Chapter 7 - Learning Notes
Chapter 7: Learning
Introduction
Learning is inherently known, but a scientific definition is needed.
The chapter focuses on associative learning (classical and operant conditioning).
Other forms of learning, such as observational learning, also exist.
Observational Learning
Albert Bandura's Bobo doll experiment (1961) demonstrated observational learning.
Children who watched an adult being aggressive towards a Bobo doll were more likely to mimic that aggression.
This challenged behaviorist views that learning is solely about conditioning, association, rewards, and punishments.
Social cognitive learning recognizes that learning can occur through observing and imitating.
Associative Learning
Classical conditioning: Associating a stimulus with an involuntary response (e.g., Pavlov's dogs salivating at the sound of a bell).
Operant conditioning: Associating a stimulus with a voluntary behavior (e.g., a rat pressing a lever to get food).
Biological Predispositions and Learning
An animal's capacity for conditioning is limited by its biology.
Humans are more taste-averse than sight- or sound-averse.
Species can more easily learn associations that help them thrive or survive.
Example
Food poisoning from oysters leads to taste aversion, but not aversion to the sight of Bernice or sea shanties.
Birds may avoid tainted food by sight due to their foraging behavior.
Pigeon Example
Easier to teach a pigeon to peck an "x" for food than to flap wings for food because pecking is natural.
Easier for a bird to flap its wings to avoid a shock than to peck an "x" to avoid a shock.
Cognitive and Social Context in Learning
Learning shapes attitudes and cognition.
Social context is important for learning.
Pavlov-style conditioning experiments can run into trouble if they ignore social cognitive elements.
Alcohol Addiction Treatment Example
Booze laced with a nauseating drug can be overridden by the brain if it knows the drug is causing the illness.
Social context (friends, family, stressors) can reinforce alcohol consumption more than the pill can punish it.
Latent Learning
Latent learning is learning that occurs without conscious awareness.
Example: Being able to give directions in a new city.
Rats develop cognitive maps of mazes, even without a reward.
Observational Learning and Modeling
Learning by watching others or being influenced by them.
Modeling: Observing and imitating specific behaviors.
Animals (rats, crows, pigeons, primates) learn through imitation.
Examples
Chimps learn how to use sticks to fish ants.
Rhesus macaques learn to make up after a fight by watching older macaques.
Social Observation and Behavior
Social observation shapes behavior, especially in children.
Bobo doll experiment showed children imitating aggressive behavior.
Neuroimaging shows that when someone watches another receive a reward, their own brain's reward systems light up.
Mirror Neurons
Mirror neurons fire when a subject performs an action and when they observe someone else doing it.
Italian researchers discovered mirror neurons when studying brain signals in a lab monkey.
Monkey's brain worked as if he was actually licking the ice cream.
Mirror neurons reveal a strong connection between observation, imitation, and learning.
Importance of Models
Observational social learning starts early.
Parental figures are powerful role models.
Positive models prompt similar behavior, while negative models can spark antisocial effects.
Quotes
George Bernard Shaw: "Imitation is not just the sincerest form of flattery, it's the sincerest form of learning."
Lord Chesterfield: "We are, in truth, more than half what we are by imitation."
Overview of Learning
Learning is a long-term change in behavior based on experience.
Classical and operant conditioning are two main types of learning.
Classical Conditioning (Pavlovian Conditioning)
Ivan Pavlov's experiments with dogs.
Dogs associated the bell with food and salivated at the sound of the bell alone.
Unconditioned stimulus: Food.
Unconditioned response: Salivation.
Conditioned stimulus: Bell.
Conditioned response: Salivation to the bell.
Human Example
A shot at the doctor's office causes pain.
The words "This won't hurt a bit" become a conditioned stimulus when paired with the pain of the shot.
Going to the dentist later, the same words cause fear, even though the mirror won't hurt.
Operant Conditioning (Instrumental Conditioning)
Consequences lead to changes in voluntary behavior.
Reinforcement: Makes it more likely that you'll do something again.
Punishment: Makes it less likely.
Positive: Addition of a stimulus.
Negative: Removal of a stimulus.
Example
Clearing the table and washing dishes after dinner.
Mom gives a hug and says, "Thank you for helping me."
Mom's response is positive reinforcement if it makes you more likely to repeat the behavior.
Pigeons as Art Connoisseurs
Scientists taught pigeons to select paintings by Monet over Picasso using food as a positive reinforcer.
Pigeons generalized to choosing impressionists over cubists.
Definition of Learning
Learning: A process through which experience results in relatively enduring change in behavior or capability.
Levels of Complexity
Sensitization and habituation: Learning about one stimulus.
Sensitization: Becoming more reactive to an alarming or dangerous stimulus (e.g., fire alarms).
Habituation: Ignoring a benign and inconsequential stimulus (e.g., decor in the background).
Classical conditioning: Learning associations between two stimuli (involuntary).
Operant conditioning: Learning through consequences (voluntary).
Social learning: Learning from others (Bandura's theory).
Classical versus Operant Conditioning
Classical Conditioning
Nonconscious (Implicit memory).
Learning associations between two stimuli.
Involuntary
Operant Conditioning
*Voluntary (Memory)
*Learning through consequences*
Importance of Classical Conditioning
Enables humans and nonhuman animals to take advantage of orderly sequences in the world.
Car doesn't run unless the ignition has been turned on.
You can't walk through a door until it's open.
It doesn't rain until there are clouds or thunder in the sky.
Discoveries of Classical Conditioning
Ivan Pavlov discovered classical conditioning while studying digestion in dogs.
Dogs salivated at the sight of the people who would feed them.
Edwin Twitmeyer simultaneously discovered it while studying knee-jerk reflexes.
Twitmeyer sounded a bell before striking the patellar tendon, and the bell alone elicited the knee-jerk response.
Pavlov's Experiment
Neutral stimulus: Bell, tone, or light.
Unconditioned stimulus: Food.
Conditioned stimulus: Tone or light.
Unconditioned response: Salivation to food.
Conditioned response: Salivation to the tone or light.
Fear Conditioning
Studied in laboratory settings using fear because it is easy to manipulate and measure.
Emotions most easily identified are fear and anger.
Little Albert Experiment
Conducted by John Watson and Rayner to promote behaviorist viewpoints.
Conditioned fear in a baby by showing him a white fluffy animal and making a loud banging noise.
Stimulus generalization: Albert became afraid of anything white and fluffy.
Ethical Implications
Cannot terrify a baby anymore in psychology.
Little Albert's mother may have felt coerced.
Albert was never properly debriefed.
An example of what not to do in psychology today.
Watson's View
Absolutely everything is learned.
Emotion can be conditioned.
Watson's Quote
"Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll guarantee to take anyone at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select."
Modern Studies of Conditioned Fear
Rats demonstrate a freezing response when scared.
Pair a light or tone (CS) with a shock to the floor (US) to elicit freezing.
Classical Conditioning in Nature
Learned taste aversion (food poisoning).
Blue jays avoid monarch butterflies after getting sick from them.
Time Importance in Conditioning
Time is really important in conditioning.
Short delayed conditioning: Strong conditioning.
Long delayed conditioning: Weaker conditioning, except for learned taste aversions.
Simultaneous conditioning: Can result in escape behavior.
Backwards conditioning: Can have an inhibitory effect.
Operant Conditioning History
E. L. Thorndike created puzzle boxes where cats had to perform a sequence of behaviors to open the box.
Trial and error learning rather than insight.
Law of effect: A response followed by a satisfying event is strengthened, while a response followed by an annoying event is weakened.
Watson's Behaviorist Manifesto (1913)
Psychology should be purely objective without any interpretation of conscious experience.
The goals of psychology should be to predict and control behavior.
No notable distinction between human and nonhuman behavior.
B. F. Skinner
Led the radical behaviorism movement.
Created the operant conditioning chamber (Skinner box).
Wrote books based on his ideal utopia.
Invented the air crib, which was misunderstood as a baby prison.
Types of Operant Conditioning Procedures
Positive reinforcement: Adding something to increase behavior.
Positive punishment: Adding something to decrease behavior.
Negative reinforcement: Taking something away to increase behavior.
Negative punishment: Taking something away to decrease behavior.
Dog Training Examples
Positive reinforcement: Giving treats when the dog is walking nicely on a leash.
Negative punishment: Standing still when the dog is pulling on the leash.
Positive punishment: Using a correction collar to decrease pulling behavior.
Negative reinforcement: Stopping leash corrections will encourage walking nicely on the lead.
Schedules of Reinforcement
Fixed ratio: Animal needs to make set number of responses in order to get reinforcement.
Variable ratio: Different number of responses needed for each trial, but averages out to a certain number.
Fixed interval: Reward is given only after a specified time interval has elapsed.
Variable interval: Reward is given after a period of time, but the interval varies.
Sedona Dog Example
Taught to hit a button and get a treat.
Fixed interval of thirty seconds imposed, and she showed frustration.
Peak time curves: Dogs learn to increase button presses near the end of the interval.
Longer time intervals lead to less accurate estimations.
Schedule Responses Comparison
Variable ratio: Animal works more efficiently than Fixed Ratio
Fixed interval: Hesitation occurs due Sedona understanding there is a delay.
Real World Examples
Fixed interval: Paid monthly.
Fixed ratio: Paid a bonus for every five items sold.
Variable interval: Getting likes on social media.
Variable ratio: Slot machines.
Extinction
Ceasing conditioning, and a behavior fades out.
In classical conditioning, the CS is presented without the US.
In operant conditioning, reinforcement is not provided when the operant response occurs.
Conditioned behavior declines until it disappears.
Extinction is not the reverse of acquisition or forgetting.
Extinction suppresses behavior.
Responses Can Come Back Several Ways:
Disinhibition
a new stimulus breaks focus causing the animal to start responding again.
Spontaneous Recovery
Given Extinction and coming back weeks later resulting in animal responding again, seemingly forgetting.
Response Renewal
Context has an effect on behavior and can trigger original response
Behavior can be present in one context, but disappear during the extinction trial, but can re-emerge in the original situation.
*Important Note: Extinction doesn't erase the learned behavior or cause forgetting, just behavior suppression.
Mechanisms of Associative Learning
Temporal contiguity: The amount of time between the presentation of the CS and the US (or between the behavior and the reinforcement).
Stimulus salience: The relevance of the stimulus.
Informativeness: Discussed in terms of blocking and latent inhibition.
Extinction: What has been previously noted with behavior suppression.
Blocking
*Association with certain stimuli reduces the connection with others (Bell association and Cheese example in transcript).
Latent Inhibition
*Difficulty utilizing specific stimulus due to a previously formed association (Tone example).
Latent Learning
Learning that happens without us even realize in term of cognitive maps.
Demonstrated that rats could learn novel detours on a maze.
Undergrad Example: Navigation of Alumni Hall.
Grid Cells
Neurons that code for location as the treasure map with Place cells being the X on the treasure map.
Social Learning
Bandura's BoBo Doll relating behavior from the models.
Capuchin Monkeys technique regarding social and observational behaviors.
Brushed Turkeys do not have these observations and skills due to their isolated environment.