Chapter 6: Learning
Around the turn of the twentieth century, a Russian physiologist named Ivan Pavlov inadvertently discovered a kind of learning while studying digestion in dogs.
Pavlov found that the dogs learned to pair the sounds in the environment where they were fed with the food that was given to them and began to salivate simply upon hearing the sounds.
Pavlov deduced the basic principle of classical conditioning.
People and animals can learn to associate neutral stimuli (e.g., sounds) with stimuli that produce reflexive, involuntary responses (e.g., food) and will learn to respond similarly to the new stimulus as they did to the old one (e.g., salivate).
The original stimulus that elicits a response is known as the unconditioned stimulus (US or UCS).
In the classic Pavlovian paradigm, the US is food.
Food elicits the natural, involuntary response of salivation.
This response is called the unconditioned response (UR or UCR).
Once the bell elicits salivation, a conditioned response (CR), it is no longer a neutral stimulus but rather a conditioned stimulus (CS).
Learning has taken place once the animals respond to the CS without a presentation of the US.
This learning is also called acquisition since the animals have acquired a new behavior.
Acquisition will occur fastest if the bell is rung and, while it is still ringing, the dogs are presented with food.
This procedure is known as delayed conditioning.
Less effective methods of learning include:
Trace conditioning—The presentation of the CS, followed by a short break, followed by the presentation of the US.
Simultaneous conditioning—CS and US are presented at the same time.
Backward conditioning—US is presented first and is followed by the CS.
This method is particularly ineffective.
In psychological terminology, the process of unlearning a behavior is known as extinction.
One fascinating and yet-to-be-adequately-explained part of this process is known as spontaneous recovery.
Sometimes, after a conditioned response has been extinguished and no further training of the animals has taken place, the response briefly reappears upon presentation of the conditioned stimulus.
Often animals conditioned to respond to a certain stimulus will also respond to similar stimuli, although the response is usually smaller in magnitude.
The dogs may salivate to a number of bells, not just the one with which they were trained.
This tendency to respond to similar CSs is known as generalization.
Subjects can be trained, however, to tell the difference, or discriminate, between various stimuli.
Classical conditioning can also be used with humans.
In one famous, albeit ethically questionable, study, John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner conditioned a little boy named Albert to fear a white rat.
The rat is a neutral stimulus that becomes the CS, and the CR is crying in response to presentation of the rat alone.
Albert also generalized, crying in response to a white rabbit, a man’s white beard, and a variety of other white, fluffy things.
Aversive conditioning has been used in a number of more socially constructive ways.
For instance, to stop biting their nails, some people paint them with truly horrible-tasting materials.
Once a CS elicits a CR, it is possible, briefly, to use that CS as a US in order to condition a response to a new stimulus.
This process is known as second-order or higher-order conditioning.
Learned taste aversions are interesting because they can result in powerful avoidance responses on the basis of a single pairing.
Taste aversions most commonly occur with strong and unusual tastes.
The food, the CS, must be salient in order for us to learn to avoid it.
Salient stimuli are easily noticeable and therefore create a more powerful conditioned response.
Operant conditioning is a kind of learning based on the association of consequences with one’s behaviors.
Edward Thorndike was one of the first people to research this kind of learning.
Thorndike put forth the law of effect that states that if the consequences of a behavior are pleasant, the stimulus-response (S-R) connection will be strengthened and the likelihood of the behavior will increase.
He used the term instrumental learning to describe his work because he believed the consequence was instrumental in shaping future behaviors.
B. F. Skinner - who coined the term operant conditioning, is the best-known psychologist to research this form of learning.
Skinner invented a special contraption, aptly named a Skinner box, to use in his research of animal learning.
Reinforcement is defined by its consequences; anything that makes a behavior more likely to occur is a reinforcer.
Two kinds of reinforcement exist.
Positive reinforcement refers to the addition of something pleasant.
Negative reinforcement refers to the removal of something unpleasant.
Escape learning allows one to terminate an aversive stimulus; avoidance learning, on the other hand, enables one to avoid the unpleasant stimulus altogether.
Punishment -is anything that makes a behavior less likely.
The two types of punishment are known as positive punishment (usually referred to simply as “punishment”), which is the addition of something unpleasant, and omission training or negative punishment, the removal of something pleasant.
Punishment is operant conditioning’s version of aversive conditioning.
Punishment is most effective if it is delivered immediately after the unwanted behavior and if it is harsh.
However, harsh punishment may also result in unwanted consequences such as fear and anger.
Shaping reinforces the steps used to reach the desired behavior.
Animals can also be taught to perform a number of responses successively in order to get a reward.
This process is known as chaining.
The terms acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, discrimination, and generalization can be used in our discussion of operant conditioning, too.
Using a rat in a Skinner box as our example, acquisition occurs when the rat learns to press the lever to get the reward.
Extinction occurs when the rat ceases to press the lever because the reward no longer results from this action.
Spontaneous recovery would occur if, after having extinguished the bar press response and without providing any further training, the rat began to press the bar again.
Generalization would be if the rat began to press other things in the Skinner box or the bar in other boxes.
Discrimination would involve teaching the rat to press only a particular bar or to press the bar only under certain conditions.
Primary reinforcers innately satisfying stimuli.
They include things like food, water, and rest, whose natural properties are reinforcing.
Secondary reinforcers are things we have learned to value such as praise or the chance to play a video game.
Money is a special kind of secondary reinforcer, called a generalized reinforcer, because it can be traded for virtually anything.
One practical application of generalized reinforcers is known as a token economy.
In a token economy, every time people perform a desired behavior, they are given a token.
Premack principle - It explains that whichever of two activities is preferred can be used to reinforce the activity that is not preferred.
When you are first teaching a new behavior, rewarding the behavior each time is best.
This process is known as continuous reinforcement.
According to the partial-reinforcement effect, behaviors will be more resistant to extinction if the animal has not been reinforced continuously.
A fixed-ratio (FR) schedule provides reinforcement after a set number of responses.
A fixed-interval (FI) schedule requires that a certain amount of time elapse before a bar press will result in a reward.
Researchers have found that animals will not perform certain behaviors that go against their natural inclinations.
The tendency for animals to forgo rewards to pursue their typical patterns of behavior is called instinctive drift.
The Pavlovian model of classical conditioning is known as the contiguity model because it postulates that the more times two things are paired, the greater the learning that will take place.
Contiguity (togetherness) determines the strength of the response.
Robert Rescorla revised the Pavlovian model to take into account a more complex set of circumstances.
Rescorla’s model is known as the contingency model of classical conditioning and clearly rests upon a cognitive view of classical conditioning.
Such observational learning is also known as modeling and was studied a great deal by Albert Bandura in formulating his social-learning theory.
This type of learning is said to be species-specific; it only occurs between members of the same species.
Latent learning was studied extensively by Edward Tolman.
Latent means hidden, and latent learning is learning that becomes obvious only once a reinforcement is given for demonstrating it.
Abstract learning involves understanding concepts such as “tree” or “same” rather than learning simply to press a bar or peck a disk in order to secure a reward.
Some researchers have shown that animals in Skinner boxes seem to be able to understand such concepts.
Wolfgang Köhler is well known for his studies of insight learning in chimpanzees.
Insight learning occurs when one suddenly realizes how to solve a problem.
Köhler argued that learning often happens in this sudden way due to insight rather than because of the gradual strengthening of the S-R connection suggested by the behaviorists.
Around the turn of the twentieth century, a Russian physiologist named Ivan Pavlov inadvertently discovered a kind of learning while studying digestion in dogs.
Pavlov found that the dogs learned to pair the sounds in the environment where they were fed with the food that was given to them and began to salivate simply upon hearing the sounds.
Pavlov deduced the basic principle of classical conditioning.
People and animals can learn to associate neutral stimuli (e.g., sounds) with stimuli that produce reflexive, involuntary responses (e.g., food) and will learn to respond similarly to the new stimulus as they did to the old one (e.g., salivate).
The original stimulus that elicits a response is known as the unconditioned stimulus (US or UCS).
In the classic Pavlovian paradigm, the US is food.
Food elicits the natural, involuntary response of salivation.
This response is called the unconditioned response (UR or UCR).
Once the bell elicits salivation, a conditioned response (CR), it is no longer a neutral stimulus but rather a conditioned stimulus (CS).
Learning has taken place once the animals respond to the CS without a presentation of the US.
This learning is also called acquisition since the animals have acquired a new behavior.
Acquisition will occur fastest if the bell is rung and, while it is still ringing, the dogs are presented with food.
This procedure is known as delayed conditioning.
Less effective methods of learning include:
Trace conditioning—The presentation of the CS, followed by a short break, followed by the presentation of the US.
Simultaneous conditioning—CS and US are presented at the same time.
Backward conditioning—US is presented first and is followed by the CS.
This method is particularly ineffective.
In psychological terminology, the process of unlearning a behavior is known as extinction.
One fascinating and yet-to-be-adequately-explained part of this process is known as spontaneous recovery.
Sometimes, after a conditioned response has been extinguished and no further training of the animals has taken place, the response briefly reappears upon presentation of the conditioned stimulus.
Often animals conditioned to respond to a certain stimulus will also respond to similar stimuli, although the response is usually smaller in magnitude.
The dogs may salivate to a number of bells, not just the one with which they were trained.
This tendency to respond to similar CSs is known as generalization.
Subjects can be trained, however, to tell the difference, or discriminate, between various stimuli.
Classical conditioning can also be used with humans.
In one famous, albeit ethically questionable, study, John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner conditioned a little boy named Albert to fear a white rat.
The rat is a neutral stimulus that becomes the CS, and the CR is crying in response to presentation of the rat alone.
Albert also generalized, crying in response to a white rabbit, a man’s white beard, and a variety of other white, fluffy things.
Aversive conditioning has been used in a number of more socially constructive ways.
For instance, to stop biting their nails, some people paint them with truly horrible-tasting materials.
Once a CS elicits a CR, it is possible, briefly, to use that CS as a US in order to condition a response to a new stimulus.
This process is known as second-order or higher-order conditioning.
Learned taste aversions are interesting because they can result in powerful avoidance responses on the basis of a single pairing.
Taste aversions most commonly occur with strong and unusual tastes.
The food, the CS, must be salient in order for us to learn to avoid it.
Salient stimuli are easily noticeable and therefore create a more powerful conditioned response.
Operant conditioning is a kind of learning based on the association of consequences with one’s behaviors.
Edward Thorndike was one of the first people to research this kind of learning.
Thorndike put forth the law of effect that states that if the consequences of a behavior are pleasant, the stimulus-response (S-R) connection will be strengthened and the likelihood of the behavior will increase.
He used the term instrumental learning to describe his work because he believed the consequence was instrumental in shaping future behaviors.
B. F. Skinner - who coined the term operant conditioning, is the best-known psychologist to research this form of learning.
Skinner invented a special contraption, aptly named a Skinner box, to use in his research of animal learning.
Reinforcement is defined by its consequences; anything that makes a behavior more likely to occur is a reinforcer.
Two kinds of reinforcement exist.
Positive reinforcement refers to the addition of something pleasant.
Negative reinforcement refers to the removal of something unpleasant.
Escape learning allows one to terminate an aversive stimulus; avoidance learning, on the other hand, enables one to avoid the unpleasant stimulus altogether.
Punishment -is anything that makes a behavior less likely.
The two types of punishment are known as positive punishment (usually referred to simply as “punishment”), which is the addition of something unpleasant, and omission training or negative punishment, the removal of something pleasant.
Punishment is operant conditioning’s version of aversive conditioning.
Punishment is most effective if it is delivered immediately after the unwanted behavior and if it is harsh.
However, harsh punishment may also result in unwanted consequences such as fear and anger.
Shaping reinforces the steps used to reach the desired behavior.
Animals can also be taught to perform a number of responses successively in order to get a reward.
This process is known as chaining.
The terms acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, discrimination, and generalization can be used in our discussion of operant conditioning, too.
Using a rat in a Skinner box as our example, acquisition occurs when the rat learns to press the lever to get the reward.
Extinction occurs when the rat ceases to press the lever because the reward no longer results from this action.
Spontaneous recovery would occur if, after having extinguished the bar press response and without providing any further training, the rat began to press the bar again.
Generalization would be if the rat began to press other things in the Skinner box or the bar in other boxes.
Discrimination would involve teaching the rat to press only a particular bar or to press the bar only under certain conditions.
Primary reinforcers innately satisfying stimuli.
They include things like food, water, and rest, whose natural properties are reinforcing.
Secondary reinforcers are things we have learned to value such as praise or the chance to play a video game.
Money is a special kind of secondary reinforcer, called a generalized reinforcer, because it can be traded for virtually anything.
One practical application of generalized reinforcers is known as a token economy.
In a token economy, every time people perform a desired behavior, they are given a token.
Premack principle - It explains that whichever of two activities is preferred can be used to reinforce the activity that is not preferred.
When you are first teaching a new behavior, rewarding the behavior each time is best.
This process is known as continuous reinforcement.
According to the partial-reinforcement effect, behaviors will be more resistant to extinction if the animal has not been reinforced continuously.
A fixed-ratio (FR) schedule provides reinforcement after a set number of responses.
A fixed-interval (FI) schedule requires that a certain amount of time elapse before a bar press will result in a reward.
Researchers have found that animals will not perform certain behaviors that go against their natural inclinations.
The tendency for animals to forgo rewards to pursue their typical patterns of behavior is called instinctive drift.
The Pavlovian model of classical conditioning is known as the contiguity model because it postulates that the more times two things are paired, the greater the learning that will take place.
Contiguity (togetherness) determines the strength of the response.
Robert Rescorla revised the Pavlovian model to take into account a more complex set of circumstances.
Rescorla’s model is known as the contingency model of classical conditioning and clearly rests upon a cognitive view of classical conditioning.
Such observational learning is also known as modeling and was studied a great deal by Albert Bandura in formulating his social-learning theory.
This type of learning is said to be species-specific; it only occurs between members of the same species.
Latent learning was studied extensively by Edward Tolman.
Latent means hidden, and latent learning is learning that becomes obvious only once a reinforcement is given for demonstrating it.
Abstract learning involves understanding concepts such as “tree” or “same” rather than learning simply to press a bar or peck a disk in order to secure a reward.
Some researchers have shown that animals in Skinner boxes seem to be able to understand such concepts.
Wolfgang Köhler is well known for his studies of insight learning in chimpanzees.
Insight learning occurs when one suddenly realizes how to solve a problem.
Köhler argued that learning often happens in this sudden way due to insight rather than because of the gradual strengthening of the S-R connection suggested by the behaviorists.
