Chapter 7: Learning

• Learning: a process by which experience produces a relatively enduring change in an organism’s behavior or capabilities
  • Four basic learning processes
  • Habituation
  • Classical Conditioning
  • Operant Conditioning
  • Observational Learning

Adapting to the Environment

• Habituation: a decrease in the strength of response to a repeated stimulus
  • The simplest form of learning
  • By learning not to respond to uneventful familiar stimuli, an organism can conserve energy and react to more important stimuli.

Classical Conditioning: Associating one Stimulus with Another

• Classical Conditioning: in which an organism learns to associate two stimuli (e.g., a song and a pleasant event) such that one stimulus (the song) comes to elicit a response (feeling happy) that originally was elicited only by the other stimulus (the pleasant event)
• Ivan Pavlov and his dog
  • Experimented on how a dog salivates at the sight of food and tied that reaction to a tone
  • Unlike Tom, the dog will go through extinction and stop reacting to the tone sound overtime
  • Unconditioned Stimulus (USC): a stimulus that elicits a reflexive or innate response (the UCR) without prior learning
  • no learning is required for food to produce salivation
  • Unconditioned Response (UCR):  a reflexive or innate response that is elicited by a stimulus (the UCS) without prior learning
  • In Pavlov’s case salvation
  • Conditioned Stimulus (CS): a stimulus that, through association with a UCS, comes to elicit a conditioned response similar to the original UCR
  • After several learning trials, if the tone is presented by itself, the dog salivates even though there is no food.
• Conditioned Response (CR): a response elicited by a conditioned stimulus
  • Because the dog is now salivating to the tone, salivating is a conditioned response
• Extinction: a process in which the CS is presented repeatedly in the absence of the UCS, causing the CR to weaken and eventually disappear
• Spontaneous Recovery: the reappearance of a previously extinguished CR after a rest period and without new learning trials
• Stimulus Generalization: stimuli similar to the initial CS elicit a CR
• Discrimination: demonstrated when a CR (such as an alarm reaction) occurs to one stimulus (a sound) but not to others
• Higher-Order Conditioning: a neutral stimulus becomes a CS after being paired with an already established CS
• Exposure Therapies: in which a patient is exposed to a stimulus (CS) that arouses an anxiety response (such as fear) without the presence of the UCS, allowing extinction to occur
• Aversion Therapy: attempts to condition an aversion (a repulsion) to a stimulus that triggers unwanted behavior by pairing it with a noxious UCS
• Anticipatory Nausea and Vomiting(ANV): they become nauseated and may vomit anywhere from minutes to hours before a treatment session

Operant Conditioning: Learning Through Consequences

• Operant Conditioning: s a type of learning in which behavior is influenced by the consequences that follow it
• Skinner Box: a special chamber used to study operant conditioning experimentally
• Reinforcement: a response is strengthened by an outcome that follows it
• Punishment:  occurs when a response is weakened by outcomes that follow it
• Discriminative Stimulus: a signal that a particular response will now produce certain consequences
• Positive Reinforcement:  occurs when a response is strengthened by the subsequent presentation of a stimulus
• Primary Reinforcers: are stimuli, such as food and water, that an organism naturally finds reinforcing because they satisfy biological needs
• Secondary (conditioned) reinforcers: are stimuli that acquire reinforcing properties through their association with primary reinforcers
• Negative Reinforcement: a response is strengthened by the subsequent removal (or avoidance) of an aversive stimulus
• Operant Extinction:  is the weakening and eventual disappearance of a response because it is no longer reinforced
• Aversive Punishment (positive punishment, or punishment by application): a response is weakened by the subsequent presentation of a stimulus
• Response Cost (negative punishment, or punishment by removal): a response is weakened by the subsequent removal of a stimulus
• Shaping: which involves reinforcing “successive approximations” toward a final response
• Chaining: is used to develop a sequence (chain) of responses by reinforcing each response with the opportunity to perform the next response
• Operant generalization: an operant response occurs to a new antecedent stimulus or situation that is similar to the original one
• Operant Discrimination:  means that an operant response will occur to one antecedent stimulus but not to another
• Stimulus Control: A behavior that is influenced by discriminative stimuli is said to be under
• Continuous Reinforcement: every response of a particular type is reinforced
• Partial (intermittent) Reinforcement: only a portion of the responses of a particular type are reinforced
• Fixed-ratio (FR) Schedule: reinforcement is given after a fixed number of responses
• Variable-Ratio (VR) Schedule: reinforcement is given after a variable number of responses, all centered around an average
• Fixed-Interval (FI) Schedule: the first response that occurs after a fixed time interval is reinforced
• Variable-Interval (VI) Schedule:  reinforcement is given for the first response that occurs after a variable time interval, centered around an average
• Escape Conditioning: the organism learns a response to terminate an aversive stimulus
• Avoidance Conditioning: the organism learns a response to avoid an aversive stimulus
• Two-factor theory of avoidance learning: both classical and operant conditioning are involved in avoidance learning
• Token Economies: in which desired behaviors are reinforced with tokens (e.g., points, gold stars) that are later turned in for other reinforcers (e.g., prizes, recreation time)
• Applied Behavior Analysis: which combines a behavioral approach with the scientific method to solve individual and societal problems

Crossroads of Conditioning

• Preparedness: means that through evolution, animals are biologically predisposed (prewired) to learn some associations more easily than others.
• Conditioned Taste Aversion: a conditioned response in which the taste (and sometimes the sight and smell) of a particular food becomes disgusting and repulsive
• Instinctive Drift: the tendency for a conditioned response to drift back toward instinctive behavior
• Cognitive Map: a mental representation of the spatial layout
• Latent Learning: which refers to learning that occurs but is not demonstrated until later, when there is an incentive to perform

Observational Learning: When Others Show the Way

• Observational learning: the learning that occurs by observing the behavior of a model
• Social-Cognitive Theory (formerly known as Social-Learning Theory): emphasizes that people learn by observing the behavior of models and acquiring the belief that they can produce behaviors to influence events in their lives.
• Self-Efficacy: which represents people’s belief that they have the capability to perform behaviors that will produce the desired outcome

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