Psyc LEARNING

Positive Reinforcement

Lil Jerry throws a tantrum in the store, Mom buys him a candy car. Mom just positively reinforced bad behavior.

Negative Reinforcement

You remove something unpleasant → behavior increases

Car makes a loud, annoying sound until you buckle your seatbelt.

Escape Training (Negative Reinforcement)

Unpleasant stimulus is already happening, and a behavior removes it

Dog is shocked → Jumps to the other side → Shock stops

Avoidance Training

Behavior happens before the unpleasant event and prevents it.

Dog sees light that predicts shock → jumps before shock

Conditioned Reinforcers

A stimulus that is reinforcing b/c of prior learning

Ex. Money because you work very hard for it because you can trade it for other things that has values

Punishment

Decreases the likelihood of responding in a similar way

Positive Punishment

Decreases the chance response will occur again

Lil Jerry throws a tantrum → mom gives him a spanking

Negative Punishment

Removal of something pleasant, something good is taken away → decreases the response

Teen breaks curfew → Parents take away the car → teen stops breaking curfew

Observational Learning

Learning by watching others

Vicarious Reinforcement

Seeing someone rewarded makes you more likely to copy

Vicarious Punishment

Seeing someone punished makes you avoid the behavior

Modeling

Natural tendency to imitate

Bandura’s Bobo doll: Kids imitate aggression they observe

Split Brain

Corpus Callosum Cut; Hemispheres can’t communicate at all

Visual Neglect

Right Parietal damage → ignore left side of space

Shaping (Successive Approximation)

teaching a new behavior by reinforcing small steps to get the final desired behavior

Continuous Reinforcement

Reinforce every correct response → but extinguishes quickly

Partial Reinforcement

Reinforces some responses, takes longer to learn but behavior persists.

Taste Aversion

You eat cupcakes → get sick hours laters → years later you still avoid cupcakes

Conditioned Inhibition

You learn NOT to respond when a certain cue is present

When dad watches the Giants, you know not to bother him

Operant Conditioning (Instrumental Conditioning)

Learning the consequences of voluntary behavior and rules about interacting with the environment

ex. If i do X, Y happens

Law of Effect (Thorndike)

behaviors followed by satisfying outcomes are strengthened

behaviors followed by unsatisfying outcomes are weakened.

Habituation

Decrease in responding to a neutral repeated stimulus

ex. Fuzziness on Slippers → you stop noticing it

Desensitization

Decreases in responding to a stimulus you were sensitive to.

ex. Hot bath feels less hot after a minute

Sensitization

Increases in responsiveness to a repeated stimulus

ex. pen clicking becomes more annoying each time

Generalization (Assimilation)

SAME response to SIMILAR stimuli

ex. Little Albert feared white rats, then feared cotton balls, rabbits, santa beards

Discrimination (Accommodation)

DIFFERENT responses to DIFFERENT stimuli

ex. You avoid cupcakes after getting sick, but still eat cookies

Unconditioned Stimulus

Something that naturally triggers a response

ex. Jump Scare scene in a movie

Unconditioned Response (UR)

Natural, automatic reaction

ex. Fear/Startle response

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

A neutral stimulus that becomes meaningful through learning

ex. Creepy violin sound (At first means nothing but pairing with jump scare, it predicts danger)

Conditioned Response (CR)

The learned reaction to the CS.

ex. Feeling scared when you hear the violin sound

Hebb Rule

Two neurons that are fired around the same time consistently will continue to fire together