Unit 8 Learning

Classical

• Also known as learning by association
• Ivan Pavlov, John Watson

Procedure

• Neutral Stimulus (already gets a response) is paired with an Unconditioned Stimulus (no response trained yet)
• Learning is already present/achieved

Result

• Neutral Stimulus becomes a Conditioned Stimulus and elicits a Conditioned Response
• Neutral = conditioned

Examples

• Dogs already salivated at the food, so the bell was introduced as a Neutral Stimulus, which became the Conditioned Stimulus, prompting the Conditioned Response of salivatio

Little Albert

• John Watson did a lot of studies on orphans
• Little Albert was the son of his employee who he threatened to fire if he couldn’t use her son
• Would cause a loud and startling sound every time Albert reached out for a rat
  • Albert associates the rat with the startle response
  • Also became afraid of Watson and white stuffed animals

Notes

• NS = Neutral Stimulus
• UcS = Unconditioned Stimulus
• UcR = Unconditioned Response
• CS = Conditioned Stimulus
• CR = Conditioned Response
• NS and US pair
• US and UR are always linked
• After NS links to US and therefore UR, NS is now CS and causes CR
• CR is not always the same as UR
• Acquisition
  • Generally, the optimal acquisition schedule is trace conditioning, or delayed
  • Acquiring, ‘getting,’ the training
• Extinction
  • When the conditioned reaction no longer exists in association to the stimulus
  • If there is no reinforcement or wasn’t strong enough in the first place, it can go extinct
• Spontaneous recovery
  • The training suddenly comes back
  • Usually not as strong as the initial pairing
• (Stimulus) generalization
  • Other similar stimulus gets the same conditioned response
• (Stimulus) discrimination
  • Having a conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus and only that stimulus
• Higher-order conditioning
  • Adding a second set of classical conditions to an existing classical conditioned response
  • The NS in the first becomes the US in the second one

Operant

• Learning by consequences
• B.F. Skinner, Edward Thorndike (Instrumental learning, law of effect)

Procedure

• Behavior is followed by a consequence of either reinforcement or punishment
• ABC method
  • There is a motivation, the Antecedent
  • This prompts trial-and-error Behavior
  • The behavior receives a Consequence

Result

• The behavior increases or decreases in frequency

Examples

• Skinner’s pigeons

Notes

Reinforcement

• Always perceived as good
• Will increase the frequency of or the strength of a behavior

Punishment

• Always perceived as bad
• Will decrease or weaken a behavior

Comparison

Reinforcement vs. Punishment

Positive Reinforcement

• Something perceived as ‘good’ is presented to strengthen behavior
• Sometimes the reward is biologically recognized as good because of its necessity
  • Food, shelter
• Other rewards are conditioned to be seen as ‘good’
  • Most material goods

Negative Reinforcement

• Removal of something perceived as ‘bad’ to strengthen behavior
• Removing a threat or stressor

Positive Punishment

• Something perceived as ‘bad’ is presented to weaken behavior

Negative Punishment

• Taking away something perceived as ‘good’ to weaken a behavior
• Omission Training

Escape and Avoidance Learning/Learned Helplessness

• Learning to escape or avoid something because of punishment
• Martin Seligman shocked dogs no matter what they did
  • They couldn’t ever figure out the solution so they just gave up
• He also determined that if a creature can learn helplessness, they can also learn optimism

Behavior Modification

• Making and breaking habits
• Token economy
  • Meaningless ‘token’ is assigned value through what it can buy/achieve
  • Indoctrinating capitalism into children and the mentally ill, yay!
• Premack principle
  • Probability of behavior
  • Doing things you don’t want to do
  • Why? Because we know what comes after
  • Either we’re punished if we don’t or are rewarded if we do
• Impulse control
  • Understanding delay of gratification
  • Saving for something bigger vs. little pleasures

Social (Observational) Learning/Modeling

• Albert Bandura

Procedure

• Learning by watching
• Primates do this, some young animals mimic their parents, but mainly a human thing
• Observer watches Model to learn a behavior

Result

• The Observer learns the behavior and is able to perform it without watching anymore

Examples

Bandura’s Bobo Doll

• Called this the social cognitive theory
  • He believed it wasn’t passive, that there was cognition/thinking going on in the Observer
• Also showed that aggressive actions doesn’t air out frustration, it created more
• Repeated exposure to aggressive modeling leads to higher instances of aggression
• Attention: One must be attentive to what action is being done
  • The children had to be attentive to the video
• Retention: One must be able to recall what was observed in order to imitate it
• Reproduction: One must have the physical and mental capacity to do the activity to be imitated
• Motivation: One must have an incentive to do the behavior

Chameleon Effect and Prosocial Behavior

• The chameleon effect is essentially conformity
• It is not a bad thing to learn from models
• We tend to adopt postures, gestures, and mannerisms of interaction patterns

Insight/Cognitive Learning

• Wolfgang Kohler

Procedure

• Learning suddenly after no consequence, association, modeling, etc.
• Just a burst of cognitive processing

Result

• Quick and immediate solutions without strategy-based solving

Examples

• Chimps and pigeons
• Edward Tolman and the Cognitive Map
  • Rats needed a reason to display what they have learned
  • There’s ‘latent learning,’ learning that occurred previously but has no necessity to be shown yet
  • Creatures create cognitive maps of their spatial environment