Psychology of Learning Study Notes

Introduction to the Psychology of Learning

  • Definition of Learning: A relatively lasting change in behavior or knowledge that results from experience.

    • Relatively Lasting: Not simply a brief or temporary change.
    • A Change: Can involve behavior, knowledge, skills, expectations, or understanding.
    • Results from Experience: Develops through practice, exposure, interaction, or consequences rather than biological maturation alone.
    • Key Idea: Not every change in behavior represents learning. Temporary changes or changes caused by maturation alone do not meet the definition.

  • Learning, Memory, and Performance Distinctions:

    • Learning: Acquiring new knowledge or skills.
    • Memory: Storing and retrieving what has been learned.
    • Performance: Observable behavior at a particular moment.
    • Concrete Example: Practicing a song on the piano involves learning; retaining the notes involves memory; playing the song is performance.
    • Key Distinction: Performance can provide evidence of learning, but learning and performance are not the same thing.

  • Major Approaches to Learning:

    • Behaviorism: Focuses on how associations and consequences shape behavior.
      • Ivan Pavlov: Classical conditioning.
      • B. F. Skinner: Operant conditioning.
    • Cognitive Approaches: Focus on processes such as attention, expectations, memory, and problem solving.
    • Observational Learning: Learning by watching others.
      • Albert Bandura: Modeling and imitation.
    • Sociocultural / Constructivist Approach: Emphasizes how context and interaction with others shape learning.
      • Lev Vygotsky: Learning through guidance and interaction.
    • Core Takeaway: Different approaches emphasize different parts of the learning process, and the same behavior can sometimes be understood from more than one perspective.

Elicited Behaviors, Habituation, and Sensitization

  • Elicited Behaviors: Automatic responses triggered by specific environmental stimuli.

    • Reflexes: Innate, automatic responses that occur reliably in response to a specific stimulus.
      • Example: Automatically blinking when something approaches the eye.
    • Modal Action Patterns (MAPs): Innate, species-typical sequences of behavior triggered by a sign stimulus.
      • Example: A displaced egg acts as a sign stimulus for the greylag goose's egg-retrieval MAP. Once the sequence begins, the goose tends to continue the egg-rolling movement even if the egg is removed.
    • Key Distinction: Reflex = stimulus →\rightarrow single response; MAP = sign stimulus →\rightarrow sequence of responses.

  • Habituation and Sensitization (Non-Associative Learning):

    • Experience can change how strongly an organism responds to a stimulus.
    • Both are forms of non-associative learning because they involve changes in responding to a single stimulus, rather than learning a relationship between events.
    • Habituation: Responding decreases.
    • Sensitization: Responding increases.

  • Habituation Details:

    • Definition: A decrease in the strength or probability of an elicited response after repeated exposure to the same stimulus.
    • Example: After spending time in a room, the sound of the air conditioner may become barely noticeable.
    • Important Characteristics:
      • Stimulus Specificity: Habituation is primarily tied to the repeated stimulus; changing the stimulus can restore responding.
      • Spontaneous Recovery: The response may return after a period without stimulation.
      • Dishabituation: A novel or strong stimulus can restore responding to the habituated stimulus.
    • Habituation vs. Sensory Adaptation and Fatigue:
      • Habituation: Change in behavioral responding with repeated experience.
      • Sensory Adaptation: Change in sensory responsiveness.
      • Fatigue: Reduced ability to perform the response.
      • Key Idea: A decrease in observable behavior does not necessarily mean habituation; the reason for the decrease matters.

  • Sensitization Details:

    • Definition: An increase in the strength or probability of an elicited response following repeated or strong stimulation.
    • Example: After hearing an unexpectedly loud crash at night, a person may react strongly to a small noise that normally would barely be noticed.
    • Characteristics: More likely following intense stimulation, tends to be less stimulus-specific than habituation, and can occur after a single sufficiently intense event.

  • Dual-Process Theory:

    • Explains why repeated stimulation can produce either habituation or sensitization. Two processes operate simultaneously:
      • S–R System: Habituation process →\rightarrow responding decreases.
      • State System: Sensitization process →\rightarrow general responsiveness increases.
    • Relative Strength Outcomes:
      • Weak or moderate repeated stimulation →\rightarrow habituation tends to dominate.
      • Strong, intense, or aversive stimulation →\rightarrow sensitization tends to dominate.
    • Core Takeaway: Habituation and sensitization are not mutually exclusive processes. Observable behavior reflects the combined effect of both.

Classical Conditioning

  • Definition: Associative learning in which a previously neutral stimulus becomes capable of eliciting a response after being paired with a stimulus that naturally produces that response.

    • Ivan Pavlov demonstrated classical conditioning through research on salivation in dogs.

  • Basic Components:

    • Unconditioned Stimulus (US): Naturally elicits a response.
    • Unconditioned Response (UR): Natural, reflexive response to the US.
    • Neutral Stimulus (NS): Initially does not elicit the response.
    • Conditioned Stimulus (CS): Previously neutral stimulus that elicits a response after conditioning.
    • Conditioned Response (CR): Learned response to the CS.
    • Key Idea: The NS becomes the CS through conditioning.

  • Pavlov Example:

    • Before conditioning: Food (US) →\rightarrow Salivation (UR)
    • During conditioning: Bell (NS) + Food (US) →\rightarrow Salivation (UR)
    • After conditioning: Bell (CS) →\rightarrow Salivation (CR)

  • Major Conditioning Phenomena:

    • Acquisition: Learning the association between the CS and US.
    • Extinction: The CR weakens when the CS is repeatedly presented without the US.
    • Spontaneous Recovery: An extinguished CR reappears after a rest period.
    • Generalization: Stimuli similar to the CS also elicit the CR.
    • Discrimination: Responding to the specific CS but not to similar stimuli that do not predict the US.
    • Key Distinction: Generalization = responding to similar stimuli; Discrimination = distinguishing among stimuli.
    • Persistence of Association: Extinction does not simply erase the original association. Spontaneous recovery provides evidence that the original learning can remain.

  • Timing of the CS and US:

    • Delayed Conditioning: CS begins before the US and overlaps with it; generally most effective.
    • Trace Conditioning: CS ends before the US begins, leaving a brief gap.
    • Simultaneous Conditioning: CS and US occur together; generally less effective.
    • Backward Conditioning: US occurs before the CS; generally weak or no conditioning.
    • Key Idea: Effective conditioning depends not only on the CS and US being close together in time, but also on the CS providing useful information about what is coming.

  • Influences on Conditioning:

    • Timing: How closely in time the CS and US occur.
    • Predictiveness: How well the CS predicts whether the US will occur.
    • Salience: How noticeable or significant the stimulus is (e.g., a distinctive, noticeable cue paired with food is generally learned more readily than a faint cue).

  • When Pairing Isn't Enough:

    • Blocking: Prior learning about one CS can interfere with learning about a new CS when both are later paired with the same US.
    • Overshadowing: When cues occur together, the more salient cue becomes more strongly conditioned.
    • Latent Inhibition: Prior exposure to a neutral stimulus without consequences can make later conditioning to that stimulus slower.
    • Core Takeaway: Conditioning depends on more than simply pairing stimuli. Prior experience and the information provided by a stimulus also matter.

  • Learning Beyond Direct Pairing:

    • Sensory Preconditioning: Two neutral stimuli are associated first; after one later becomes a CS, the other can also elicit the conditioned response.
    • Higher-Order Conditioning: An established CS is used to condition another stimulus.
    • Key Idea: Conditioned learning can extend to stimuli that were never directly paired with the original US.

  • Applications of Classical Conditioning:

    • Explains conditioned fears and anxiety, taste aversion, and learned emotional associations.
    • Taste Aversion: Particularly important because it can develop after a single pairing and even when there is a long delay between eating the food and becoming ill.
    • Core Takeaway: Biological factors can influence which associations are learned easily; organisms are not equally prepared to learn every possible association.

Operant Conditioning

  • Definition: Learning in which the probability of a behavior changes because of its consequences.

    • Foundational Origin: Edward Thorndike's Law of Effect provided the foundation for operant conditioning.
    • Development: B. F. Skinner later developed the approach extensively.
    • Sequence: Behavior →\rightarrow Consequence →\rightarrow Future behavior

  • Classical vs. Operant Conditioning:

    • Classical Conditioning: Association between two stimuli; behavior is elicited. Focuses on what predicts an event.
    • Operant Conditioning: Association between a behavior and its consequence; consequences change the future probability of behavior. Focuses on what follows a behavior.

  • Reinforcement and Punishment:

    • Reinforcement: Behavior increases.
    • Punishment: Behavior decreases.
    • Positive: Something is added.
    • Negative: Something is removed.

Reinforcement and punishment matrix showing positive/negative vs behavior increases/decreases

  • Reinforcement and Punishment Examples:

    • Positive Reinforcement: Complete homework →\rightarrow receive ice cream →\rightarrow homework increases.
    • Negative Reinforcement: Clean room →\rightarrow nagging stops →\rightarrow room-cleaning increases.
    • Positive Punishment: Break curfew →\rightarrow receive a reprimand →\rightarrow breaking curfew decreases.
    • Negative Punishment: Break a rule →\rightarrow lose access to the car →\rightarrow rule-breaking decreases.
    • Key Idea: Positive and negative mean added and removed, not good and bad.

  • Types of Reinforcers:

    • Primary Reinforcers: Naturally reinforcing; no learning required (e.g., food, water, warmth).
    • Secondary Reinforcers: Become reinforcing through learning (e.g., praise, grades, stickers).
    • Generalized Reinforcers: Associated with many different reinforcers (e.g., money).
    • Premack Principle: A high-probability (preferred) behavior can reinforce a lower-probability behavior (e.g., finish homework →\rightarrow access to video games).

  • Shaping, Chaining, and Differential Reinforcement:

    • Shaping: Reinforcing successive approximations toward a target behavior. Gradually changes the form of a behavior.
    • Chaining: Linking individual behaviors into a sequence. Connects separate behaviors into a sequence.
    • Differential Reinforcement: Reinforcing some behaviors or patterns of behavior but not others.

  • Motivating Operations (MOs):

    • Events or conditions that temporarily change how effective a reinforcer is.
    • Establishing Operation (EO): Makes a reinforcer more effective (e.g., food deprivation increases the reinforcing value of food).
    • Abolishing Operation (AO): Makes a reinforcer less effective (e.g., eating a large meal decreases the reinforcing value of food).
    • Key Idea: The same consequence can be more or less reinforcing depending on current circumstances.

  • Schedules of Reinforcement:

    • Continuous Reinforcement: Every response is reinforced.
    • Intermittent Reinforcement: Only some responses are reinforced.

  • Four Major Intermittent Schedules:

    • Fixed Ratio (FR): Set number of responses (e.g., reinforcement after every 1010 responses).
      • Response Pattern: High responding with a post-reinforcement pause.
    • Variable Ratio (VR): Varying number of responses (e.g., slot-machine wins).
      • Response Pattern: High, steady responding; highly resistant to extinction.
    • Fixed Interval (FI): First response after a set amount of time (e.g., checking for something as a predictable time approaches).
      • Response Pattern: Scalloped responding.
    • Variable Interval (VI): First response after varying amounts of time (e.g., checking for something that occurs at unpredictable times).
      • Response Pattern: Steady, moderate responding.

  • Differential Reinforcement Schedules:

    • DRL (Differential Reinforcement of Low Rates): Reinforces lower rates of behavior (e.g., reinforcing a student for spacing out classroom comments). Behavior continues, but less often.
    • DRH (Differential Reinforcement of High Rates): Reinforces higher rates of behavior (e.g., reinforcement for completing more than 1010 push-ups in a minute). Behavior occurs more often.
    • DRO (Differential Reinforcement of Other Behavior): Reinforces the absence of the target behavior (e.g., reinforcement after a period with no tantrum). Target behavior does not occur.

  • Extinction:

    • Occurs when a previously reinforced behavior is no longer reinforced, causing the behavior to gradually decrease.
    • Extinction Burst: A temporary increase in the frequency or intensity of the behavior when reinforcement is first removed (e.g., if whining has previously produced candy, whining may initially become louder or more persistent when candy is no longer provided).
    • Resistance to Extinction (RTE): How long behavior persists after reinforcement stops.
    • Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect (PREE): Intermittently reinforced behaviors tend to be more resistant to extinction than continuously reinforced behaviors.

  • Punishment:

    • Definition: A consequence that decreases the future probability of behavior.
      • Positive Punishment: Something aversive is added.
      • Negative Punishment: Something valued is removed.
    • Unwanted Effects: Punishment can reduce behavior, but it can also produce unwanted effects such as fear, avoidance, aggression, or emotional reactions.
    • Limitations: May suppress an unwanted behavior without teaching an appropriate alternative.