Psychology Brain And Mind Week 6 - Learning

Origin Of Instincts/Reflexes

Innate/unlearned behaviours that organisms are born with

Reflexes

Motor or neural reaction to a specific stimuli

Instincts

innate behaviors triggered by a broader range of events

• More complex

Learning

relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge that results from experience

• Aquire knowledge through experience

Classical Conditioning

Organisms learn to associate events - or stimuli - that repeatedly happen together

• Pavlov dogs

Pavlov Dogs Explained

• showed dogs food and rang bell, and dogs associated food with bell

• The food is an unconditioned stimulus

• Salivation is an unconditioned response

• Sound of bell is neutral stimulus, but becomes conditioned stimulus

Operant Conditioning

Organisms learn to associate events - a behavior and its consequences

• Positive consequence encourages a behavior

• Punishment deters a behavior

Operant Conditioning Factors/Structure

• Reinforcement: Make it more likely to happen again

• Punishment: Make it less likely to happen again

• Positive: Addition of stimulus

• Negative: Removal of stimulus

Observational Learning

Aquiring or changing a behavior to another individual after exposure to another individual performing that behavior

• Mimicking someone basically

Psychodynamic Approach

Unconscious mental processes are the primary determinants of behaviour

• Introspection, examining ones own mental and emotional processes

Behaviorist Approach

Environment and its associated effects on animals are determinants of behavior

• Observable behavior as the only indictaor of psychological activity

Non-Associative Learning

Characterized by change in behavioural response to novel stimulus after repeated/continuous exposure to that stimulus

Associative Learning

Learning centers around the relationship between two pieces of information

• Classical and operant conditioning

Habituation

Decrease in behavioural response after repeated exposure to a stimulus

• Reduction in neurotransmitter release

Dishabituation

Increases response due to a change in a familiar stimulus

Sensitizations

Increase in behavioral response to exposure to a stimulus

• Threatening/potentially dangerous stimulus

• heightened response to stimulus

• increase in neurotransmitter release

Aplysia: Gill Withdrawal Reflect

• Habitutal: Magitude of response decreases with repeated stimulation

• Spontaneous recovery: With time, response to the stimulus can recover

• Short-term habituation

• Long-term habituation: If stimulus is repeated over several days, amount of spontaneous recovery diminishes

• Sensitization: Tail shock enhances gill withdrawal reflex

Acquisition

Condition stimulus and unconditioned stimulus leads to an increase in learning

• Conditioned stimulus leads to the conditioned response

Extinction

If the conditioned stimulus is produced within the unconditioned stimulus, eventually the conditioned response extinguished

Spontaneous Recovery

After a 24 hour rest, if the conditioned stimulus s presented alone, it will produce a weak controlled response

• The conditioned response gets weaker and weaker and eventually extinguish if the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly exposed alone

Second Order Conditioning

Once association between conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus is well learned, the conditioned stimulus itself can take on value

• Now conditioned stimulus has value, meaning other stimuli may become associated with conditioned stimulus and produce conditioned response

Stimulus Generalizations

Occurs when stimuli that are similar but not identical to the conditioned stimulus produce the conditioned response

• Adaptive

Stimulus Discrimination

When animal can learn to differentiate between similar stimulus when one stimulus is consistently paired with the unconditioned stimulus, but other stimulus are not

Law Of Effect

Responses that produce satisfying effects in certain situations lead to that response being more likely to occur again in that situation, with the vice versa being evident too

What Does Reinforcement Lead To?

Leads to a behavior being more likely to occur

• Good things bring about desired result

Shaping

Process of reinforcing behaviours that are increasingly similar to desired behaviour

Primary Reinforcers

Satisfy biological needs

• adaptive

Secondary Reinforcers

Associated with primary reinforcers through classical conditioning

Positive Reinforcement

Administration of stimulus to increase probability of behaviour being repeated

Negative Reinforcement

Removal of unpleasant stimulus to increase probability of behaviour being repeated

Continuous Reinforcement

Behavior is always reinforced

Fixed Interval Reinforcement

Reward is given at a fixed time consistently

• Every 30 seconds, a reward is given

Variable Interval Reinforcement

Reward is given at random times and inconsistently

• reward is given at 30 seconds, then 20, then 70

Fixed Ratio Reinforcement

Reward is provided after an animal does a certain behavior a certain amount of times

• reward given after behavior is done 5 times

Variable Ratio Reinforcement

reward is provided after a behavior is done a certain amount of time, however the amount of times a behavior occurs changes

• behaior happens 5 times, then 3 times, then 7 times

Positive Punishment

Reduced probability of behaviour through application of unpleasant stimulus

Negative Punishment

Reduced probability of behaviour through removal of pleasant stimulus

Modelling

Imitation of observed behavior

• More likely to imitate attractive individuals

• often implicit

• Only effective if behavior can be imitated

Vicarious Learning

Whether behavior from model is being reinforced

• Learn by watching others be rewarded or punished for the behavior