what were the results from Thorndike’s puzzle box experiment??
what is the law of effect?
behaviour that leads to a positive outcome is more likely to occur in the future
what is the law of exercise?
connections between responses and outcomes are strengthened by repetition
what is the law of readiness?
learning is motivated by an internal state
what is response-outcome learning?
associations between response/behaviour and outcome
what is learning of adaptive behaviour?
learning through experience of success and failure (trial and error learning)
what is a reinforcer?
a stimulus/event that increases the likelihood of the preceding behaviour to occur
what is a positive reinforcer?
stimulus (usually positive) produced by the behaviour that increases the likelihood of the preceding behaviour to occur
what is a negative reinforcer?
Stimulus (usually negative) eliminated by the behaviour that increases the likelihood of the preceding behaviour to occur
what is a punishment?
Negative stimulus/event that decreases the likelihood of the preceding behaviour to occur
what is omission?
Elimination of positive reinforcer decreases the likelihood of preceding behaviour
what is a reinforcement schedule?
a rule that dictates when a reward is given
what are the two types of reinforcement?
continuous reinforcement: each behavioural response is reinforced
partial reinforcement: behaviour is reinforced only part of the time
what is a ratio schedule?
reinforcement is given after every nth response
fixed = response is always constant
variable = response requirement varies around the average
what is an interval schedule?
reinforcement is given after a certain amount of time
fixed = reward intervals are constant
interval = reward interval varies around mean time
what are the principles of associative learning?
Learning through reinforcement
Association by contiguity
Co-occurrence in space and time
Arbitrariness
We can learn associations between any stimuli and between any response and outcome
Empty organism
Organism is black box – collection of associations
Passive organism
Learning happens TO the organism
what is taste aversion learning?
a learned association between the taste of a food and illness
(causes subject to avoid eating that food)
describe Garcia and Koelling’s (1966) taste aversion learning study
created a compound conditioned stimulus (bright, noisy + sweetened water)
the unconditioned stimulus was wither a mild foot shock (immediate discomfort) (group 1) or X-rays (delayed illness) (group 2)
split the conditioned stimulus into two (bright/noisy water and sweetened water)
what were the results of Garcia and Koelling’s (1966) taste aversion learning study?
the rats that were made ill avoided the sweet water
the rats that received a shock avoided the bright/noisy water
describe Tolman’s Latent learning effect study
had rats try to complete a maze
some received food rewards (always reinforced), others didn’t (never reinforced) and some given were rewarded after day 10
the group that was always reinforced learnt faster and made fewer mistakes by day 17
however learning occurred at a faster rate in the group receiving a delayed reward (learning was ‘dormant’)