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Chapter 9 – Learning: Comprehensive Study Notes

Learning Outcomes

  • After studying this material you should be able to:

    • Define learning (9.1)

    • Describe basic principles of classical conditioning (9.2)

    • Describe basic principles of operant conditioning (9.3)

    • Explain the basic premise of cognitive-social theory (9.4)

What is Learning?

  • Working definition

    • Any enduring change in the way an organism responds, produced by experience

  • Three shared assumptions across theories

    • Experience shapes behaviour

    • Learning is adaptive (behaviours useful for survival are selected)

    • Systematic experimentation can reveal general laws

  • Automatic vs. effortful learning examples

    • Earworms (involuntary musical imagery) demonstrate incidental, automatic encoding

    • Mastering organic chemistry illustrates deliberate, effortful learning

  • Reflexes & habituation

    • Reflex: automatic response elicited by stimulus (e.g., knee-jerk)

    • Habituation: \downarrow in reflex strength after repeated exposure

Historical & Philosophical Roots

  • Aristotle’s Laws of Association

    • Law of contiguity (events close in time become linked)

    • Law of similarity (similar things become linked)

  • Associationism ➔ Behaviourism ➔ Cognitive approaches & modern neuroscience

Classical Conditioning (Pavlovian / Respondent)

Core Terminology & Process

  • UCS → UCR (e.g., food → salivation)

  • Pair neutral stimulus with UCS ➔ becomes CS

  • CS → CR (learned reflex)

  • Acquisition: initial CS–UCS pairings when CR emerges

Conditioned Responses in Action

  • Taste aversion, immune responses, emotional reactions

  • Adaptive & maladaptive outcomes (e.g., phobias, Little Albert)

Major Phenomena

  • Stimulus Generalisation: respond to stimuli resembling CS

  • Stimulus Discrimination: learn to restrict response to specific CS

  • Extinction: CS without UCS ⇒ \downarrow CR

  • Spontaneous Recovery: re-emergence of extinct CR after rest

Factors Affecting CC

  • Interstimulus interval (ISI): usually sub-second; taste-aversion unique (hours)

  • Temporal order

    • Forward (CS before UCS) ⇒ strongest

    • Simultaneous weaker; backward weakest

  • Learning history

    • Blocking, latent inhibition, extinction → savings

  • Prepared learning / biological preparedness

    • Species-specific ease of associating some CS–UCS pairs (e.g., nausea ↔ taste)

Neural & Evolutionary Insights

  • Aplysia: changes at pre- & post-synaptic sites

  • Long-Term Potentiation (LTP) underlies durable associations

  • Amygdala circuits: fear conditioning; hippocampus for contextual learning

Illustrative Studies & Applications

  • Pavlov’s dogs; crow vs cane-toad; blue-tongue lizard baited with \text{LiCl}; chemotherapy-induced taste aversion; conditioned immune suppression in hospital settings

  • Ethical concerns & gender differences (e.g., males retain taste aversion > females)

Operant Conditioning (Instrumental)

Foundations

  • Thorndike’s Law of Effect: behaviour selection by consequences

  • Skinner: behaviour emitted, environment selects via contingencies

Key Concepts

  • Operant: voluntary behaviour producing effect

  • Reinforcement (↑ probability)

    • Positive: add rewarding stimulus

    • Negative: remove aversive stimulus

    • Escape vs. avoidance learning

  • Punishment (↓ probability)

    • Positive: add aversive event

    • Negative: remove desired stimulus

  • Extinction: behaviour no longer followed by prior consequence

Schedules of Reinforcement

  • Continuous vs Partial/Intermittent (ratio/interval)

    • Fixed-Ratio (FR)

    • Variable-Ratio (VR) ⇢ rapid, steady (e.g., gambling)

    • Fixed-Interval (FI) ⇢ scalloped pattern (e.g., cramming before exams)

    • Variable-Interval (VI) ⇢ slow, steady (e.g., pop-quizzes)

  • Partial schedules ⇒ greater resistance to extinction (Partial-Reinforcement Effect)

Discriminative Stimuli & Context

  • S_D signals contingency in force (e.g., cat on table only when owner absent)

  • Behaviour occurs in cost–benefit landscape (behavioural economics; substitute vs complementary reinforcers)

  • Cultural variation in use of reinforcement & punishment (e.g., Gusii parental threats vs. Aboriginal communal instruction)

Complex Behaviour Formation

  • Shaping (Successive Approximations): reinforce closer versions (e.g., dog nose-touch cupboard)

  • Chaining: link existing responses into sequence (e.g., cat wakes owner)

  • Biofeedback: shaping autonomic responses for health (e.g., ADHD symptom reduction)

Learner & Species Factors

  • Individual differences (e.g., antisocial personality ⇢ less responsive to punishment)

  • Species-specific instincts may interfere (instinctive drift: pigs rooting coins)

Ethical & Practical Issues

  • Pitfalls of punishment: timing, clarity, emotional side-effects, modelling aggression

  • Ethical dilemma: using mild electric shock for self-harm in autistic children – consent, beneficence

Cognitive-Social Theory

Central Premise

  • Conditioning principles + cognition + social context

  • Organisms form expectancies & mental representations that guide behaviour

Latent Learning & Cognitive Maps (Tolman)

  • Rats rehearsed maze without reward; once reinforced, performance matched continuously-reinforced group ⇒ knowledge stored covertly

Insight & Problem Solving

  • Sudden restructuring (e.g., chimp Sheba; human 9-dot puzzle) involves frontal lobes

Expectancies & Personality

  • Locus of Control (Rotter)

    • Internal vs external orientations influence motivation & relationships

  • Learned Helplessness (Seligman)

    • Exposure to uncontrollable events ⇒ expectancy of non-contingency ⇒ depressive-like deficits

  • Explanatory Style

    • Pessimistic (internal, stable, global) vs optimistic interpretations affect health, achievement; optimistic training (“learned optimism”)

Social Learning Mechanisms

  • Observational Learning / Modelling (Bandura)

    • Bobo-doll studies: children imitated rewarded aggression; mediated by model prestige & observed consequences

  • Vicarious Conditioning: learning via observing outcomes to others (e.g., siblings’ risk behaviours)

  • Direct Tutelage: explicit instruction; interacts with CC & OC (e.g., health messages vs alcohol ads)

Applied & Real-World Connections

  • Earworms aid memory consolidation; chewing gum disrupts articulatory loop to stop them

  • Clinical treatments: exposure therapy (extinction of phobia), aversion therapy (taste aversion for alcohol), behaviour modification in ADHD & autism

  • Psychoneuroimmunology: conditioned immune modulation; bereavement \rightarrow (48\%) mortality increase within first week

  • Workplace & career: reinforcement principles inform behaviour-support jobs, client motivation, personal job-search persistence

Key Statistics & Numeric References

  • Earworms experienced by almost (100\%) of people weekly

  • Song catchiness predicted by chart position & melodic structure

  • Bereavement: 48\% rise in mortality; widowed death rate \approx 2\times expected during first week

  • Pessimistic style linked to \downarrow maths achievement over time

  • Dogs in shuttlebox failed to escape despite easy route after uncontrollable shock exposure

Essential Terms (selection)

  • CS, UCS, CR, UCR, ISI, S_D

  • Long-Term Potentiation (LTP)

  • Blocking, latent inhibition, prepared learning, instinctive drift

  • Fixed/Variable Ratio & Interval schedules

  • Locus of control, learned helplessness, explanatory style

Central Questions Revisited

  • Similarities & differences across species?

  • Evolutionary constraints on what can be learned?

  • Can learning be explained without referring to mental processes? Cognitive-social evidence suggests mental representations are indispensable.