Learning

• Definition: Learning is defined as the process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information and behaviors through experience.

Types of Learning

• Habituation:

  • Description: The decreasing responsiveness to repeated stimulation.

• Associative Learning:

  • Description: Learning that certain events occur together. This can happen in two ways:
  • Classical Conditioning: Associating two stimuli.
  • Operant Conditioning: Associating a response and its consequence.

• Stimulus:

  • Definition: Any event or situation that evokes a response.

• Respondent Behavior:

  • Description: Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimuli.

• Operant Behavior:

  • Description: Behavior that operates on the environment and produces a consequence.

• Cognitive Learning:

  • Definition: The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language.

• Adaptation to Environment: Learning is an adaptation to our environment, often achieved through the association of events that occur in sequence.

Influence of Learned Associations

• Learned associations influence our habitual behaviors.
• Example Study:
  • Researchers studied the sea slug, Aplysia, which shows habituation, as it responds less to repeated stimuli like water movement.
• Complex animals learn to associate their behavior with its consequences.

Classical Conditioning

• Definition: Classical conditioning is a type of learning in which we link two or more stimuli together.

• Illustrative Experiment:

  • Pavlov's Experiment: Pavlov illustrated classical conditioning through his work with dogs:
  • First Stimulus: A tone is presented (neutral stimulus).
  • Second Stimulus: Food is presented (unconditioned stimulus).
  • Behavior: The tone eventually elicits drooling (conditioned response) in anticipation of the food.
  • Result: The repeated pairing of the tone (NS) with the food (UCS) created a learned association.

Behaviorism

• Definition: Behaviorism is the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes.

  • Most research psychologists agree with the first point, but not necessarily the second.

• Key Figures:

  • Ivan Pavlov: His classical experiments influenced behaviorism—a new movement in psychology. He believed in studying observable behavior rather than internal mental states.
  • John B. Watson: Influenced by Pavlov, Watson advocated for psychology's goal to be the prediction and control of behavior, deeming introspection ineffective for this purpose. His work focused on observable behavior and disregarded mental processes.

• Neural Stimulus (NS): In classical conditioning, a stimulus that initially elicits no response before conditioning takes place.

Classical Conditioning Components

Unconditioned Responses and Stimuli

• Unconditioned Response (UCR):

  • Definition: An unlearned, naturally occurring response to an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), such as salivation when food is placed in the mouth.

• Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS):

  • Definition: In classical conditioning, a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response (like food causes salivation).

Conditioned Responses and Stimuli

• Conditioned Response (CR):

  • Definition: A learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus.

• Conditioned Stimulus (CS):

  • Definition: An originally neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR).

Pavlov's Discovery

• Ivan Pavlov accidentally discovered classical conditioning while researching the digestive systems of dogs:

  • Observation: Dogs would salivate when food was put in their mouth.
  • Noticed Response: Dogs would also drool when they saw the dish or the person delivering the food.
  • This led to the theory of classical conditioning.

• Pairing: By pairing the unconditioned stimulus (food) with a neutral stimulus (tone), Pavlov taught the dogs to anticipate the arrival of food, creating a salivary response even without food present.

  • The tone becomes the Conditioned Stimulus (CS) and the conditioned response (CR) is the salivation to the tone.