Learning

Direct opposition to Freud (believed people had to talk about the mental process and desire) while Skinner said learning psychology is not the mental aspect, more about the science part (track and facts, not interpretation)

Types of Learning
• Idea that behavior is based on experience through the mid-20th century
• Learning- the process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviors
◦ To start a new habit, it will take 66 days (about two months)
• Associative learning- learning that retrain events occur together; a more specific type of learning and discovered and studied by behaviorists; Aristotle believed learning is through experiences
• Classical conditioning- learning to anticipate behaviors with a stimuli
◦ The dog learning food follows the bell
• Operant conditioning- associating punishments and reinforcements with certain behaviors
◦ Potty training a dog with rewards for properly going outside
• Behaviorism- a field of psychology that believes psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes; ignoring cognitive learning
◦ Cognitive learning- learning through mental processes such as observation and language
• Most psychologists agree that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior, but no psychologists support the idea of mental processes can or should be ignored

Classical Conditioning
• Classical conditioning- one learns to associate two or more stimuli and anticipate events
◦ Teaches one to prepare for good or bad after a certain stimuli has been received (stimuli could be touch, sound, etc.)
• Ivan Pavlov
◦ Took the UNLEARNED unconditioned (untaught) stimulus and noted its relationship to the unconditioned response; a neutral stimulus has nothing related to the stimulus and response; present the stimuli and then present the thing in 30 seconds multiple times; then the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus; then a conditioned response happens
◦ Taught a dog to salivate upon hearing a bell
‣ Unconditioned stimulus- the scent/taste of the food
‣ Unconditioned response- salivation from the food
‣ Neutral stimulus- the bell
‣ Conditioned stimulus- the bell (after realizing the bell = food)
‣ Conditioned response- salivating hearing the bell instead of the food
• John Watson- furthered behaviorism in humans with his “Baby Albert” experiments
◦ Conditioned a baby to cry/fear furry animals using a loud noise at the unconditioned stimulus
• Neutral stimuli (NS)- a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning
• Unconditioned response (UR)- a natural response to stimuli; not a learned behavior
• Unconditioned stimulus (US)- a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response
• Conditioned response (CR)- a conditioned response to a previously neutral stimulus; learned behavior, learning to associate the neutral stimuli with something else
• Conditioned stimulus (CS)- an originally irrelevant stimulus that when paired with an unconditioned stimulus triggers a conditioned response

Operant Conditioning
• B.F. Skinner- pioneered new ideas that expanded the understanding of learning behavior and what Watson had coined ‘behaviorism’
• Operant conditioning- the idea that behaviors are strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher
• Reinforcement- an event that strengthens the behavior behind it; can be used as a reward to encourage behavior in animals and humans
◦ Teaching a dog to sit by rewarding him with a treat each time he is successful
• Punishment- an event tat diminishes the behavior behind it with an adverse consequence; can be used to discourage undesired behaviors in animals and humans
◦ Teaching a toddler not to scream by putting them in time out
• Shaping- a procedure in which reinforces guide behavior toward closer ad closer approximations of desired behavior
◦ Takes several steps and/or progressions
◦ Teaching a dog to roll over- one could begin rewarding the dog to sit, then lay down, and roll over
‣ Rewarding them on the way, progressing it throughout the teaching

Punishment and Reward
• Positive and negative versions of both reinforcements and punishments, meant to disgrace the act of giving or taking rather than being good or bad
• Reinforcements (positive)
◦ Positive Reinforcement- giving the subject something it wants (food or treats)
◦ Negative Reinforcement- taking away something the subject does not like or want (removing something away)
• Punishments (negative)
◦ Negative Punishment- withdrawing a reward stimulus (taking away something wanted)
◦ Positive Punishment- the administering of an aversive stimulus (giving something to punish them)
• Discriminative stimulus- that elicits responses after association with a reinforcer (doing a behavior because there is an association with a reinforcement or punishment)
• Primary reinforcers- an innately reinforcing stimulus
◦ Satisfies a biological need (food/treat)
• Secondary reinforcers- they are linked or associated with the primary reinforcers; need since the primary reinforcer cannot be provided every time
◦ Eventually regressing to a smaller reward/punishment that will keep the behavior going
◦ Animals- 30 seconds or less to reward them in order to establish an association between the desired behavior and the reward
• Acquisition- classical conditioning: the learned behavior, when the subject is successfully anticipating after a stimulus or performing in desired behavior; operant conditioned: the behavior is reinforced or diminished after the stimulus
• Extinction- classical conditioning: the diminishing of a conditioned response following the conditions stimulus; operant conditioning: a response is no longer enforced and the behavior fades
• Spontaneous recovery- the sudden reap presence of an extinguished conditioned response, following a break or pause in the conditioned stimulus (randomly following directions after not listening during several times)
• Generalization- the subject may respond to a stimulus that seems similar (responding to a stimulus that sounds/sees similar to the original stimulus)
• Discrimination- the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimulus that hears, looks, smells, feels, or tastes similar; opposite of generalization
• High-order learning- adding additional conditioned stimuli to the already-existing conditioned stimulus (adding more stimuli to the already conditioned stimuli)
• Practice- subjects and people can start to learn slowly and easily with progressively fulfilling results along the way

Reinforcement Schedule
• Four primary approaches or ‘schedules’ to reinforcing the desired behavior
◦ Continuous- reinforces a response every time the desired behavior occurs
◦ Fixed-ratio schedule- a reinforcement schedule that reinforced a response for a specified number of responses
◦ Partial/Intermittent reinforcement- reinforces a response only part of the time
‣ Results in lower acquisition than constant reinforcement, it more resistant to extinction that continuous because they get used to the continuous reinforcement
◦ Variable-ratio schedules- reinforces behavior in an unpredictable manner where reinforcement can come in waves of request reinforcement or no reinforcement
‣ Don’t know when it will happen but it will happen at some point

Observational Learning
• Watson and Skinner believed all behaviors were learned through reward and punishment, some realized people learned without consequences and direct experience
• Albert Bandaranaike- known as observational learning; regarded as a transitional figure from behaviorism to cognitive psychology
◦ Observational learning- learning by observing others (social learning)
• Modeling- the process of observing and initiating a certain behavior; Bandura and other psychologists at the time noted several observation-based phenomena
◦ The first of these discoveries
◦ Child and clown experiment
‣ Child watches a random adult psychically and verbally abusing a clown inflate, the kid goes into a room with the clown inflate and starts to abuse him too
• A toy gun in there, adult never used it but the child used it and acting to shoot him
• Observational learning is purely internal; one does not need to experience consequences in order to learn observational
• Mirror neurons- frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing imitation actions or when observing others; not long after Bandura’s discoveries, Italian neuroscientists discovered what they are; only happens with animals who have frontal lobes
◦ Occurred when monkeys observing people eat ice cream, which activated their reward centers (pleasure receptors) as if they were eating ice cream too
‣ Can experience the same effect as if the monkey was eating the ice cream
◦ Enable both imitation and empathy and have likely increased evolutionary success among social creatures
‣ More social creatures= more mirror neurons
• Semantic memory- hear and learn; a portion of long-term memory that processes ideas and concepts that are not drawn from personal experience instead through language
• Prosocial behavior- positive, constructive, helpful behavior
◦ Parents are the first teachers, should be displaying prosocial behavior
‣ If parents disagree with someone, then they should in a calm and respectful manner to teach the kids how to disagree with someone civilly
• Antisocial behavior- physically/verbally aggressive or reclusive behavior
◦ Children of antisocial behavior are more likely to be aggressive, violent, impulsive, and suffer the negative social consequences of fewer friends, less guidance from adults, as well as less learning and economic opportunities
• Contingencies- linked events that could happen but may bot happen because behavior is a nuanced bond of mostly genetic and some environmental factors; no guarantee the child will model the parent’s behavior because of the set

Unrealized Learning
• Can learn unintentionally and mysteriously
• Insight learning- the sudden realization of a problem’s solution; the moments when people have an idea on how to fix or solve a problem
• Emotional learning- a form of social learning which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, and make responsible decisions
• Latent learning- learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is a situation to demonstrate it
◦ Recall all of the people people had a conversation with today

Behaviors
• Coping and motivation, people can find it difficult to control their own behaviors at times, often doing or saying things hat later regret or felt right in the moment but were clearly wrong in the long run
• Self-control- the ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for longer-term rewards; best way to exert control over one’s behavior
• Delaying gratification- tremendous; multiple studies have confirmed the utility of self control; waited and were fair happier and more successful than their impulsive counterparts
◦ Able to wait become more success in their field jobs
• Behavioral modification- altering and/or encouraging of the behavior of children, friends, family, self, or animals through the use of reinforcements and punishments
• Biofeedback- the conscious moving of limbs when the automatic function has been damaged or disabled, showing the power of the conscious mind over bodily function

Other Associations
• Superstitious behaviors- develop when one is accidentally rewarded in sports, or other events in which a neutral stimulus is incorrectly associated with a reward
• Taste aversions- resistance to eating things that made people sick or ill; to help one get rid of an unwanted habit like smoking or drinking
◦ John Garcia- discovered that irradiation rats before food can cause them to associate food with nausea and resulted in them avoiding food or eating
• Learned helplessness- the hopelessness and passive resignation of an animal or human when unable to avoid repeated aversive events

Key Figures
• Learning
◦ Edward Thorndike- law of effect which held that behaviors followed by favorable consequences became more likely, unfavorable, less likely; profoundly influenced Skinner; operant conditioning
◦ Robert Rescorla- research on contingency, and the concept that the likelihood of an event occurring will determine how well or quickly classical conditioning works
• Motivation
◦ Dwarf Tolman- theorized that behavior in based on more than just stimuli, but rather often driven by purpose and goals
‣ Going to places feeling like they have a purpose, creating them to work harder and give better results