Classical Conditioning

• In classical conditioning: the subject learns to give a response it already knows to a new stimulus.

  • The subject associates a new stimulus with a stimulus that automatically and involuntarily brings about the response.

• Stimulus is a change in the environment that elicits (brings about) a response.

• Response: is a reaction to a stimulus.

• Neutral stimulus (NS): initially does not elicit a response.

• Unconditioned stimulus (UCS or US): reflexively, or automatically, brings about the unconditioned response (UCR or UR).

• Conditioned stimulus (CS): is a NS at first, but when paired with the UCS, it elicits the conditioned response (CR).

• Aversive conditioning:  Conditioning involving an unpleasant or harmful unconditioned stimulus or reinforcer, such as this conditioning of Baby Albert.

• Spontaneous recovery:  Although not fully understood by behaviorists, sometimes the extinguished response will show up again later without the re-pairing of the UCS and CS.

• Generalization: occurs when stimuli similar to the CS also elicit the CR without any training.

• Discrimination occurs when only the CS produces the CR.

• Higher-Order Conditioning: Higher-order conditioning, also called second-order or secondary conditioning, occurs when a well-learned CS is paired with an NS to produce a CR to the NS.

  • In this conditioning, the old CS acts as a UCS.

• Operant Conditioning: In operant conditioning, an active subject voluntarily emits behaviors and can learn new behaviors.

  • The connection is made between the behavior and its consequence, whether pleasant or not.

Thorndike’s Instrumental Conditioning

• Instrumental learning: is a type of learning that involves the acquisition and use of skills or strategies to achieve a specific goal. It can involve trial-and-error processes, imitation, reinforcement, modeling, memorization and more.

• Law of Effect: states that behaviors followed by satisfying or positive consequences are strengthened (more likely to occur), while behaviors followed by annoying or negative consequences are weakened (less likely to occur).

B. F. Skinner’s Training Procedures

• Positive reinforcement: or reward training, emission of a behavior or response is followed by a reinforcer that increases the probability that the response will occur again.

• Premack principle: a more probable behavior can be used as a reinforcer for a less probable one.

• Negative reinforcement: takes away an aversive or unpleasant consequence after a behavior has been given.

• Punishment training: a learner’s response is followed by an aversive consequence.

• Omission training: In this training procedure, a response by the learner is followed by taking away something of value from the learner.

Operant Aversive Conditioning

• Aversive conditioning: is a type of learning in which an organism learns to associate an unpleasant stimulus with a particular behavior.

  • This type of conditioning works by creating an association between the behavior and some sort of punishment or discomfort, so that the organism will be less likely to do it again.

• Avoidance behavior: takes away the aversive stimulus before it begins.

Reinforcers

• Primary reinforcer: is something that is biologically important and, thus, rewarding.

• Secondary reinforcer: is something neutral that, when associated with a primary reinforcer, becomes rewarding.

• Generalized reinforcer: is a secondary reinforcer that can be associated with a number of different primary reinforcers.

• Token economy: has been used extensively in institutions such as mental hospitals and jails.

Teaching a New Behavior

• Shaping: positively reinforcing closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior, is an effective way of teaching a new behavior.

• Chaining: is used to establish a specific sequence of behaviors by initially positively reinforcing each behavior in a desired sequence and then later rewarding only the completed sequence.

Schedules of Reinforcement

• Continuous reinforcement: is the schedule that provides reinforcement every time the behavior is exhibited by the organism.

• Partial reinforcement: schedules based on the number of desired responses are ratio schedules.

• Interval schedules: Schedules based on time.

• Fixed ratio: schedules reinforce the desired behavior after a specific number of responses have been made.

• Fixed interval: schedules reinforce the first desired response made after a specific length of time.

• Variable ratio: schedule, the number of responses needed before reinforcement occurs changes at random around an average.

• Variable interval: schedule, the amount of time that elapses before reinforcement of the behavior changes.

• fixed ratio schedule—know how much behavior for reinforcement

• fixed interval schedule—know when behavior is reinforced

• variable ratio schedule—how much behavior for reinforcement changes

• variable interval schedule—when behavior for reinforcement changes

Cognitive Processes in Learning

• Behaviorists included John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner.

• Only observable behaviors, antecedents, and consequences were studied.

• Since they couldn't measure thought processes, they ignored them.

• They believed nurture shaped behavior (the environment).

The Contingency Model

• Pavlov’s view of classical conditioning is called the contiguity model.

  • He believed that the close time between the CS and the US was most important for making the connection between the two stimuli and that the CS eventually substituted for the US.

• Cognitivist Robert Rescorla: suggesting a contingency model of classical conditioning that the CS tells the organism that the US will follow.

• Latent Learning:  is defined as learning in the absence of rewards.

• Insight is the sudden appearance of an answer or solution to a problem.

• Social Learning: which occurs by watching the behavior of a model.

Biological Factors in Learning

• Mirror neurons in the premotor cortex and other temporal and parietal lobes support observational learning.

• Both doing and watching an action activates neurons.

• These neurons convert the sight of someone else's action into the motor program you would use to do the same and feel similar emotions, the basis for empathy.

Preparedness Evolves

• Conditioned taste aversion: an intense dislike and avoidance of a food because of its association with an unpleasant or painful stimulus through backward conditioning.

• Preparedness: means that through evolution, animals are biologically predisposed to easily learn behaviors related to their survival as a species, and that behaviors contrary to an animal’s natural tendencies are learned slowly or not at all.

• Instinctive drift: a conditioned response that drifts back toward the natural (instinctive) behavior of the organism.