Learning Test 1

girl study

History

frames our understanding of the present

Past learning can interfere with ____ learning

FUTURE

Learning: taking something in to ______ your _______ behavior

CHANGE, FUTURE

Learning is active or passive?

BOTH

Learning is ____ and ______ for survival

BIOLOGICAL, NECESSARY

we must learn to make/withhold responses

ex: kids learn not to touch a burning sparkler, stove, things that are hot etc. through learning

learning can occur without _______

CONSCIOUS AWARENESS:

ex: having reactions to smells (can bring back a memory of something or remind you of a person - not an active process)

Active vs. Passive

running to hug grandma:

active —> mom says “go run and hug grandma”

passive —> they just do it

Aristotle’s 3 Principles for Establishment of Association —>

Contiguity

close in TIME AND SPACE

ex: if you see lightning and then hear thunder you are likely to associate the two

Similarity

common look- generalization

• both dogs

Contrast

perceived DIFFERENCE- discrimination

• two different breeds of dogs

Nativism

we are born with innate ideas

• Our ideas of God, of eternal truths, and of true and immutable natures (such as mathematical concepts) are innate. They may be dormant but they are present from birth 

All born to understand what a triangle is (shape with 3 corners)- when you go to class it unlocks the ability for you to know what a triangle is 

Nativism examples

• we have some innate fears

• everyone who did not develop a fear of heights —> fell off the cliff (d*ed )

• born with the ability to sleep

• born with certain brains + neurons connected/not connected

Righting Reflex

INNATE

when a mouse/cat is dropped from a distance from the ground on their backs they will turn and land on their feet (an innate reaction that restores an upright position when displaced, tilted or falling)

BUTTTTTT

if the mouse baby was born in space the innate-ness of the righting reflex goes away

SOOOO….

this suggests we consider these things innate behaviors because we DONT know WHAT is CAUSING them

Babinski reflex

If you touch upward on thier feet they will spread out their toes

Empiricism

mind gradually fills with ideas and information when a person senses the world around them

• mind starts as a clean slate (tabula rasa)

Some learned behaviors:

• most mannerims

• social/ cultural boundary (personal space)

Sensory Processing Systems

• sight

• touch

• hearing

• taste

• introception

• proprioception

• vestibular

• smell

Distinction between VOLUNTARY and INVOLUNTARY behavior

believed voluntary behavior is controlled by the mind BUTTTT

• believed the mind operated predictably, like a reflex

Voluntary behavior is governed by the principle of ______

HEDONISM

• pursuing pleasure and avoiding pain

• thomas hobbes

• a drive to feel good + a drive to NOT feel bad

(do thin you like, not do things you don’t)

• people sometimes do nice things because THEY feel good about it

Fastest way we learn?

AVOIDING something that SUCKS and MAXIMIZING something that is GOOD

Learning from Brain —> Muscles

sensory info (from sense organs)—> central nervous system

motor info (from central nervous system) —> muscles (think m,m)

Injury: if SENSORY NERVE cut, animal is capable of _____

MUSCLE MOVEMENT

Injury: If MOTOR NERVE cut, animal is capable of ______

registering sensory info

SECHENOV: Nuancing Stimulus and Response

Stimuli DO NOT elicit responses directly in ALL CASES

(stimulus can release a response from inhibition)

BASICALLY SAYING:

• reflexes are more COMPLICATED than stimulus → response

• brain can facilitate or suppress a reflex

• whether a response occurs depends on what is happening in the nervous system

Inhibition

response intensity does not always depend on stimulus intensity (example: violent sneeze with little dust)

Pavlov (omg)

BEFORE CONDITIONING:

Unconditioned stimulus: food

unconditioned response: salivation

neutral stimulus: bell (dog has not made the association yet)

no response: dog does nothing

DURING CONDITIONING:
food+ bell presented together and the dog salivates → but that is still an unconditioned response

AFTER CONDITIONING:

conditioned stimulus: ringing the bell

conditioned response: salivating in response to JUST the bell

PAVLOV conditioning shows ________

NOT ALL REFLEXES ARE INNATE

• new ones can be learned through ASSOCIATION

New reflexes to stimuli can be established through mechanisms of ______

ASSOCIATION

Modern Behavior theory built on the concept of

STIMULUS RESPONSE (S-R)

Idea→ whatever you learn is association (just associating two things together)

EX: School → cranky → alarm clock → school → alarm clock → cranky

What else can change behavior WITHOUT LEARNING

• environment

• being on a drug (changes internal environment)

• moods/ emotions (if you are happy you will want to go to class, if you are fighting w a bf you will not want to go)

• *GROWING (height) → when you are close to the ground you are willing to do things on the ground (kids sit on the ground more than adults), when you ski little kids are more willing to fall (they are smaller + force you experience is different)

• vision (probability of driving at night decreases as you age)

Learning helps animals ___ and ____

ADAPT TO THEIR ENVIRONMENT + SURVIVE

Darwin: animal human connection

some human behaviors (like reflexes) are ANIMAL LIKE

why → evolution duh

• We use/feel we can use animal models because there is an underlying belief we are evolutionarily descended from certain animals (similar bones, neural pathways, etc.)

Learning is ____ and primarily conducted in _____

EXPERIMENTAL, LAB

Not knowing behavior → training session → test you to see how well you perform

• Can be done over and over again

The context in which you learn things ____

MATTERS

Ex:

Control group gets taught in this classroom + retested here (DOES BETTER)

Experimental: gets taught in this classroom + takes exam in the grass (more distractions + not used to the environment)

Investigating Learning

we focus a lot on the whole organism

Learning is

AMBIGUOUS

****LEARNING (her definition)

the process of acquiring sensory information and updating yourself with that information

Thorndike: How many ways do we learn?

Scientists assume “universal” laws of association are responsible for learning, but….

• There is diversity of stimuli /responses

• Different animals may learn more quickly/slowly (learning rate)

General Process Approach to Learning about Learning

Need for “standard” experimental paradigms

ex: skinner box

Necessity of Animal Research

Research with nonhuman animals provides ways to better understand learning and our human behaviors

ex: anxiety disorders, autism, durg abuse

• animals useful to test pharmaceuticals

BUTTTT… drawing inferences about human behavior from animal research can be incorrect and ethically controversial

• Mice have maternal behaviors but a lot of mice also eat their babies….

Wild mice and lab mice are _____

NOT THE SAME

• we see behaviors that might not always occur in the wild because they are in an artificial environment

• We control everything about their existence  → they both do/stop doing things they would do in the wild in a cage

• Rat cage opened (lab)→ the rat just sat there and didn't run

also, must understand what is evolutionarily preserved

• things can look the same and not be the same thing

Three R’s of Animal Research

REDUCE → reduce the number of animals used

REFINE → refine tests to cause animals less stress

REPLACE → replace animal studies with other methods

Is animal research necessary?

Why don't we just do research on humans:

• Might be unethical 

• We change our behavior when we are being observed 

• Time (lifetime): can study animals throughout their lifetime (shorter than human lifetime)

• Its dangerous (if we are not sure if a drug is dangerous we start with an animal not a human) 

Differences in life history (mice have had the same food/living conditions/number of parents, some labs control the number of siblings, temp)

Differences in valuation of rewards 

• (if we did the drooling study with pizza, and someone doesn’t like pizza, they will likely not drool)

• valuation of money decreases as you get older ( $20 undergrad example)

• a kid vs. adult wanting chocolate (has different meaning) 

Too many variables 

Can be hard to parse out what is a result of experience and what generalizable principles 

What do we use animal research for?

• To make something safe

• To be able to study human behavior without studying humans

• Makeup testing

scientists assume ____ laws of _____

UNIVERSAL, ASSOCIATION

stimuli, response

stimuli: anything that is sensed

response: behavior

Chapter 2

Elicited Behavior, Habituation and Sensitization

Philosophy vs. Science

Philosophy- not falsifiable (cannot be wrong)

Science - falsifiable

Hedonism is ____

PHILOSOPHY

Philosophy is usually _____ true and very hard to ____

UNIVERSALLY, DISPROVE

Theory of Falsification

• A theory or claim is only scientific if its falsifiable (it can be proven wrong) 

• Karl Popper: theory of falsification (he HATED freud): “you ever hate someone so much you redefine science just to rule their theory invalid”, LOVED einstein

• For your hypothesis to be scientific you must be able to design an experiment that would disprove it

  • If your hypothesis is untestable, it is not science, it is philosophy (sorry freud)

stimuli

any change or signal in an environment (inside or outside the body) that causes a living thing to react

whether its visual, emotional, environmental, auditory, olfactory, operant conditioning, gustatory stimuli, classical conditioning, tactile

Stimuli+Behavior: Elicited Behavior

an AUTOMATIC, INVOLUNTARY reaction that occurs as a direct response to a specific environmental stimulus

**** UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE

ex: baby drooling, being surprised, a child feeling happy in response to eating ice cream

an UNCONDITIONED STIMULI causes an

UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE

Some unconditioned responses may be categorized as innate or reflexive behaviors

Learned vs. Innate Behaviors

learned → sitting still in a classroom and being quiet is a CONDITIONED behavior (it is something we learn to do

innate → sleeping

Innate behaviors/reflexes are _________to the population

GENERALIZABLE

Is sleeping at on your desk at school learned or innate?

IT DEPENDS

innate IF → you are reallllyyy sleepy and you cannot stay awake you will fall asleep

learned IF → it is comfy enough and it passes time in a boring class BUT you are not super sleepy

reflexes

involve an incoming sensory stimulus and corresponding linked motor response

INNNATE BEHAVIORS!!!!

ex: startle reflex → you don’t have to think about being scared to jump at a loud noise (it is sort of automatic)

suckling → if you put anything in a baby’s mouth they will do this

righting reflex → from a heigh enough height if you drop a cat, they will flip and land on their feet

Vestibular System → allows you to ___

SENSE

• turning

• rotation of the head

• gravity

• straight-line movement

ex: allows you to maintain looking at an object with your eyes when you move your head

What is a common symptom associated with vestibular system dysfunction?

VERTIGO → A sudden sensation that you are moving

• Something in the outside is moving (triggers sensation you are moving)

• Neurons are creating the sensation you are moving (by UNCONDITIONED stimulus)

• UNCONDITIONED response

• Your body is triggering the sensation without the stimulus (sensation of motion without external stimuli 

Vestibular Ocular Reflex

keeping your eyes on an object when your head moves

Vestibular Responses + Space!

testing hypothesis that the absence of earth-normal gravity stimulus during the prenatal period would “unload” or reduce input to the fetuses developing vestibular systems

• is gravity actually a stimulus that is allowing us to learn these reflexes?

• would we have reflexes without gravity ????

group 1 FLIGHT→ pregnant mother sent to space (eliminates gravity), everything else is the exact same but of course there are other variables including; air pressure, weight, atmosphere, stress of going up in space

group 2 SYNCHRONOUS CONTROL→ mice on earth being put in similar conditions as the mice up in space (no exposure to launch/spaceflight), in orbital environment simulator chamber

group 3 VIVARIUM CONTROL → mice on earth in a typical lab environment

mice are put in a water aversion test!!!! → meaning the mice are put upside down in water (we are testing the righting reflex here as the mice should land on his feet at the bottom)

RESULTS:

Day 1: flight group does the worst (less of the mice have the reflex)

Day 3: 2 controls equal, flight less

Day 5: they can all do it

Gravity does affect ability for reflexes, but ONLY in the first few days!!!!

Bracket means they compared groups and in both cases they were significant (they did flight vs. synchronous and flight vs. vivarium)m→ we understand these groups to be statistically the same

 *= statistically significant

• here you can see how all the rats preformed the same on day 5 (100%)

“Contact righting”

a table/solid surface (instead of water in this case)

• Flight: did well

• Synchronous: did the worst 

• Vivarium: did well 

• Flight + vivarium did it the same amount

Why are the flight mice able to do the reflex on the table vs. the water?

What other stimuli can provide sensory cues for invoking reflexes?

• They can feel the table under their body (tactile cues)

• EASIER TO DO ON TABLE

Does elicited response, particularly a simple reflex response, automatically occur the same way each time the eliciting stimulus is presented?

NOOOOO!!!!

Behavior is not invariant and can be modified 

• Some reflexes can be heightened/lessened

Reflexes are _____ in short term, but in long term will _____

MALLEABLE, REEMERGE

Withdrawal Reflex

• If you step on/ touch something that is painful/unexpected 

• Some instances it does not occur 

• Most “trainable”/ cognitively shape 

• You can disengage this reflex (ex: startle reflex is incredibly hard to disengage)

Questions to think about

Do you ever not react?

• You usually will still have some type of motor sensation, sometimes cognitive input can shape/ kinda stop the reflex 

Are reflexes always all or nothing?

• nope!

Do reflexes have to happen every time?

• ehhh, maybe not!

habituation

when your mind tunes out certain stimuli so you can focus on other, presumable more important stimuli (body got tired of responding, stimulus not important)

ex: on a long drive you will pay more attention to the turns in the road + other cars than the power lines on the side

more exposure to a stimulus → the less of that behavior you will observe (like hearing that loud sound over and over, startling less)

less neural activity → less behaviors

why we WANT habituation

• energy conservation

• the stimulus loses meaning (for a period of time)

Sensitization

when your mind specifically targets stimui that it deems more important and makes you pay more attention to

ex: a ball flying toward your head will cause a stronger reaction than the color of the trees around you

• like HEY LOOK AT ME!!!! type of stimulus

Stimulus Response CURVES

*not linear bro

why? → Something is happening in the world so the reflexive behavior caused by the stimulus is greater than it would have been without that other thing present

ex: you are more likely to jump at a loud noise after watching a scary movie

STIMULUS RESPONSE CURVES:

• ****Sensitization takes normal curve and shifts it LEFT

• ****Habituation does the opposite and shifts it to the RIGHT (has to be more intense to cause the same neural response) 

more intense stimuli → more neural response

Habituation and sensitization shifts your response curve

Ex: putting your foot on something dull vs. sharp → sharp is more of a stimulus (it hurts more), further to the right and the dull would be further to the left 

Dull does not FEEL as painful (does not activate as many nerves)

Salivation and Hedonic ratings of taste in People

• First bite YUMMMMMM, second bite: still good but not as good, when you are eventually SUPER full the chinese food does NOT taste as good 

• You were HABITUATING to the food

Habituation Effect

decline in responding that occurs with repeated presentation

• stimulus SPECIFIC

Visual Attention in Human Infants

• babies have longer attention spans when staring at a more complex/interesting stimuli

• stimuli magnitude effects behavioral response

individuals can ______ to a stimulus

HABITUATE

The Startle Response + Habituation

defensive reaction to a potential attack (like someone blowing a loud whistle behind your back , you are likely to jump)

• with repeated startling stimuli (whistle), the startle response will progressively GO DOWN, however there will STILL be a RESPONSE

• startle does not ALWAYS decrease from tone to tone (mostly downward slope though)

Tone very 30 mins

Tone very 1 minute

• Initial reaction is the same because it is their first time hearing the sound -

• Less of a reaction each time you hear the sounds

•  If you played the sound a week later it would be similar/the same as the initial reaction 

Habituation does NOT last forever, there is __________

SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY→ wait for period of time before presenting the startling stimuli again, startle response returns 

*Repeated presentations of a stimulus do not always result in both long-term and short-term habituation effects

It is hard to habituate

• reflex where your leg moves when you hit your knee

Sensitization Effect

Sensitization Effect: already aroused? The same eliciting stimulus will trigger a much stronger reaction (ex: hearing a loud noise when alone and scared at night in the dark)

• involved in our modern understanding of behavioral states

Pleiotropic Effects

changes many different traits or parts of the body at the same time (don't memorize this) idk if this needs to be on here lol

• When you are hungry you are more likely to actually search for food, salivate, less likely to focus, 

• When you are hungry the probability of you to do a behavior changes 

Habituation vs. Sensory Adaptation + Response Fatigue

not all instances where repetitious stimuli result in response decline are due to habituation

Sensory Adaptation

when the sense organs become temporarily disabled due to stimuli overload

ex: you are temporarily deafened by a particularly loud noise

Response Fatigue

when sensory receptors won’t receive stimuli because they are fatigued

ex: when taking a super long exam, you might do badly because your mind becomes fatigued and fails to focus on the questions

Why don't you feel your t-shirt?

• You didn't habituate to your shirt you are just not responding as much 

• Its about the way your cells work, no the stimulus

The Dual- Process Theory of Habituation and Sensitization

assumes different types of underlying neural processes are responsible for increases and decreases in responsiveness to stimulation

Habituation and Sensitization are NOT __________

MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE

• they can happen at the SAME TIME !!!!!

all habituation and sensitization effects are the sum result of both habituation and sensitization processes

Habituation Processes

assumed to occur in the S-R (Stimuli - Response) system and are activated every time eliciting stimuli are produced

Sensitization Processes

assumed to occur in the state system, which activates only in presence of arousing stimuli (CONTEXT)

habituation is ______ specific while sensitization is not highly ____ specfic

STIMULUS

Opponent Process Theory of Motivation

• biphasic emotional reaction

• weakened primary reactions to repeated stimulations

• weakening of primary reaction with repetition accompanied by strengthening of after-reaction

certain mechanisms in pace to keep us at emotional homeostasis

presentation of an emotional arousing stimulus will initially elicit Process A (primary process), Process A elicits Process B (opposite reaction)

previous slide

Emotional Reactions + Aftereffects

Intense emotional reactions can be biphasic: one emotion during the eliciting stimulus and the opposite emotion when the stimulus is terminated

Ex: drinking vodka makes you mellow that night. Drinking lots of vodka makes you irritable the next day 

Emotional reactions change with experience: primary reaction becomes weaker and after-reaction becomes stronger

Modal Action Patterns (MAP)

Response sequences typical of a particular species

Many stimuli will elicit different responses from different organisms 

Ex: chicks peck a red patch near the tip of the parent’s bill, causing the parent to regurgitate food for them

Sign Stimulus :Eliciting Stimuli for Modal Action Patterns

specific stimulus that elicits certain response 

Ex: when chicks peck at their parents’ beak to get them to regurgitate, the long, moving object with a contrasting red spot near the tip is the sign stimulus

Supernormal Stimulus :Eliciting Stimuli for Modal Action Patterns

exaggerated stimulus used to cause extremely vigorous response

Ex: foods with high levels of sugar and fat cause humans to have much higher rates of salivation and craving than normal food

Sequential Organization of Behavior

The Sequential Organization of Behavior:

Appetitive Behavior: early components of behavior sequence

Example: squirrel finding a pecan tree, finding a nut, and cracking it open

Consummatory Behavior: end components of behavior sequence

Example: squirrel chews the nut and swallows it

Appetitive behavior is used to bring the organism into contact with the stimuli that will trigger the consummatory behavior

Can group by general search mode, focal search mode and food handling and ingestion mode