Learning

What is learning

long-lasting changes in behaviour that are caused by environmental events

Psychologists who study learning are interested in how behaviour is affected by the_____it occurs

environment

Why study animals

Animal and human behaviour is made from the same elements

• Easier to simplify and control environments

• History can be known and controlled

• Animal behaviour does not change when observed

Who proposed the law of effect

Thorndike’s puzzle box

• Cat is in a box and has to press down on the rope to escape

What does thorndike data find

Latency to escape decreased with training

What is the law of effect

If a response is followed by a favourable consequence, the response will more likely to occur again

What is used as a controlled environment for behaviour experiments

experimental chamber

Response

Behaviour

Reinforcer

An environmental event which increases the probability of responses (favourable consequence)

How to ensure the pigeon will continue to respond to the light

keep it at 85% of free feeding weight

What is the behaviour subject to the law of effect called

operant behaviour

Operant behaviour

Behaviour that is controlled by its consequences

Operant conditioning

Learning an association between response and its consequence

Reinforcement is most effective if it____follows the response

Immediately

Contingency

the response causes the reinforces

How is a new response produced

Shaping

What happens to shaping if there is not enough or too much reinforcers

Not enough - animal stops responding

Too many - animal satiates

Types of consequences

pos/neg reinforcement and pos/neg punishment

What is reinforcement

if a response is followed by a favourable consequence, it will be more liekly to occur again

What is punishment

if a response is followed by an unfavourable consequence, it will less likely to happen again

What is extinction

If a response used to be followed by a reinforcement, but reinforcement stops, it is less likely to happen again

What is the feedback loop about reinforcement

It isnt about controlling people, the control is by the environment so it is always recipricol

WHat are the types of reinforcers

1. Primary - innate biological significance

2. Secondary - a previous neutral stimuli that has aquired reinforcing properties by being paired with primary reinforcers

Two types of timings of reinforcements

1. Continuous, every response is reinforced

2. Intermittent - only some responses reinforced, according to schedule of reinforcement

Key ideas from training barnabus the rat

• To learn long chain of behaviour with only primary reinforcement at the end

• train the last link of the chain of events first then add on

• The loss of support is a negative punisher

Who invented intermittent reinforcement

Skinner. he didn’t have enough food for over the weekend

What is the partial reinforcement effect

• responses in the intermittent group persisted longer than continuous reinforcement group

• The transition to extinction is harder to detect in intermittent group

What is a schedule of reinforcement

Rules that specify when a response will be reinforced

What are the 2 types of schedules of reinforcement rules

1. Ratio

2. Interval

What are the 2 timings for interval schedules

1. Fixed

2. Variable

What shows the different patterns of behaviour for each schedule

Cumulative record

What are the features of Fixed interval schedule

• A response is reinforced after a fixed amount of time has elapsed since the last reinforcer

• Behaviour+time

• Scalloped shape

• Response stops after reinforcer but speeds up closer to the time

What are the features of variable interval schedule

• A response is reinforced after a variable amount of time has elapsed since the last reinforcer

• No pause

• Straight line

• Unpredictable

What schedule is used to get rid of unwanted behaviour

Differential reinforcement of other behaviour (DRO)

What is DRO

• A reinforcer is delivered when a fixed amount of time has elapsed since the last response

• Reinforces non-responding

• Negative punishment of unwanted behaviour

• Positive reinforcement of other behaviour

• Better than extinction

What is a fixed time schedule

• A reinforcer is delivered when a fixed amount of time has elapsed since the last reinforcer (not response)

• No response required

What did skinner find with a fixed time schedule

• Found idiosyncratic, superstitious behaviour

• adventitious reinforcement of whatever response/behaviour was occurring before non-contingent reinforcer

Does fixed time schedule explain human superstitions

• Wagner and morris did FT with children and clown

• More likely that nothing bad happens after a response

• More superstitions maintained by negative reinforcement