10/20 - Chapter 7

  • Unlearned behavior: Innate behaviors not taught (birding building nests, spider spinning webs)
    • Reflexes: Motor or neural reaction to stimulus in environment (simple, relate to specific part of body, primitive CNS - the brain, medulla)
    • Instincts: Triggered by broader range of events (maturation, seasons), complex, movement as a whole, higher brain centers
  • Learning; Relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge that results from experience
  • Associative Learning: Organism makes connections between stimuli or events that occur together in the environment (classical and operant conditing)
  • 3 Basic Learning Processes:
    • Classical conditioning (unconscious processing)
    • Operant conditioning (conscious)
    • Observational learning (both classical and operant)
  • Classical conditioning (Pavlovian conditioning): Learn to associate events or stimuli that repeatedly happen together (start to anticipate events)
    • The stimulus or experience occurs before the behavior and then gets paired with the behavior
    • Pavlov Study: Dog was given food when a bell was rung, after conditioning it salivates after the bell was run
    • Unconditioned stimulus: Food
    • Unconditioned response: Salivation
    • Conditioned stimulus: Bell sound (was neutral stimulus before)
    • Conditioned response: Salivation
    • Conditioned Stimulus + Unconditioned Stimulus = Conditioned Response
    • Process:
    • Neutral stimulus (bell) is presented immediately before an unconditioned stimulus (food)
    • Pairing of NS + UCS → CR
    • Neutral stimulus becomes conditioned stimulus after being paired with unconditioned stimulus
    • Acquisition: Neutral stimulus begins to elicit the conditioned response (eventually neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus capable of eliciting conditioned response by itself)
    • Extinction: Decrease in the CR when the UCS is no longer presented with the CS
    • Second Order Conditioning: When the conditional stimulus serves to condition another neutral stimulus (opening the door leads to a can opener which leads to food, so opening door becomes a conditional stimulus)
  • Operant conditioning: Learn to associate events - a behavior and its consequence (reinforcement or punishment)
  • Observational learning: Process of watching others and then imitating what they do
  • Acquisition: an initial period of learning (repeated pairings of CS + UCS)
    • Brief interval between conditional stimulus and unconditional stimulus
  • Taste Aversion: Coniditoned to be averse to food after a single, bad experience even if it wasn’t that particular food
    • UCS (virus) + CS (food) → UCR (ill because of virus)
    • CS (sight of food) → CR (ill)
  • Extinction: Decrease in CR (salivate) when UCS (food) is no longer present with CS (bell) - CS alone
  • Spontaneous recovery: Return of previously extinguished CR following a rest period
  • Stimulus discrimination: Ability to respond differently to similar stimuli
  • Stimulus generalization: Demonstrating the conditioned response to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus
  • Law of Effect: Behavior that is followed by consequences satisfying to the organism will be repeated and behaviors that are followed by unpleasant consequences will be discouraged
  • Skinner - Created Skinner box for rats that rewards for pressing lever and punished for another button
  • Reinforcement: Increase behavior
  • Punishment: Decrease behavior
  • Positive reinforcement: add stimulus to increase behavior
  • Negative reinforcement: removed stimulus to increase behavior
  • Shaping: reards successive approximations towards a target behavior (not just the target behavior)
  • Primary reinforcer: Innate (unlearned) reinforcing qualities (touch, food, pleasure, water)
  • Secondary reinforcer: Has no inherent value unto itself and only has reinforcing qualities when linked with something else (praise, money, gold stars)
  • Token Economy: Effective at modifying behaviors using secondary reinforcers (reinforcement must be connected with behavior, must matter to the kid, and be done consistently)
  • Reinforcement schedules:
    • Continous reinforcement: Receive reinforcer every time it displays a behavior (quickest and most effective way to teach a new behavior)
    • Partial (intermittent) reinforcement: do not get reinforcement every time you perform the behavior
    • Fixed (set) or variable (random)
    • Interval (time) or ratio (number)
    • Ex: fixed interval = reinforced after set time
    • Ex: variable ratio = reinforced after random number of behaviors
    • Variable ratio: Most effect partial reinforcement
  • In order:
    • Variable ratio (most) vs fixed ratio vs variable interval vs fixed interval (least)
    • ratio >> most important factor
  • Observational learning: The process of learning by watching others
    • Model: person whose behavior serves as an example
  • Social Learning Theory: Bandura, Internal mental states must have a role in learning. Observational learning involves more than imitation (behavior and cognition)
  • Types of models:
    • Live: Behavior in person
    • Verbal: Explains but does not behave
    • Symbolic: Fictional or real people who demonstrate behavior
  • Steps in modeling process:
    • Attention - focus
    • Retention - remember what you observed
    • Reproduction - perform behavior observed and committed to memory
    • Motivation - you want to copy the behavior
  • Vicarious reinforcement: observer sees the model rewarded
  • Vicarious punishment: observer sees the model punished
  • prosocial effects: model positive behavior to get child to do so too
  • antisocial effects: modeling negative behaviors causes kid to exhibit negative behaviors

Radical Behaviorism: Cognition didn’t matter

Latent learning: Learning that is not immediately expressed in an overt response, broke behaviorism. Learning that occurs but is not observable in behavior until there is a reason to demonstrate it

Cognitive map: Mental picture of the layout of the maze