PSYC 305 - Chapter 8 (Comparative Psychology & 2 Waves of Behaviourism)

What is Comparative Psychology?

The study of similarities and differences in behavioral organization among living things, paying attention to the psychological nature of human beings in comparison with other animals.

What questions did Comparative Psychology address?

Questions about consciousness and intelligence.

What formed the basis for Comparitive Psychology to rise?

1. Darwin’s theory that the difference between human and animal is one of degree rather than a difference of kind.

2. The functionalist approach of including animal research into psychology.

What was an issue with Wundt and Titchener’s research (at least among empiricists)?

The use of introspection.

Why did many take issue with introspection?

Because of…

1. The accuracy of subjective appraisal is still questioned

2. The results are not replicable

3. It is easy for experimenter bias to enter the study

How is animal research different than Wundt and Titchener’s approach?

Animal research cannot rely on introspection and can be carried with stricter guidelines so there can be less to no interference of prior learning or experiementer bias.

What will Experimental Comparative Psychology allow for?

Research into different domains:

• medicine

• learning & behavior

• motivation

• effects of drugs

• brain functioning

Who was George John Romanes?

A British physiologist and colleague of Darwin.

What did Romanes do?

He formalized and systematized the study of animal intelligence into an elaborate theory of the evolution of intelligence.

He wrote the first book on comparative psychology: Animal Intelligence.

He collected data from protozoa all the way to higher animals with the purpose of documenting higher level animal intelligence and to analyze the similarity to human intellectual functioning.

How did Romanes observe animal behavior?

Using the Anecdotal Method.

(an observational report about animal behavior).

How did Romanes implement the anecdotal method?

He would monitor animals in situations.

In particular, he asked “Does the organism learn to make new adjustments or modify old ones in accordance with the results of its own individual experience?”

How does Romanes define the animal mind?

In terms of its learning ability.

This is paramount in all other comparative psychology experimentation and behavioral research.

How did Romanes interpret the animal behavior following his observations?

Using Introspection by Analogy.

What is Introspection by Analogy?

A method for studying behavior by assuming that the same mental processes that occur in the observer’s mind also occur in the animal’s mind.

How did Romanes interpret ant behavior using introspection by analogy?

In one scenario, Romanes observed that antes seemed to work together in a way that was reminiscent of empathy.

Once, he put a stone on one ant and waited for the response of the other ants. At first, another ant came towards the pinned companion, then walked away. It seemed as though the other ant couldn’t be bothered, but then he returned with a group of fellow ants and they tried to move the stone.

For Romanes, this seemed like the ants were showing empathy. It is difficult to know what ants are thinking, so we antropomorphize.

What did Romanes notes about other species having different levels of intellectual development?

Apes and dogs were capable of indefinite morality.

Monkeys and elephants were able to use tools.

Birds could recognize pictures and understand words.

Bees and wasps were able to communicate ideas.

Reptiles could recognize people.

Lobsters and crabs were able to reason.

Fish were capable of association by similarity.

Snails and squid were capable of association.

Starfish and sea urchins were able to remember things.

Jelly fish and sea anemones were conscious beings and capable of experiencing pleasure and pain.

Romanes believed that cats were one of the smartest animals, except for monkeys and elephants.

What did Conwy Lloyd Morgan recognize?

The weaknesses in anecdotal and intropsection-by-analogy methods.

(specifically, that introspection by analogy has the same issues as Wundt’s introspection, which is subjectivity).

Furthermore, he believed that in seeking out higher mental processes, Romanes was ignoring the lower levels.

What was Morgan’s work focussed on?

Associative learning.

His goal was to reduce the use of anthropomorphis, and make experimental comparative psychology more scientific.

What did Morgan suggest using?

The Law of Parsimony.

What is the Law of Parsimony?

The principle that the simplest explanation of an event or observation is the preferred explanation.

What is Morgan’s Canon?

The notion that animal behavior must not be attributed to a higher mental process when it can be explained in terms of a lower mental process.

What did Morgan believe about animals?

He believed animal behavior should not be overestimated to higher mental processes. The animal mind was mainly association by sensory experience, and the lower level processing should be emphasized rather than rational thought.

Who was Margaret Floy Washburn?

The first woman to earn a doctoral degree in Psychology at Cornell, under the supervision of Titchener.

She had earned her doctorate at Harvard in 1894, but the university trustees refused to grant her the degree.

She was the second woman, after Mary Whiton Calkins, to serve as APA President and was the first woman psychologist elected to the National Academy of Science.

What textbook did Washburn write?

She wrote The Animal Mind: A Text-book of Comparative Psychology, in 1908, which mainly covered sensory function and learning. It was to be the standard textbook in the field for 25 years and was the first book based on experimental work in animal cognition.

What theory did Washburn develop?

Following her interest in basic processes, she developed a motor theory of consciousness.

She integrated the experimental method of introspection with an emphasis on motor processes.

The basic premise of her work was that thinking was based on movement; therefore, consciousness is linked to motor activity.

What did Edward Thorndike develop?

Psychology’s first major learning theory.

His work combined associationism and hedonism.

He is credited with three laws:

1. the law of readiness — a person can only learn when physically and mentally ready to receive stimuli

2. the law of exercise — repitition is basic to the development of adequate responses; things most often repeated are easiest remembered

3. the law of effect — learning by association

Explain the law of effect.

Thorndike believed that animals do not learn by observation, imitation, or reasing.

Instead, they learn purely by association.

There is a basic stimulus response scenario, and if an association is followed by a “satisfying state of affairs” it will be strengthened.

If it is followed by an “annoying state of affairs” it will be weakened.

How did Thorndike study the law of effect?

Thorndike studied this with cats in a puzzle box.

A puzzle box was closed off, and there was a door that could be opened by pressing on a deal.

When a cat was successful in opening the latch once, the next time it was in the box, it was able to get out much quicker.

What did Thorndike conclude based off the results of the puzzle box?

He concluded that animals learn solely by trial and error and by reward and punishment.

When an animals is placed in an enclosed box, it displayes various random behaviors. If an animal accidentally makes a response that opens a door so that it can escape and receive food, the next time the animal is in the box, it takes less time to produce this same response. Finally, the animal makes the response immediately opn being placed in the box.

From these observations, Thornduke ocnluded that there was validity to his law of effect.

Trying to squeeze through the slats resulted in frustration, stepping on the pedal resulted in the door opening and led to a pleasurable outcome, and that was the behaviour that would be repeated.

What did Thorndike’s work bring about?

The first wave of Behaviorism, classical conditioning, which will only use objective measures of behavioral responses.

What was the debate between animal research and introspectionists?

Many were interestedin the understanding of behavior without the need for introspection.

Thorndike’s laws of learning did not require it, and objective psychology was well developed in Russia.

What is Objective Psychology?

Experimentation based on quantifiable, observable data.

Who would lay down the foundation for Wave 1 of Behaviorism?

Ivan Sechenov and Ivan Pavlov (in Russia).

Brought to America by John Watson.

Who was Ivan Sechenov?

The founder of Russian Objective Psychology.

He studied with Johannes Müller and Hermann von Helmholtz, and was influenced by Charles Darwin and Herbart Spencer’s evolutionary thought.

What did Sechenov seek to explain in his book “Reflexes of the Brain”?

All psychic phenomena based on associationism and materialism.

He suggested that thoughts do not cuase behavior.

All behavior, both internal (mental) and external, is reflexive and is triggered by external stimulation.

Although it seems like thought and action are causally related, it is likely because sometimes the external stimulus goes unnoticed, thereby it seems as though thought is either the only thing that exists, or the though is creating the behavior.

Both are incorrect according to Sechenov.

What did Sechenov propose for the main purpose of the central nervous system?

He proposed a central inhibition, suggesting that the main purpose of the CNS was to inhibit reflexive behavior.

For Sechenov, human development was the slow establishment of inhibitory control over reflexive behavior.

How did Sechenov study the reflexive behavior?

He studied this by stimulating a frog’s legs with some acid to provoke a withdrawal response. He then applied salt to certain parts of the frog’s brain, causing an excitatory response in certain brain areas and noted that the withdrawal response did not occur, suggesting that certain brain regions were responsible for inhibition.

Who was Ivan Petrovitch Pavlov?

The son of a Russian Orthodox priest who was meant to follow in his father’s footsteps, until he discovered Darwin’s work and decided to pursue his degree in physiology.

His research helped chift associationism from its emphasis on subjective ideas to objective and quantifiable physiological events.

He conducted research on glandular secreations and muscular movements, the function of the nerves of the heart, and conditioned reflexes.

In 1905, he won the Nobel Prize for his work in the physiology of digestion.

How did Pavlov study digestion?

Pavlov created the fistula, a surgical opening that allowed a tube to be inserted into the throat, cheeck, or stomach.

He set up a contracption that held the dog in place and then conducted a sham feeding session. In the sham feeding, there was a fistual in the throat (esophagostomy) so the food would not get into the stomach, not to contaminate the gastric juices, and another fistula and cannula set up in the stomach to collect these juices.

Since gastric juices were produced even though the food was not getting into the stomach, Pavlov concluded that this was mediated by the nervous system and not initiated by food in the stomach.

He also noticed that the dogs began to salivate when the lab workers walked by with food, and sometimes even when they did not have food.

This made him very curious and would lead to one of the most ground-breaking studies in the field of psychology and learning.

What does Pavlovian/Classical Conditioning involve?

Reflexive behavior.

This can include blinking, flinching, withdrawal, and salivation.

These are all physiological responses that require no thought, just a nervous system.

Describe Classical Conditioning in the case of the dog and food.

If you present an unconditioned stimulus to an animal, it will have an unconditioned response. Food is an unconditioned stimulus because you don’t need to learn what food is.

The hungry dog begins to salivate. This is an unconditioned response because it is not a learned response, it just happens upon sight or smell of food if you’re hungry.

A bell, or metronome, mean absolutely nothing to a dog and, therefore, do not, on their own, elicit salivation making them neutral stimuli.

But, if during conditioning, you pair the bell and the food, the dog will salivate because the food is present. After multiple times of repeating this, the bell alone should elicit a salivary response. If it does, the bell ceases to be a neutral stimulus and is now a conditioned stimulus, and the salivary response to the bell presented alone is a conditioned response.

Originally, Pavlov had named this a ‘conditional’ response as it would only occur under certain conditions, but hten it was translated into conditioned response.

Pavlov considered conditioned responses to be psychic reflexes because they are elicited by something other than the original stimulus, basically salivating to a bell rather than just to the food.

What are Secondary Conditioned Reflexes?

Pavlov and other researchers in his lab would also try to extend the conditioning to a secondary conditioned reflex.

After the initial primary conditioning of the sound of the metronome, another neutral stimulus could be added. They used a black square paired with the metronome on a pre-conditioned dog and what they found was that a second order conditioing would occur with the dog now salivating to the black square.

What about third-order conditioning?

They attemted a third-order conditioning with food, but it did not work. Second order seems to be as far as you can go with a food stimulus.

However, a third-order conditioning is possible with something even more salient than food — pain.

Describe first, second, and third order conditioning using pain as a stimulus.

It is the same process as the metronome conditioning except this time they applied a mechanical stimulation to a dog’s paw (not painful or unpleasant). This stimulation was neutral.

But shortly afer this stimulus, they gave the dogs an unpleasant electrical shock which made the dog withdraw his paw.

The electrical stimulation was an unconditioned stimulus because pain will automatically trigger this withdrawal response.

After presenting this parining multiple times, the use of the mechancial stimulation (the previously neutral stimulus) would elicit the conditioned response (withdrawing the paw), now making the mechanical stimulation a conditioned stimulus.

For a second-order conditioning, the sound of bubbling water (neutral stimulus) was paired with the previously conditioned mechanical stimulation. Upon numerous pairings, the sound of the water bubbling elicited the conditioned response, making the sound a second-order stimulus.

Finally, they added one more neutral stimulus to the mix, a tone. This was originally a neutral stimulus, but then if it was followed by the bubbling water sound (the second-order stimulus), it elicited the defensive reaction and was now a third-order stimulus.

What is important regarding the stimuli?

The salience of the stimulus is important.

Something like food can be conditioned to two orders, pain to three, now what about something that makes us sick? (eg ate something bad or drank too much of something so you got sick, that even just the thought of it makes you sick).

It turns out, aversive responses are rather easy to condition, likely because feeling sick is often a threat to our survival.

How did Pavlov and his team test conditioning aversions?

They tested the hypothesis that aversions to a neutral stimulus could be formed by pairing a tone with a sick feeling.

They administered apomorphine, which induces vomiting in dogs, waited a few minutes and then presented the tone.

By the time one to two minutes had elapsed between the apomorphine and the tone, the dog was getting sick. The queasiness caused by the apomorphine, is the unconditioned stimulus and the tone is the neutral stimulus.

In this scenario, the apomorphine comes first because it needs the 1-2 mins to kick in so the dog feels sick while the tone is presented. It is actually that sick feeling being paired with the tone.

Sometimes this only takes on presentation, and the next time the dog hears the tone, it gets sick. It is adaptive to learn immediately what makes you sick and avoid it.

It is very easy to induce food aversions in rate because they can’t vomit, which makes their system hyperaware of even the slightest queasiness.

What did Pavlov suggest that was similar to Sechenov?

Pavlov used his research findings to suggest that all behavior is reflexive, and through experience, we learn to inhibit certain reflexive behavior. We expereience many stimuli; some elicit, and some inhibit behavior.

What is the Cortical Mosaic?

The excitation and inhibition happening at the cortex (think salt on the frog’s brain) at any given moment.

This is how the organism will respond to the environment at any given time.

In this mosaic, a conditioned response may generalize and be triggered by a similar stimulus, the dog salivated equally (or close to ) with a faster metronome.

Generalization of a response is adaptive because similar stimuli may be equally dangerous.

But sometimes, the conditioned response may not occur because the stimulus is sufficiently different from the conditioned stimulus.

The dogs salivated considerably less with a slower metronome, Pavlov referred to this as discrimination.

This is equally adaptive because it suggests an inhibitory system that keeps us from being responsive to absolutely everything around us.

What does the excitation and inhibition of the cortical mosaic allow for?

The extinction and spontaneous recovery of a response.

A key point of learning is that once something is learned, it is not unlearned. It may go into a period of extinction which is an elimination or reduction of a conditioned response (eg salivating) that results when a conditioned stimulus (metronome) is presented but is not followed by the uncodnitioned stimulus (food).

Extinction does not eliminate the conditioned response, but rather, the organism learns to inhibit it. You don’t need to keep salivating to the metronome if no food is coming.

There is an interesting phenomenon that happens, and it speaks to the idea of not ‘unlearning’ something. After a period of time has gone by, say a few days, where there is extinction, if the conditioned stimulus is presented again, there seems to be a spontaneous recovery or reappearance of a conditioned response as the excitatory response kicks in again. Who knows, maybe this time there will be food.

How did Pavlov measure extinction and spontaneous recovery?

Again, by droplets of saliva.

If the conditioned stimulus (the metronome) no longer resulted in saliva being produced, there was extinction. If there was salivation, then there was spontaneous recovery.

Note: Spontaneous recovery did not result in as much saliva being produced as there had been during conditioning but there had to be a substantial amount for it to be considered recovered.

How did Behaviorism rise?

The objective measures used by Pavlov would be fundamental in learning theories and behaviorism. Thorndike had formulated laws of learning that were contingent on hedonism and associationism. Pavlov had objective measures of conditioned reflexive responses. The Russian objective measures, the incorporation of animal studies through comparative psychology, and the issues with introspection would create the perfect timing for behaviorism to rise.

Who was John Broadus Watson?

An American psychologist, who was best known as the founder of the Behaviorist Movement (even though Thorndike and Pavlov built the foundation for it).

In 1903, he earned his PhD at the University of Chicago (one of the first training centres for functionalism and this influence would be crucial to the behaviorist movement).

In 1915, he served as the president of the APA and went on to publish many works based on the behaviorist perspective. (Notably: “Psychology from the Standpoint of a Behaviourist” (1919), “Behaviourism” (1925)).

In 1928, his behaviorist principles were incorporated into a child rearing book called “The Psychological Care of Infant and Child”.

In 1957 he received the APA’s Award for Distinguished Scientific Contributions.

Watson remained at Johns Hopkins University until 1920, when he was asked to leave the University because of a scandalous affair with his graduate assistant Rosalie Rayner.

What was the Kerplunk Experiment (Watson)?

Watson and Carr conducted a study (Kerplunk study) testing the hypothesis that raats navigate through reflexive behaviors.

Rats were trained to race down a long corridor to find a piece of food at the end. After the training session, the experimenters shortened the corrider.

This time, the rats bypassed the food and slammed into the wall making the sound “Kerplunk”.

Watson found that once the animal was well trained at running this maze, it did so almost automatically, and its behavior becomes a series of associations between movements rather than stimuli in the outside world.

Watson also created a circular maze of his own design, with concentric, interconnected passages. There were lamps hanging overhead and researchers would use a camera lucida to trace the paths of their rodents.

How was Watson a good example of how the zeitgeist is important for a theory to move forward?

Watson began teaching psychology at Johns Hopkins University in 1908, and in 1913, after giving a talk on the subject at Columbia University in New York City, he published Psychology as the Behaviourist Views It in his journal the Psychological Review, which essentially detailed the behaviourist position.

Why is the person who takes control also important for a theory to move forward, and how did Watson demonstrate this?

Watson’s strong and sometimes abrasive personality pushed the fledgling school (Behaviorism) to the forefront of American psychology.

In his talk, he was adamant that human psychology had failed to live up to its natural science aspirations and has failed to address problems that vitally concern human interest. The failure to replicate findings using the introspective method was a serious and irresolvable flaw in psychology’s claims to have scientific method. One must dispense with consciousness and the introspective method if psychology is to achieve a scientific status adn if it is to yield useful, practical findings. And finally, the behavior of animals and man can be investigated without appeal to consciousness and must be considered as being equally essential to a general understanding of behavior.

What is Behaviorism?

An approach to psychology that focused on observable behavior and was, at least in Watson’s perspective, more scientific than introspection.

Its goal was the prediction and control of behavior.

Behaviorism dominated American psychology for several decades. Watson believed that there were four types of behavior.

What were the 4 types of behavior Watson outlined?

1. Explicit (overt) learned behavior, such as talking and writing

2. Implicit (covert) learned behavior, such as increased heart rate caused by a feared stimulus

3. Explicit unlearned behavior, which were reflexive instincts such as grasping, blinking, sneezing

4. Implicit unlearned behavior, which were glandular secretions or other metabolic changes

What is the Little Albert Experiment?

In 1920, Watson published the research on one of the best-known studies in fear conditioning, the Little Albert experiment. This was a case study in which he demonstrated a conditioned fear in a young boy.

Explain the Little Albert Experiment.

Watson and his graduate student, Rosalie Rayner, conditioned a fear response in an 11-month-old infant they called “Albert B.” Watson and Rayner brought the little boy into the lab and let him play with a white lab rat. Albert initially loved the rat; however, after being allowed to play with the rat for a little bit, Watson banged on a metal rod that left Albert with a full diaper, crying because he was terrified. After several pairings of the rat and the noise, Albert was terrified at the sight of it. They brought Albert back to the lab on several subsequent occasions, and each time he showed fear towards the rat. This fear generalized to other objects that resembled the rat, such as a rabbit, a white fur coat, and a Santa Claus mask. Although there is no way they would get ethics approval today, it does suggest that maybe our fears and phobias come from some association made in our infancy. Little Albert’s mom eventually removed him from the experiment.

What did Watson demonstrate with the Little Albert Experiment?

He demonstrated a conditioned emotional response to a previously neutral stimulus, similar to Pavlov. He proposed that through learning, emotions come to be elicited by many stimuli, not just those that originally elicited them.

Watson had a theory that humans are born with only three basic emotions: fear, rage, and love, and all other emotions are built from these three.

These emotions are like reflexes and can become associated with particular stimuli.

How did Watson suggest the three basic emotions could be conditioned and associated with particular stimuli?

Fear — as was demonstrated with Little Albert, could be conditioned with a loud sound

Rage — by holding someone down and constraining their movement

Love — by petting and caressing

If you want to argue that love cannot be classically conditioned, have a whiff of your first love’s cologne or perfume, it will cause some emotions to come flooding back.

What did Watson’s “Psychological Care of Infant and Child” (1928) book discuss?

It was about child-rearing from the behaviorist perspective.

This was a “how-to” book encouraging mothers to approach child-rearing with scientific principles in mind. It was a very stern diatribe against parents, even accusing them of being incompetent. In it, he suggested that parents not hug or kiss their children too much, lest they develop into needy adults. Parents shouldn’t let kids sit on their laps. They could give them one kiss on the forehead when they say goodnight and shake their hand in the morning.

What are some quotes out of Watson’s book?

In a chapter titled ‘Too Much Mother Love’, the maternal bond is addressed and he states, “When you are tempted to pet your child remember that mother love is a dangerous instrument. An instrument which may inflict a never-healing wound, a wound which may make infancy unhappy, adolescence a nightmare, an instrument which may wreck your adult son or daughter’s vocational future and their chances for marital happiness.”

What else can be expected from someone who so arrogantly stated, “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select--doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and, yes, even beggar man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors."

How did Watson’s family describe him?

His sons described him as unresponsive and emotionally uncommunicative, and Rosalie Raynor, who eventually became his wife, wrote an article in Parents Magazine where she admitted that she didn’t agree with his child-rearing.

Why are conditioning studies often conducted on animals?

It is often unethical to traumatize children/people for the sake of the experiment.

Additionally, it is very difficult to find a human who has not had prior associations, but that didn’t stop Mary Cover Jones.

What did Jones’ research lead to?

Jones’ research on Peter and the rabbit would lead to her pioneer behavior modification therapy using direct conditioning.

Explain Jones’ Peter & The Rabbit Experiment.

Classically conditioning an emotional response did not require traumatizing an infant. Watson and Mary Cover Jones managed to work with Peter, a young boy who was afraid of rabbits, to slowly extinguish that fear.

Little Peter was a three-year-old child who was afraid of animals.

Jones paired a rabbit (conditioned stimulus) with Peter’s favorite food (unconditioned stimulus: candy and cookies).

At snack time, Jones brought the rabbit into the room but kept it at a “safe” distance.

On each successive occasion, she placed the animal a little closer to the boy as he ate.

Eventually, Peter was willing to touch and even play with the rabbit.

Describe Behaviorism and American Life.

The pragmatic nature of the United States, and with functionalists having paved the road, the first wave of behaviourism came in like the tide. The behavioural revolution swept American psychology through the second decade of the 20th century.

Behaviourism rejected the notion that psychology was the study of the mind and redefined psychology as a science of behaviour. John Watson successfully led this revolution.

Psychologists of that time period felt insecure about the status of psychology: Was it a social science or a natural science? Watson’s answer was that psychology could be a natural science, but only if it focused on observable behaviour rather than subjective measures and introspection.