PSYC100-Module 9

Explain the process of classical conditioning

- A US (uconditional stimulus) cause a UR (unconditional response) 
- A neutral stimulus (NS) is repeatdly paired with the US 
- When NS and US stimulus are paired long enough and repeatdly, the NS stimlus ON ITS OWN, WITHOUT THE US, causes the UR 
- AT THIS POINT, when the NS causes the UR, this happens

• NS becomes the CS

• UR becomes the CR (condition response)

- The neutral stimulus mut be presented very shortly before, or stimultaneously with the US

Example 

• Food (US) causes savlivation (UR) in dogs 

• A bell (NS) doesn't cause salvation 

• The bell (NS) is repeatdly paired with food (US)

• Overtime, the bell (NS), without the food being present (US) causes the dog to salivate (UR)

• So the dog begins to salivate at the sound of a bell 

• At this point, the NS becomes a CS and the previous UR is now a CR

Example for aversions 

• Fish is a NS (neutral stimulus) - no particular response

• You get sick unconditioned stimulus (US) 

• You get upset (UR) from being sick (because being sick makes you upset)

• Next time when presented with fish (becuase you got sick last time) it makes you upset, so now the fish is a CS and being upset is a CR

What  is negative punishment?

- Negative - take away 
- Punishment - decrease the behaviour 
- Taking away something good to decrease the liklihood of that behaviour 
- Examples 

• Grounding (taking away something good - going out) 

• Fine (taking away something good - money) 

What are some application of operant conditioning?

- Shaping 
- Chaining
- Punishment 

What are the cognitive social approaches to learning?

- Focuses more on complex forms of learning, that relies on mental process, mental activity rather than just behaviours 
- Learning is impacted by 

• Nature of the stimulus 

• Epectations of stimulus 

• Meaning we attach to events

- Latent learning
- Learned helpleness 
- Social learning 

• Observational learning 

• Modelling 

• Vicarious conditiong 

• tutelage 

What are the different approaches to learning?

- Follows the presmise that learning comes from the stimulus resposne pattern 
- Types of behavioural approaches to learning includes 

• Classical conditioning 

• Operant Conditioning 

- Social cogntive approaches to learnin includes 

• Modelling 

• Oberservational learning 

• Latent learning 

• Tutelage

What are the problems with punishment?

- Can lead to negative effects

• Agression, anger, apthy 

• Supression all behaviours, good or bad rather than just the target behaviour 

• Punishment programmes need constant monoritiring - not practical 

• Escape: the punisment is not adervise, rather have a punishment than do the task. Not a true punishment, may be a reinforcement 

• Ethical implications, abuse

What are the schedules of reinforcement?

-Schdeules of reinforcement refers to when and why reinforcement is given
There are two types (interval and ratio) which can be presented after different periods of time (fixed and ratio)
-  Interval- time

• Fixed interval 

• Variable interval  

- Ratio - behaviour

• Fixed ratio

• Variable ratio

What is a ratio schedule?

- Reinforcement is given after a certain number of RESPONSES are shown 
- Can be given in different incraments 

• Fixed - after a set nubmer of response

• Varaible - number of responses need for reinforces VARIES 

- Fixed ratio schedule: a FIXED/SET number of response must occur before reinforcement may recur

• After doing 5 push ups, getting a drink of water

• Advantage: Rapid responding, high rate of response

• Disadvantage: Burnout, 

- Variable ratio schedule: The NUMBER of RESPONSE that must occur for reinfocement VARIES 

• After doing 10 push up get water, after 55 push ups get water

• Advantage: High rate of response, that is consistent, resistent to extinction

• Disadvantage: Hard to stop when behaviour is undesirable (e.g gambling)

What is a unconditioned response?

- The innate response made by the unconditioned stimulus

What is a unconditioned stimulus?

- A stimulus that naturally produces and innate response 

What is blocking?

- Based on how likely the subject is to notice a NEW CS if another is already present
- Won't develop a cr to a new cs that is paried with the original cs 
- When a new stilimus is introduced alongside the cs, and it won't cause a response or cr 
- So if albert is scared of the white rat, and a bell is introduced, the bell won't cause the cr because the white rat already did that 
- That bell doesn't add any new information, that white rat provides all the information needed

- locking happens when you then introduce a new stimulus (like a flashing light) and present it at the same time as the original sound (the bell), just before the food.

Even though the new stimulus (the light) is also present before the food, you are unlikely to learn to react to the light on its own

What is chaining?

- An application of operant conditioning 
- For more complex tasks 
- Process of chaining is as follows

•  In task analysis, identify the indivudal steps of the task 

• Break down the individual steps 

• Taught through backwards chaining, forwards chaining, total/whole task 

- Backwards chaining 

• Steps 1-4 have aid, but individual tries step 5 on their own. Step 5 Reinforced 

• Next time, steps 1-3 have aid, but ndividua tries step 4 and 5 own. Step 4 and 5 reinforced 

• The process continues 

- Forwards chaining 

• Start at the begining, do step 1 on your own, help with the rest of the steps, and so on like in backward chaining

- Total/whole task 

• Whole task is taught in one go and reinforced at each step 

What is classical conditioning?

- A behavioural aproach to learning 
- A associative type of learning 
- Pioneered by Pavlov
- Classical conditioning is when innate reactions can be paried with neutral stimuli, to produced learned responses (a UR is oaired with an NS to produce an CR
- Organism learns to assocate a relationship between two different stimuli

- The components to classical conditioning includes 

• Unconditioned stmulus 

• Unconditioned response

• Neutral stimulus 

• Conditioned stimulus 

• Conditioned response

What is extinction?

- When CS is no longer paired with that inital US
- Conditioned assocations decay over time 
- When the CS is presented repeatedly without the US, the conditioned association is rapidly ‘unlearned’/contra-learned
- Learning that that CS is not longer associated with US

What is habituation?

- Decrease in response to unchanging stimuli over time 
- The longer a stimulus remains the uncaghanged, the less of a response 
- Habituation is the simplest way of learning 
- You hear the air conditioner in the room when you walk in, because the sound doesn't change after a few minutes you get usde to it and no longer have a response (bieng used it)
- Explains durg tolerance, or any tolerance

What is interval schedule of reinforcement?

- Reinforcement given after a set of time 
- Interval - think time 
- There are two timing methods 

• Fixed 

• Varied 

- Fixed interval schedules: The target response is reinforced after a FIXED/SET amount of TIME has passed in the last reinforcement 

• Every 30 minutes of studying, get a chocolate

• Advantage: Steady response rate

• Disadvantage: Responses can be non-constant, or an uneven rate, behaviour likely to cluster near the end of the interval

- Varied interveral schedules: The amount of TIME that passes between reinforcement VARIES unpredictably 

• After an 1 get a chocolate, then after 15 minutes of studying get a chocolate, then after 12 hours get a chocolate

• Advantage: More effective than FI, consitent performance

• Disadvantage: Doesn't produce the highest rate of performance

What is latent inhibition?

- Prior experience with a stimulus as being neutral (not predicting anything important) makes it harder to learn to associate that stimulus with something else later on

- Have a neurtal experience with the NS, makes it harder to condition that stimulus to provke a different type of response
- Classical conditioning works best on new neutral stimuli, not experinced before
- CS stimuli that have been presented without pairing before are difficult to subsequently pair with new things

- Familiar with cs (ns) it becomes harder to pair and cause cr

What is latent learning?

- Latent - gives a hint, learning comes a bit later, present a bit later 
- Looks at motivation and reinforcement 
- Learning occurs even when its not immediately shown in behaviour 

• Cognitive maps are generated/ learning occurs, even without reinforcement, but shown in behaviour with reinforcement

What is learned helplessness?

- A type of social-cognitive learning 
- Learned helplessness consists of the expectancy that one cannot escape aversive events and the motivational and learning deficits that result from this belief
-In simpler terms, it's when an organism (human or animal) learns, through repeated exposure to uncontrollable negative experiences, that their actions are ineffective in changing the outcome. This leads them to essentially "give up" and fail to try escaping aversive situations even when escape becomes possible
- Here is a breakdown 

• A negatve response is repeatly experienced with no way of controlling the outcome 

• However, when there is a possibility of controlling the outcome through action, they take no action because they believe there is no escape of the negative outcome, they give up, and don;t try and escape despite there being an option to do so

- Explain pessimistic exlanatory style

What is learning?

- Learning is a relativley permanent change in behaviour and understadning due to EXPERIENCE 
- Learing can have biological changes to the nervous system due to experience, which intuen will impact ow you will react to similuar exeriences in the furture 
- Evolutionary thought 

• Past shapes the present 

• Natural selection: produces innate behaviours over generations 

• But there is a MAJOR questions? How are we adapting/survising with modern present day challenges i.e techonology, if not present in the past

- Behvaourist 

• Learning is explained through the stimulus response model 

• From bais relfexs or responses to stimuli, we learn these behaviours

What is modelling?

- A type of social learning 
- Learnng new behavours by the copying the movements/actions of others

What is negative reinforcement?

- Negative - to take away 
- Reinforcement - to increase the likelihood of behaviour 
- Take something bad away to increase the likelihood behaviour 
Examples 

• Giving pain killers - taking pain killers to take away the pain 

• Stop nagging - do what mum says so she stops nagging (bad)

What is observational learning?

- A type of social learning 
- observational learning is a significant form of social learning where an individual learns by observing the behaviour of others. This learning can occur with or without reinforcement
- There are four basic processes for obersvational learning 

• Cogntive: Attention adn retention of the response 

• Ability: Are physcially and mentally able to observe and do the behaviour 

• Motivated: Are motivated to do the behaviour

What is operant conditioning?

- A associative, behavioual learning approach 
- Pioneered by Thorndike and B.F Skinner 
- Explain voluntary actions - we do or not do certain behaviours 
- Based on the conscpers that we are more likely to repeat actions with good conscequences, and less likely to repeat actions with bad consenquences 
- Terms used

• Reinforcement - Increase behaviour (behaviour more likey to occur)

• Punishment - Redcuce behaviour (behaviour less likey to occur) 

• Positive - Adding 

• Negative - Taking away 

What is positive punishment?

- Positive - adding something 
- Puishment - decrease the behaviour 
- Adding something bad to decrease the liklihood of behaviour
Example 

• Spanking 

• Scolding Imprisonmment  

What is positive reinforcement?

- Postive - adding something 
- Reinforcement - increaseing the liklihood of the beahviour 
- Positive reinforcement is when something is added to increase a behviour's likelihood 
- Examples

• Giving chocolates, praising, pat on the head

What is shaping?

- An application of operant conditioning 
- The reality that the liklihood of spontaneously performing a targeted behaviour is low - they can't just suddenly know how to do that target skill 
- To do shaping we need to 

• Have a target behaviour 

• The child that have some skills that can enable the behaviour (prerequisite skills) 

• Choose a reinforcer that is appealing to the child, and provide the reinforcer at different stages of mastery (successive appromimations)

• Child masters the first step towards the target skill, reinforce. The child now needs to start performing and mastering the second step now to have the reinforcer, no longer given at the first step 

- Good for simple behaviours

What is social learning?

- A type of cognitive- social learning approach 
- When people learn fromthose around them without reinforcement 
- So examples of social learning include 

• Observational learning

• Modelling 

• Vicarious conditioning 

• Tutelage 

What is spontaneous recovery?

- Neural connections between that assocaition between two things still exist
- Therefore, since the the connection traces remain, because retraining the same pattern later is extremely fast
- Learning that accociation VERY QUICKLY due those remaining neural connections 
- Spontaneous recovery is when the previously extinguished conditioned response suddenly reappears if the conditioned stimulus (CS) is presented again after a period of tim

What is stimulus discrimination?

- Happens after conditioning 
- When you learn the difference between stimular stimuli, only responding to that specific conditioned stimulus
 - When partial-extinction experience with similar stimuli trains the subject to react to only narrow CS
- Conditioned response only to that conditioned stimuli, no longer to stimuli similar to the original CS
- You were attacked by a dog, ONLY scared of THAT ONE DOG, NOT all dogs

What is stimulus generalisation?

- Happens AFTER learning a condtioned response to a conditioned stimulus
- Applying the same response to new stimuli similar to the CS 
- When a wide range of stimuli superficially similar to the original CS trigger the CR
- it means that if a new stimulus is similar to the original CS, the organism is likely to respond to the new stimulus with a similar Conditioned Response (CR) 
- Stimulus generalisation is shown in the Little Albert Experiment

What is the conditioned response?

- The response made to the conditioned stimulus 
- Can be the same response as the unconditioned response or can be slightly different

What is the conditioned stimulus?

- Was previously teh neutral sitmulus 
- But once the neutral stimulus begins causing the same reaction the unconditioned stimulus did, so the unconditioned response, it is considered from there on the conditioned stimulus

What is the neutral stimulus?

- The stimulus that doesn't cause the unconditioned response, but is paired with the unconditioned stimulus 

What is tutelage?

- A type of social learning 
- Teaching concepts or proccedures primarily through direct instructions or explanation 
- For example apprenticeship, tutoring 

What is vicarious conditioning?

- Learning by observing the consequences another person experiences 
- Seeing someone get punishment: less likely to do it myself due to seeing another person get punished for that actions 
- Seeing someone get reinforced: more likely to do it mysef dur to seeing another person get reinforced for tha action