Learning and Memory II

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 *n*th 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’)