only apply to very simple aspects of learned behaviour, it also underlies very complex learned behaviours too… 

• Also reinforcement forms an important part of many everyday educational practices and therapeutic intervention techniques where behavioral modification may be desirable, for example when supportingchildren with developmental delays. 

eg as in sticker charts

Negative reinforcement 

NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT is where responding is maintained or increases as the result of the termination of an aversive stimulus. 

• e.g. taking aspirin to remove aversive feeling of headache. 

• Stops headache, more likely to take again if have another headache 

e.g. parent stops child complaining by giving food (positive reinforcement and negative reinforce happen at same time depending on perspective) 

• Parent buying food is negatively reinforced 

• Parent stop aversive stimulus of screaming 

• Childs complaining is positively reinforced 

• More likely to do it again 

Easy to confuse with punishment, but not the same thing

reinforcement vs punishment

(reinforcement=increase in responding, punishment =decrease in responding) 

Problems with positive punishment 

• induces fear and hostility, 

• most effective forms cause pain or discomfort, induces fear and hostility, 

• learn to escape/avoid punishing situation, 

• only learning what response 'not to make'. 

Alternatives to positive punishment  

use of EXTINCTION 

• (i.e. nondelivery of reinforcers maintaining undesirable behaviour) 

• Many variables affect how quickly responding extinguishes.  

• e.g. how much reinforcement has been given in the past & how obvious the removal of reinforcers is 

 

remove antecedent stimuli that precede the undesirable behaviour. 

• e.g., reducing social vaping by removing antecedent stimuli 

use 'response cost’ (aka negative punishment, omission training) 

a decrease in the frequency of a response that is followed by the termination of, or lack of access to, positive stimuli or events. 

• e.g. 'Supernanny‘ & the 'naughty step 

As a basic approach 'negative punishment' can be very effective 

• use of 'time out' in classroom settings 

What makes an event a reinforcer or a punisher? 

2 main factors: 

Primary Reinforcers / Punishers 

• Events that satisfy an inherent survival need (e.g., food) & punishers that are inherently aversive (e.g., painful stimuli). 

Conditioned Reinforcers / Punishers 

• Eg money, kind words etc,  

• Flashing lights on a police car, fines, unkind words 

 

No matter what source of reinforcement or punishment is ... how reinforcing or punishing it is is determined by: 

• deprivation, 

• magnitude of event, & 

• how immediately the consequence is applied after the behaviour 

The stimuli that acquire reinforcing or punishing properties may be quite removed from primary reinforcement/punishment via second-order conditioning. 

Reinforcers / punishers can also be 'behaviours'. 

According to Premack (1971), if an organism prefers to engage in response B compared to response A then response B can reinforce A.  

• e.g. using Netflix watching as a reward (reinforcer) for 1hr study time punishers can also be 'behaviours'. 

Experimental Evidence of operant conditioning: Premack (1959) 

Behaviours that result in a preferred response are strengthened.. 

• Kids were given the choice between eating candy or playing pinball. 

• Kids who preferred candy over pinball would play more pinball if it meant they gained access to candy 

• Kids who preferred pinball over candy would eat more candy if it meant they would gain access to pinball 

Experimental Evidence: Premark (1971) 

Behaviours that result in a less preferred response are weakened… 

Water deprived rats (rats who preferred water) were put in a motorised running wheel. 

• When they drank water, the wheel would start to move. Drinking (preferred behaviour) led to running (less preferred behaviour) 

• Rats stopped drinking even though they were thirsty. 

Where do new behaviours come from 

Are new behaviours: 

• product of prior learning? 

• independent of prior conditioning? 

Wolfgang Kohler's demonstration of insight learning in chimps in the 1920s. 

• Put chimpanzee in a room, hang bananas from ceiling, give box 

• Found if left long enough, chimp would push boxes over to climb up to reach bananas 

• Worked also for more complex behaviour, like stacking boxes to reach banans, give tools to helps 

• Chimps would exhibit evidenence of insight learning 

• Other researcher found evidence of this behaviour in other animals as well 

insight

sudden appearance of an appropriate behaviour without any obvious shaping. 

Where does insight come from 

• Animals share human ability to use and make tools is one possibility 

• Second possibility is this insight is example of operant conditioning, where natural behaviours are supported by reinforcer  

• Behaviours are already in animal, just now put together in sequence to gain food 

shaping 

• SHAPING describes the process by which new behaviours emerge. 

Relies on a couple of things: 

• differential reinforcement of appropriate behaviours and/or punishment of wrong behaviours 

• natural tendency for behaviour to vary from instance to instance.  

• Some variations reqared, others not 

Eg writing 

• First time to form letter A, try variations until one is rewarded. As you get older/develop, only As that look more like As are reinforced 

• Gradually over time only things that look like As are reinforced 

• Criteria changes, only things that fit criteria are reinforced 

Basic steps of shaping 

• identify pre-shaped behaviour 

• Identify potential reinf's / punish's 

• Apply differential reinf. / punish. 

• Reinforce successive approximations to desired behaviour (i.e. as behaviour starts to alter change the criterion before reinf. Given again) 

chaining 

• Behaviours can become more elaborate via chaining. 

A series of behaviours that are functionally linked.  

• I.e. engaging in behaviour X provides access to behaviour Y (a secondary reinforcer) which then provides access to a primary reinforcer

Shaping underlies all kinds of behaviour 

E.g., Shaping also underlies the emergence of SUPERSTITIOUS BEHAVIOURS 

• = behaviours we continue to perform even tho' they are not really the cause of positive outcomes. 

WHY? 

• Behaviour naturally varies - so purely by chance sometimes a behaviour is accidentally followed by reinforcement. 

How does learning transfer to new situations? - generalisation 

GENERALISATION is the process by which our behaviours transfer to new situations or stimuli that we did not directly learn about. 

• Important part of learning (both classical & operant conditioning) by allowing our learning to be adaptive. 

• For example, we don't have to learn separately about every set of traffic lights we come across.

Extent of generalisation depends upon: 

• physical similarity of stimuli, 

• how salient (obvious) the stimuli are, 

• presence of other stimuli, 

• our past learning history. 

Biological Constraints on Learning 

What we learn about is not just determined by the environment - genetic factors also influence what is learned. 

• Seligman's (1970) concept of PREPAREDNESS suggests that thru' evolution all animals are biologically 'prewired' to easily learn behaviours related to their survival as a species 

Example A: TASTE AVERSION Garcia & Koelling (1966)  (biological constraints on learning)

Condition 1 

• Poison paired with novel stimulus 

Group a: 

• Water associated with a novel sweet tatse 

Group b 

• Water associated with a novel “bright-noisy” stimulus 

• All rats were made ill 

• Group a rats avoidned novel water 

• Group b rats continued to drink novel water 

Suggests condionting rats to avoid water with something consumable is easier than with noise 

Condition 2: 

• Shock paired with novel stimulus 

Group C 

• Water associated with a novel sweet tatse 

Group d 

• Water associated with a novel “bright-noisy” stimulus 

• All rats given a mild shock 

• Group c Conitnued to drink novel water 

• Group d rats avoided novel water 

This showed 

• Classical conditioning underlies many taste aversions. 

• Organisms are biologically predisposed to associate certain events with others. E.g. (in the case of rats) taste with being sick or visual / auditory appearance with painful event ... useful in terms of survival. 

Example B: Biological constraints on operant trained behaviour: Marian & Keller Breland 

Trained animals with circus, wrote book 

Breland & Breland (1961): 'The Misbehavior of Organisms 

Breland & Breland (1961): 'The Misbehavior of Organisms 

Observed a number of instances of instinctive behaviours interfering with conditioned responses - "instinctive drift". 

E.g. pig trained to drop coin in 'piggy bank' would drop coin on ground and root at it with trotter 

• Initially performed behaviour well, but after time started to add on own behaviour, disintegration of previously trained behaviour 

• Interference of natural behaviours with trained behaviour 

Main overall points from biological constraints on learning

• Sometimes genetic predispositions conflict with environmental control over behaviour 

• (e.g. the types of stimuli being paired or nature of behaviour being paired with a reinforcer). 

This does NOT mean organisms can only learn to associate things we are genetically prepared for ... only that it is easier to learn about some things than others. 

• Both genetics and environment work interactively to shape our behaviour. 

What are emotions 

Something everyone has a common experience of, but difficult to define 

Emotion: what is it good for 

• BF skinner, 1948 

We all know that emotions are useless and bad for our peace of mind and our blood pressure 

• This describes a common belief that emotions are irrational, and harm us, emotionas are things we have to control, else theyll get us into trouble 

• This is not true 

Emotionas are adaptive 

Activate survival mechanisms 

• Eg fear protects from harm, puts you into defensive state 

• Love, critical for suvival of children etc 

Motivate adaptive behaviour 

• Some thing we do day-day feel good, motivates us to do them 

• Accomplishment, eating, etc.  

Optimise use of cognitive resources 

• Optimise brain to use its memory, attention, decision making ability in teh best way for certain situations 

Communicate needs and intentions 

• Essential for communication to others about our enternal states, important for social animals like humans 

What is an emotion 

Intersection of physiology, behaviour, and subjective experience 

Subjective expereince 

• Things you feel deeply personal t you, your experience of the world 

Physiology 

• Emotions are grounded in the body 

• As survival mechanisms, conserve ot act in the body in ways optimal to survival 

Eg 

• Heart Rate 

• Sweating 

• Blushing 

• Blood Pressure 

• Goose bumps 

• Nausea 

Behaviour 

• Emotions are played out in our behaviours 

• Incl things to express intention (eg facial experssions) 

• Or actuals appropriate for situtation (eg fear, curl inwards etc) 

Behaviour eg 

• Facial Expressions 

• Vocal Characteristics 

• Posture/Gait 

• Muscle Tension 

• Action Tendencies 

When experience a certain emotion, more likely to behave in a way to resolve situation/feeling 

Classifying emotions 

• There are many differen emotional states thats erve us in differe ways 

• Can classify them with different models (cowen and keltner) 

DISCREET MODELS  

Basic Categories 

• Happiness, Anger, Sadness, Fear, Surprise, Disgust 

Blended Categories 

• Jealousy, Awe, Contempt, Pity, Delight 

• Eg jealousy combo of fear and anger 

Social Emotions 

• Embarrassment, Shame, Empathy, Love 

• Emotions we cant have unless there are other people 

Intellectual Emotions 

• Curiosity, Boredom, Insight, Confusion, Aha! 

• Feeling states about our current understanding of the world 

Homeostatic Emotions 

• Hunger, Pain, Thirst, Itch 

• Debated if emotions or not, for our basic state of being 

DIMENSIONAL MODELS 

Valence 

• Positive/Negative; Pleasant/Unpleasant 

Arousal 

• High Low 

• Some emotiona activate us, others diactivate 

Motivation 

Approach/Withdraw 

• Can think of emotions are certian combinations of these 

 

DISCREET MODELS  of emotion

Basic Categories 

• Happiness, Anger, Sadness, Fear, Surprise, Disgust 

Blended Categories 

• Jealousy, Awe, Contempt, Pity, Delight 

• Eg jealousy combo of fear and anger 

Social Emotions 

• Embarrassment, Shame, Empathy, Love 

• Emotions we cant have unless there are other people 

Intellectual Emotions 

• Curiosity, Boredom, Insight, Confusion, Aha! 

• Feeling states about our current understanding of the world 

Homeostatic Emotions 

• Hunger, Pain, Thirst, Itch 

• Debated if emotions or not, for our basic state of being 

DIMENSIONAL MODELS of emotions

Valence 

• Positive/Negative; Pleasant/Unpleasant 

Arousal 

• High Low 

• Some emotiona activate us, others diactivate 

Motivation 

Approach/Withdraw 

• Can think of emotions are certian combinations of these 

Three kinds of emotion theories 

Basic Emotion Theories 

Discret emotion theories based on idea emotions serve different purposes that make them distinctly different 

• Darwin 

• Ekman 

Psychological Constructionist Theories 

Emotions combine together and affect each other 

• James 

• Schacter & Singer 

• Feldman Barrett 

Appraisal Theories 

Our emotions are determined by how to interpret and understand the world 

• Cannon-Bard 

• Arnold 

Darwin (1872) basic emotion theory

• One of the first sceientists to talk about emotions 

Noted if one looks are facial expression and characteristic behaviour, many animal species have things that look like emtions 

• At the core, series of emotions that seem to be critical for survival 

• Happiness/reward, anger/agression, fear/defensivness, suprise, digust can be seen in many different animals, argued they must have survival advagtage 

These emotions also occur very early in life, suggests must improve survival 

What makes an emotion basic? (eckman) basic emotion theory

Emotions are discrete neural/physiological/behavioural states triggered by defined (evolutionarily relevant) situations 

Distinctive universal signals 

• These basic emotions seen all around the world 

Distinctive physiology 

• Different emotional states have distinct emotioanl signature 

Distinctive subjective experience 

• Distinct feelings 

Automatic appraisal 

• Dont really think/interpret situaton, arise without intential 

Distinctive universals triggers 

Presence in other primates 

Presence in infants 

• These are the core emotional states, and otehr emotions are built out of them to form otehr emotions  

• Eg strong fear= terror, weak fear=anxiousness 

James-lange theory - Pyschological constructionist theories 

Emotions are survival states 

• What we feel as the emotion is not why we react in specific ways, but rather body reacts in specific way and brain then inteprets it as emotion  

Stimulus occurs, body responds, brain inteprets response as emotion. When response happens again, brain links it to emotion 

• The more rational statement is that we feel sorry because we cry, angrycbecause we strike, afraid because we tremble, and not that we cry, strike, or tremble, because we are sorry, angry, or fearful, as the case may be.  

Without the bodily states following on the perception, the latter would be purely cognitive in form, pale, colorless, destitute of emotional warmth  

• Argues cannot have emotion without the body 

Schacter & Singer: Attribution of Arousal - Pyschological constructionist theories 

• Physiological responses that be linked to different emotions  

Two different stimili may induce the same physiological response, but cognitive evaluation of the situation determines how we interpret the response and the emotion 

• Situation triggers physiological response 

• Context determines how we interpret the physiological response 

• Emotion = physiology + interpretation