Social and Cognitive Factors in Learning

● The learning approach is empirical (definiable, measurable results). It is the same for every example of the species.

REFLEXES

Ivan Pavlov

● Classical conditioning (reflexive conditioning): A method of learning that creates new associations between neutral stimuli and reflex-causing stimuli. (ex: clicker training for dogs).

● Says that learning happens when a relatively permanent change in behavior or reaction is brought about by different circumstances (conditions).

John Watson

● Little Albert

John Garcia

● Taste aversion (if you eat something poisonous, you throw up)

● The smell of something bad you ate, which came right before you threw up, cause you to dislike it? Yes

Robert Rescorla

● Expectancy

● The stimulus must be a good predictor (you don’t want to yell at someone to relax) BEHAVIORALISM

Edward Thorndike

● Law of Effect: states that the consequences of previous actions will influence future actions

● He made this a science!

B.F. Skinner

● Skinner boxes (operant conditioning chambers): a scientific

environment for experiments in which the scientist controlled

almost every possible accidental variable; allowed for perfect

experimental control

● No free will or cognition (thinking). He did consider

superstitious behavior

Wolfgang Kohler

● Proponent of insight learning (aha moment)

● Animals do think, it’s not trial and error. Opposite of Thorndike

Albert Bandura

● Social learning (observational learning, vicarious learning)

● Bobo doll experiments

○ Children are imitating the model (control model was playing, experimental was hitting it)

○ They still had motive, opportunity to practice, and ability to practice

● Mirror neurons: neurons in the motor cortex of the frontal lobe that are related to mirror ● B.I.R.G. Effect: basking in reflected glory; humans connect our achievements to those around us

EMOTIONAL LEARNING

● Source amnesia (source misattribution): Attributing to the wrong source an event that we have experienced, heard about, read about, or imagined

● Phobias come from classical conditioning (something happened after you saw a spider and ahhh) or by social learning (you’ve never been stung by a bee, but maybe you saw someone else get stung)

Superstitious Behavior

● Food drops from Heaven! When? You search for the reason and decide it’s when you lick your lips

Learned Helplessness: a mental state involving a loss of control and reduced efforts because previous attempts to end a punishment were not effective.

● Martin Seligman was exploring ideas related to depression

● He shocked dogs he couldn’t escape from and the dog couldn’t move

● When moved, some dogs didn’t even try to escape

● Suggested that “giving up” is a learned behavior

BIOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS

Biological preparedness: the idea that people and animals are inherently inclined to form associations between certain stimuli and responses (pigeons will peck a box, cats won’t) ● You can condition nausea from scents but it’s hard to do that with images Instinctive Drift: tendency of animals or humans to forgo rewards to pursue their typical patterns of behavior

Classical Conditioning: A learned association in which a neutral stimulus (NS) when paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US) creates an unlearned involuntary response (UR), pioneered by Ivan Pavlov.

Conditioning is synonymous with learning (A relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience) and cognition is synonymous with thinking.

Habituation: learning that involves a decrease in responsiveness to stimuli after exposure (if someone keeps getting scared because Joe jumps out from behind the door, they learn to not be scared — Not “getting used to”).

Factors of Classical Conditioning Example: Ivan’s Dog Experiment Little Albert (John Watson) ● Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

○ The unlearned thing that you express the response to

○ Meat powder Loud noise

● Unconditioned Response (UR) *

○ Blinking, salivating, fear, happiness

● Neutral Stimulus (NS) ***

○ A bell (something dogs don’t salivate to)

○ Rat (something Albert wasn’t scared of before)

● Conditioned Stimulus (CS) ***

○ A bell (something dogs do salivate to, but they learn to)

○ Rat (something Albert learned to fear)

● Conditioned Response (CR) *

○ Salivating Fear

○ Must be a reflex or emotion

● *Will be similar/the same

● ***Will be the same if learning occurs

Rules of Classical Conditioning

● Conditioning is most effective if the NS is presented before the US

● Conditioning is most effective if the NS and US are presented close together in time ● Conditioning is most effective if the NS is paired with the US many times ● Conditioning is most effective if the NS stands out from other competing stimuli

Higher-Order Conditioning/Learning (Second Order Conditioning): The process of turning a second neutral stimulus (new NS) into a conditioned stimulus (new CS) by pairing it with the already established conditioned stimulus (original CS).

● Example: A light (new NS) is turned into a conditioned stimulus that makes the dog salivate by pairing it with the existing CS (the bell) but not ever pairing it with the meat powder (US)

BOTH Classical and Operant Conditioning Phenomena

Classical vs Operant Conditioning

Acquisition (think: of a skill):

● Classical: Learning through repeated pairings of the neutral stimuli and the unconditioned stimuli to create a conditioned response

● Operant: Learning through repeated pairings of voluntary actions and their consequences (reinforcement or punishments)

Extinction

● Classical: The weakening of the conditioned response because the conditioned stimuli is no longer paired with the unconditioned stimuli

● Operant: the weakening of a learned voluntary response when a consequence is no longer provided

● Ex: you take the reward away, the dog will stop doing the trick on command Spontaneous Recovery

● Classical: The return of an extinguished conditioned response without being paired with the unconditioned stimulus

● Operant: The return of an extinguished (weakened) voluntary behavior without a consequence

● Ex: the dog spontaneously remembers a trick during training even without the command What this graph tells you: the conditioned response is much stronger during acquisition, dies during extinction, and comes back weaker at spontaneous recovery

Stimulus Generalization

● Classical: Organisms learn to involuntary respond to stimuli that are alike to the conditioned stimuli

● Operant: Organisms learn to voluntarily respond to stimuli alike to the original stimulus ● Examples: if you teach a dog to sit when you whistle, it’s going to sit when the tea kettle whistles

Stimulus Discrimination (Opposite of Generalization)

● Classical: Organisms learn to involuntarily respond to only the conditioned response. ● Classical: Organisms learn to voluntarily respond to only the original stimulus . ● Examples: monkeys will be scared of predatory birds (eagles) but not others

Operant Conditioning The process in which voluntary responses are learned as a result of consequences (reinforcements & punishments)

EDWARD THORNDIKE

● Instrumental learning - basis of operant

● Law of Effect - successful behaviors are repeated through putting cats in puzzle boxes

B.F. SKINNER

● Built on Thorndike

● “Skinner boxes” (operant chambers) to study this conditioning that were more sophisticated than Thorndike’s boxes

REINFORCEMENTS

● Primary Reinforcer: a stimulus that is naturally or innately rewarding (food, air, warmth, water, OR the removal of pain or discomfort

● Secondary Reinforcer: a stimulus that has learned value (money, tokens, praise, status, OR the removal of exclusion or ridicule)

OPERANT CONDITIONING PROCESS - INCLUDE

● Stimulus

● Voluntary Behavior

○ Running, pushing levers, NO emotions or reactions

○ NOT an absence of behavior

● Consequence (don’t have to be commands — for example, if wearing sunscreen means you’re not going to get burnt, you’ll be more likely to use it, which is an example of negative reinforcement)

○ + Positive Reinforcement: Adding or presenting a stimulus, after a voluntary behavior that makes the behavior more likely to occur again (ex: you get a $10 bill)

○ - Negative Reinforcement: involves subtracting or removing a stimulus after a voluntary action. Makes the behavior m__ore likely__ to occur again (when you make your bed, you don’t need to do the dishes)

○ + Positive Punishment: Adding or presenting a stimulus after a voluntary behavior that makes the behavior less likely to occur again (time-out, if you don’t make your bed you also have to vacuum (emphasize that they must dislike the added consequence )

○ - Negative Punishment: Subtracting or removing a stimulus after a voluntary behavior that makes the behavior less likely to occur again (if you fumble the ball, you can’t play in the next game)

○ Note: works better when offered sooner with the behavior

● Future Behavior

○ For reinforcement, behavior increases

○ For punishment, behavior decreases

EXAM TIPS FOR OPERANT CONDITIONING

● Underline the voluntary behavior

○ If involuntary, NOT an example of operant — YOU MUST EXPLAIN ● Reinforcement or punishment?

○ If behavior increases, write reinforcement

○ If behavior decreases, write punishment

○ If behavior is not influenced, it is not operant conditioning EXPLAIN THIS ● ID whether the example was + or - in the consequence

NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT VS POSITIVE PUNISHMENT

● Reinforcement means that behavior increases. Punishment always means the behavior decreases.

● Negative & Positive just change what’s going on: are you reinforcing by taking a bad thing away, or are you adding to the bad thing?

Escape conditioning: a type of learning in which an organism learns that a voluntary behavior causes an aversive stimulus to stop, which causes the individual to repeat that behavior in the future (ex: drinking water helps if you have a headache from running so you drink it more) Avoidance conditioning: a voluntary behavior prevents an aversive stimulus from happening, which causes the individual to repeat that behavior in the future. (ex: you drink water before you run to avoid the headache)

Discriminative stimuli: a stimulus (specific factors) that indicates if a voluntary behavior is demonstrated a reinforcement will or will not result (ex: you can teach a bird to peck a circle for a blue light, but he shouldn’t peck a red light because he won’t get a treat — if your boss is singing during work, he is more likely to give you a day off)

Shaping: creating a new voluntary response by providing reinforcements for successively closer approximations of the desired new action (to teach a dog to shake, you might need to pick up his paw at first, or giving praise to someone as they get closer to accomplishing the desired task) SCHEDULES OF REINFORCEMENT

● Continuous Reinforcement

○ Rewards follow every correct response

○ Learning is rapid

Learning is vulnerable to rapid extinction if reinforcement stops

● Intermittent Reinforcement / Partial Reinforcement

○ Rewards follow some correct responses

○ Learning is slower

○ Learning is more resistant to extinction

○ Further:

■ Fixed ratio: Reinforcement is givenn after a predictable (fixed) number of correct behaviors / Every so many (every 10th behavior ex every 10th

coffee is free)

■ Variable Ratio: Reinforcement is given after an unpredictable (variable) number of correct behaviors /An unpredictable number (think slot

machines)

■ Fixed Interval: Reinforcement is given for the first correct response after a predictable (fixed) amount of time (interval) of minutes, days, etc. has

passed / Every so often (reinforcement for behavior after a fixed time,

such as Tuesday 10% off)

■ Variable Interval: Reinforcement is given for the first correct response after an unpredictable (variable) amount of time (interval) of minutes,

days, etc. has passed / Unpredictably often (reinforcement for behavior

after a random amount of time, as when studying for a unpredictable pop

quiz)

● Zach checks on his employees to make sure they are on task. His

employees stay on task because they want positive feedback, even

when they do not know when he will come by (10 mins, 1 hr)

■ NOTE: responses made during the interval period are not reinforced; only after a predictable (fixed) or unpredictable (variable) time period is over

will reinforcement be given)

Premack’s Principle: using a behavior, which is preferred by an individual, to increase the likelihood that another behavior that is NOT preferred will occur (kids must finish their homework before they can play video games)