3/10/23: Learning I

Vocabulary:

Behaviorist - believes in the power of the environment + observable behavior; conducts specific research

Notes:

• Types of Learning - 2 types according to behaviorists

  • Classical Conditioning - learning by association

    • Ivan Pavlov - studied classical conditioning through dogs; dogs associated the bell (unconditioned stimulus) w/ food and began salivating (unconditioned response), + an association formed and these became the conditioned stimulus/response

    • Conditioned Response - a learned response caused by the conditioned stimulus

    • Little Albert - an 11-month-old baby used to study classical conditioning using a white rat

  • Operant Conditioning - learning through reward and punishment; what is in it for you

    • Thorndike - studied operant conditioning through cats; studied how long it takes them to learn to escape their crates using incentives

    • Law of Effect (Operant Conditioning) - satisfying responses are more likely to be repeated than those that are not

• Classical Conditioning

  • Extinction (in Classical Conditioning) - the dying out of a conditioned response

  • Spontaneous Recovery (in Classical Conditioning) - the reappearance of a previously extinct response after some time has passed

  • Stimulus Generalization (in Classical Conditioning) - reacting to something similar to the conditioned stimulus (Ex. Little Albert was afraid of anything that looked like the white rat (a white rabbit); if a child is stung by a flying insect, it will be scared of all flying insects)

  • Stimulus Discrimination (in Classical Conditioning) - you do not generalize stimuli, you can distinguish different stimuli