Psychology of Learning Exam 1

What is the difference between learning and memory?

Learning is the acquisition of information that is stored as memories

How did dualism promote the study of behavior?

Dualism provided a middle ground between voluntary and involuntary behavior

What is another name for a sensory neuron?

Afferent neuron

Which of the following describes connectionism?

All knowledge is built through connections that relate ideas

What is stimulus generalization?

When an organism responds to 2 or more stimuli in a similar fashion

Which of these statements would Edward Thorndike agree with?

Behaviors that are followed by something pleasant will be repeated

What is hedonism?

Behavior is motivated by the pursuit of pleasures and avoidance of pain

What was a key in the concepts proposed by Hull?

Drive reduction is what motivates and powers learning by an organism

Who proposed a mathematical formula to predict the likelihood of behavior given a certain stimulus & an animals drive?

Hull

Learned helplessness is

When an animal fails to learn due to uncontrollable aversive stimulation

Spontaneous recovery is

A CS-US is presented after extinction & the animal responds to the CS again (time has passed)

Which statement best describes the dual process theory?

Habituation & sensitization occur in different parts of the nervous system

Identify the correct order in which an action potential receives and travels through a neuron

Dendrite, Soma, Axon, Axon Terminal

Which of the following causes depolarization?

Rapid influx of Na+

A previously trained cue can establish a CR to another untrained cue

Second-Order Conditioning

I’ve trained a dog to bar-press by pairing 500HZ tone with a food reward. How would I expect the dog to respond if I play tones that gradually differ from the training frequency?

Bar-pressing would decrease as the tone is further from training frequency

Identify the following phenomenon: Habituate to repeated stimuli → introduce an extraneous stimulus for one trial → reintroduce habituation stimuli for the following trial and observe the recovery of CR magnitude

Dishabituation

Increased sensitivity to pain and extreme pain response

Hyperalgesia

Which of the following correctly describes a Variable Ratio reinforcement schedule

Reinforcement given after an average number of correct responses

A dog was conditioned to salivate at the grainy texture of sand. However, unintended by researchers, the dog now salivates merely at the sight of the sand. This association of one feature of the sand with another is called what?

Object Leaning

Which group posited that people are born with everything that we could possibly know and experience brings it out?

Nativists

Learning

Process used to acquire information

Memory

The retention of learned info over time

Common criteria for learning

1. The behavioral modification depends on a form of neural plasticity

2. The modification depends on the organism’s experiential history

3. (a) The modification outlasts the environmental contingencies used to induce it. (b) The experience has a lasting effect on performance

Efficient explanation of learning

Describes eliciting conditions (circumstances under which learning occurs)

Formal explanation of learning

Provides a logical map/model (generally explains why learning occurred)

Material explanation of learning

Describes the underlying substrate

Final explanation of learning

Why does the system work this way? (neurobiological systems & functions)

Plato/nativism

• All knowledge is innate

• Just need to access what is already in our mind

Aristotle/empiricism

• All knowledge acquired

• We are all born the same, and acquire knowledge through experience

Descartes/dualism

Animals are reflexive, while humans are soul-bearing with free will

Unextended substance

Non-physical, soul, free will, does not abide by scientific rules

Extended substance

Physical, body, abides by scientific rules

Implicaton of dualism

Some parts of human behavior can be studied (reflexology)

Julien de La Mettrie/Materialists

• Argued our mind may be a machine

• We can derive the laws of the mind

• Gets rid of free will

Lloyd Morgan’s canon

When there are 2 competing explanations, go with the simpler explanation

John Locke/British Empiricism

All knowledge is acquired and built up through the association of ideas. Connectionist models

Hartley, J. Mill, J. S. Mill/Associationists

Contiguity, repetition, vividness (salience), and mental chemistry

Salience

How noticeable something is

Titchener/Structuralism

Systematic introspection

Problems with systematic introspection

Not publicly verifiable

US

Unconditioned stimulus

UR

Unconditioned response

CS

Conditioned stimulus

CR

Conditioned response

Pavlov

Pavlovian/Classical conditioning

Acquisition

When CS is paired with US, a growing curve forms (with a learning asymptote)

Generalization gradient

Graph with a climax that then declines, forms a peak

Extinction

Loss of conditioned response

Darwin & Evolution

What separates us from vertebrates is language & culture

Thorndike/Dualism

• Reacted against anthropomorphic interpretations

• Assumed habits were permanent

Introspection by analogy

“What it’s like to be a ____”

Law of effect

If a response in the presence of a stimulus is followed by a satisfying event, the association between the stimulus and the response is strengthened. If the response is followed by an annoying event, the association is weakened.

Watson/Behaviorism

• Extreme empiricist

• Rejection of the method of introspection

• Aims to predict, formulate laws, and control behavior

• Can be studied in infrahuman species

Hull/Generalist

• The distinction between leaning (knowledge) and performance (motivation)

• Suggests habits can be weakened/strengthened

Rp= (D * sHr * K * V) - (Ir + sIr)

Rp: drive reduction

D: drive

sHr: habit strength

K: incentive motivation

V: stimulus intensity

Ir: reactive inhibition

sIr: conditioned inhibition

S-R links that promote survival

Are strengthened

S-R links that don’t promote survival

Are weakened

Performance variables

Drive (D) and incentive motivation (K)

Variables that allow for extinction

Reactive inhibition (Ir) and conditioned inhibition (sIr)

Total motivation

D * K

Reactive inhibition (Ir)

Analogous to fatigue

Conditioned inhibition (sIr)

A S-R link that interferes with performing the target R, formed as Ir fades

Tolman/Computational

• Saw behavior as purposeful and adaptable

• Assumed reinforcement affects performance, not learning

• Learning occurs when there is contiguity

• We are constantly learning even if we are not being rewarded

Cognitive inferences

S1 → R → S2

Then train S2 → S*

Could infer S1 → R → S*

Skinner

• Distinction between respondent and operant behavior

• Uses a cumulative recorder

Fixed interval

• Scalloped graph

• Shows that rats can tell time

• As two minute time approaches, pressing increases

Variable interval

• Evenly increasing slope

• Slow steady rate of responding

• Not sure when reward will be given, so check periodically

Fixed ratio

• Staircase with increasing/steeper slope

• Post reinforcement pause/ “Cigarette break”

• Ratio run

• Suggest the rat is counting and knows how many times to tap bar

Variable ratio

• Highest sustained level of responding

• Steep slope

Stimulus preexposure effects

• Potential outcomes (sensitization, no change, habituation)

• Startle, perceptual learning, imprinting

13 faces

Once you perceive the face you can’t ignore it

Criteria for stimulus preexposure effects

Exposure to a stimulus alters the response elicited by the target event, causing a decrement (habituation) or an enhancement (sensitization) in its behavioral and/or psychological consequence

When the behavioral outcome is lowering conditioning/inhibiting learning

Stimulus preexposure is CS Habituation (latent inhibition) or US Habituation (US pre-exposure effect)

When the behavioral outcome is increasing conditioning/enhancing learning

Stimulus preexposure is CS sensitization or US Sensitization

Neo phobia

• Fear of new foods

• Evolution - is this safe?

Afferent neuropathway

Sensory

Efferent neuropathway

Motor

Opponent process theory of acquired motivation

• Standard pattern of affective dynamics

• a-process

• b-process

a-process

• Emotional state illicited by stimulus

• Magnitude determined by intensity by stimulus

• Does NOT change as a function of experience

b-process

• Illicited by a-process

• Learning!

• Opposite hedonic value

• Comes on slowly and dissipates quickly

• Emotional habituation

Standard pattern

a - b

Opiate antagonists

naltrexone, naloxone

Aplysia

• Simple nervous system

• Large neurons

• Invariant neural anatomy

Inside of an axon

Negatively charged

Structure of a neuron

Dendrites, cell body (soma), nucleus, axon, axon terminal

An axon at rest

Does not allow Na+ in and pumps Na+ out

Order of an action potential

• Na+ begins to enter cell

• K+ begins to leave cell

• Na+ channels close at threshold

• K+ continues to leave cell

• K+ channels close Na+ channels reset

If fewer K+ channels open

The action potential will last longer

Habituation reduces transmitter release

Fewer vesicles released

Long-term habituation

• Reduce number of synaptic contacts

• Structural modification

• Gene expression

• Protein synthesis

Depolarization

When Na+ rushes out of the cell and causes the voltage to move from -70 mVolts towards 0

What does reducing the flow of K+ out of the sensory neuron have on the motor response?

Reducing the flow of K+ out of the sensory neuron causes an increase in the duration of the action potential, which in turn increases the amount of Ca++ that enters the cell, which increases transmitter release and increases the vigor of the motor response, producing sensitization.

Short-term habituation

Repeated exposure to a sensitizing stimulus produces an increase in synaptic connections, which promotes the initiation of a response in the post-synaptic cell

Sources of behavior change

Learning, evolution, fatigue, maturation, stimulus change, motivational change

Motivation

Hypothetical state that increases the probability of a coordinated set of activities or activates a system of behaviors that functions to satisfy a goal

Maturation

Long-term changes in behavior produced by physical or psychological development

S-S learning

The learning of an association between two stimuli

Shaping

A term coined by Skinner that references a conditioning procedure in which new forms of behavior are produced by reinforcing successive approximations to the behavior

Elicited behavior

When a specific behavior or action pattern occurs reliably upon presentation of a particular stimulus (eliciting stimulus)