Learning and Memory Notes

Behaviourist Approaches to Learning

Behaviourism

• Definition: An approach to psychology focusing on objective, observable facts rather than subjective processes.
• Focus: Views behaviour as the proper topic for study, not consciousness.

Key Figures

• John B. Watson (formulated behaviourism in 1913)
• B. F. Skinner

Classical Conditioning

• Definition: A simple form of learning resulting in an involuntary association between two stimuli, producing a conditioned response.
• Learning occurs when a stimulus consistently produces a response it didn't previously produce.

Pavlov's Discovery

• Ivan Pavlov, a Russian scientist, discovered classical conditioning through experiments with dogs.
• He measured saliva production in response to food and noticed dogs salivating before the food appeared, triggered by the technician's presence.
• He experimented with other stimuli, finding that repeated association with food led to salivation at the stimulus.

Components of Classical Conditioning

• Reflex Behaviour: Classical conditioning always involves a reflex, which is a simple, automatic, unlearnt response that consistently occurs in the presence of a particular stimulus.
• Stimulus: A factor that triggers a response in an organism.
• Response: An observable emotional, mental, or behavioural reaction to a stimulus.

Types of Stimuli

• Neutral Stimulus (NS): A stimulus that doesn't initially elicit a predictable response.
• Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): A stimulus that consistently produces a naturally occurring, automatic response.
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): A stimulus that is neutral at the start but, after conditioning, produces a response.

Types of Responses

• Unconditioned Response (UCR): The automatic response to the UCS.
• Conditioned Response (CR): The learned response produced by the CS.

Three Phases of Classical Conditioning

1. Before Conditioning: Learning hasn't occurred yet.
   • The unconditioned stimulus (UCS) elicits an unconditioned response (UCR), e.g., a bone (UCS) causes a dog to salivate (UCR).
   • A neutral stimulus (NS) elicits no response, e.g., a bell (NS) produces no response.
2. During Conditioning: Learning occurs through association.
   • The neutral stimulus (NS) is continuously paired with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), e.g., bone (UCS) and bell (NS) are paired, leading to salivation (UCR).
3. After Conditioning: Learning has occurred.
   • The neutral stimulus (NS) becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) and elicits a conditioned response (CR).
   • The conditioned response (CR) is the same behaviour as the unconditioned response (UCR), e.g., the bell (CS) causes salivation (CR).

Classical Conditioning Principles

• The UCR and CR are the same behaviour; what differs is the stimulus that precedes them.
  • Natural response = UCR
  • Learnt response = CR

Conditioned Emotional Responses

• Emotional responses can be conditioned when a neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that evokes an emotional response.

Little Albert Experiment

• John Watson and Rosalie Rayner (1920) conditioned a fear response in Little Albert.
• Before conditioning:
  • UCS (loud noise - Steel bar hit with a hammer) elicits UCR (fear).
  • NS (white rat) elicits no predictable response.
• During conditioning:
  • Repeated pairing of NS (white rat) with UCS (loud noise) elicits UCR (fear).
• After conditioning:
  • CS (white rat) elicits CR (fear).

Factors Affecting Classical Conditioning

• Only involuntary, reflexive responses can be conditioned.
• The learner is passive.
• The NS/CS must precede the UCS.
• The NS/CS and UCS must be presented close together in time (ideally within 5 seconds).
• The NS must be paired with the UCS multiple times.

Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery

• Extinction: Gradual weakening or disappearance of a conditioned response when the CS is no longer paired with the UCS.
• Spontaneous Recovery: Reappearance of a previously extinguished CR after a period of time.
• Stimulus Generalization: The tendency for a conditioned stimulus to evoke similar responses after the response has been conditioned.
• Discrimination: The ability to differentiate between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus.

Classical Conditioning and LTP/LTD

• Long-Term Potentiation (LTP):
  • Underlies learning and memory of associations between stimuli.
  • Strengthens connections between neurons that are repeatedly co-activated ('neurons that fire together wire together').
  • In Little Albert's case, LTP strengthens the association between the white rat and fear response.
• Long-Term Depression (LTD):
  • Results in the weakening of post-synaptic responses (or weakening of neural connections/pathways or weakened memory trace).
  • Repeated presentation of the UCS (e.g. food) without the CS (e.g. bell) will result in weakened input to the post-synaptic neuron (i.e. absence of the signal from the UCS).
  • The repeated weak stimulation results in the weakening of the (previously potentiated) conditioned (e.g. salivation) response (or gradual extinction/inhibition/depotentiation of the conditioned salivation response).
  • Results from repeated low intensity (sub-threshold) stimulation of the post-synaptic neuron.

Conditioned Taste Aversions

• Taste Aversion: A learned dislike to a taste associated with an unpleasant feeling (nausea).
• From an evolutionary perspective, connecting tastes with nausea or other unpleasant visceral experiences is crucial to survival for an animal that forages for its meals.
• Cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy often develop strong aversions to virtually all food they usually eat (and may lose dangerous amounts of weight) as they become associated with the nausea and vomiting that result from the treatment, and these foods are no longer palatable once the treatment ends.

Conditioned Immune Responses

• Chemotherapy (UCS) reduces immune cell activity (UCR).
• Hospital stimuli (CS) associated with chemotherapy can suppress immune functioning (CR).

Operant Conditioning

• Definition: A form of learning where the likelihood of a response is determined by the consequences following the response.
• Operant refers to any active and voluntary behaviour that operates on the environment to generate consequences.

Consequences

• Reinforcements: Increase the likelihood of a behaviour.
• Punishments: Decrease the likelihood of a behaviour.

The ABC Model of Operant Conditioning

• Antecedent: A stimulus that signals a behaviour.
• Behaviour: The response to a stimulus (antecedent).
• Consequence: The feedback following a behaviour.

Types of Consequences

Reinforcements

• Increase the likelihood of a behaviour.
• Positive Reinforcement: Adding a favourable stimulus to increase behaviour likelihood.
• Negative Reinforcement: Removing an undesirable stimulus to increase behaviour likelihood.

Punishments

• Decrease the likelihood of a behaviour.
• Positive Punishment: Applying an unpleasant consequence to reduce behaviour.
• Negative Punishment: Removing something pleasant to reduce behaviour.

Problems with Punishment

• Difficulty distinguishing which behaviour is being punished.
• Learner may fear the person administering the punishment (classical conditioning).
• Punishment may not eliminate existing rewards for a behaviour.
• Most effective with reasoning and when paired with reinforcement of alternative behaviours.

Comparing Reinforcement and Punishment

Effectiveness of Reinforcement

• Order of presentation: Consequences should follow behaviour.
• Timing of the reinforcer: Reinforcement should occur soon after the desired response.
• Appropriateness of reinforcement: What one organism sees as a reinforcer another organism may not.
• Schedule of reinforcement: Can be continuous or partial/variable.

Shaping

• Definition: Reinforcing successive approximations toward a desired response.
• Used to train complex behaviours.

Social-Cognitive Approaches to Learning

• Emphasises the role of thought and social learning in behaviour.

Observational Learning (Modelling)

• Definition: Learning by watching a model's behaviour and its consequences.
• Model: Individual portraying the behaviour.
• Learner: Individual observing and acquiring the behaviour.
• Learning can remain latent until demonstrated.

Factors Affecting Observational Learning

• A good model is one the learner can identify with in relation to a number of characteristics (e.g. age, gender, ethnicity), or if the person is valued by the learner (e.g. has prestige, high status, likeability, attractiveness).
• Observational learning is particularly effective when a learner is trying to learn a new skill.
• Observational learning allows learning to occur without direct experience of a situation to avoid potentially dangerous situations.

Stages of Observational Learning (ARRMR)

1. Attention: The learner must actively watch the model's behaviour and its consequences.
2. Retention: The learnt behaviour must be stored in memory as a mental representation.
3. Reproduction: The learner must have the physical/intellectual ability to reproduce the behaviour.
4. Motivation: The learner must want to imitate the learnt behaviour.
5. Reinforcement: Prospect of a good result for imitating increases likelihood.

• Reinforcement can come from the model, a third person, personal satisfaction, or vicariously.

Bobo Doll Studies (Albert Bandura)

• Children observed an adult model interacting with a Bobo doll.
• Children who observed aggressive models displayed more aggressive behaviour.
• Learning can occur in the absence of reinforcers for the observers; learning can occur merely through observation.
• Learning through observation can remain latent unless an appropriate incentive or reward is offered to the learner to reproduce the learnt behaviour. It is not necessary for a learner to have reinforcement for learning to occur.
• Whether an individual actually performs modelled behaviour also depends on the behaviour’s likely outcome. This outcome expectancy is often learned through an observational learning mechanism known as vicarious conditioning.

Vicarious Learning

• In vicarious conditioning, a person learns the consequences of an action by observing its consequences for someone else.

Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Ways of Knowing

Diversity

• Prior to European occupancy, Aboriginal peoples had lived in harmony with their environment for thousands of years.
• Their isolation from the rest of the world, the sustainable use of local resources and the maintenance of complex social structures and spiritual beliefs, had all helped maintain their cultural integrity.
• Their relationship with the land is a key part of their identity. They believed that people were not superior to, or separate from, the environment in which they lived. Rather, the people, the land, the animals, the plants and everything around them were all part of the same fabric and shared a connection to ancestor spirits.

Context

• Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander studies focus on understanding the complexity and diversity of the respective cultures and their lived experiences.
• The arrival of the First Fleet in 1788 and the subsequent occupation of Australia brought with it the almost total disintegration of traditional Aboriginal lifestyles and cultures.

Ways of Knowing Characteristics

• Connected to the landscape
• Relational
• Reciprocal (responsibilities to care for Country)
• Spiritual and based on deep connection to ancestral knowledge
• Holistic
• Traditionally transmitted orally

Country

• Country contains complex ideas about place, law, spirituality, language, cultural practice, material sustenance, family and identity – it is much more than just the land.
• Knowledge may be ‘patterned on Country’ in two senses:
  • Through kinship relationships
  • Through knowledge being encoded in the landscape
• There are multiple modes of knowledge transmission (e.g. Songlines) within the system that is Country. Country holds and transmits knowledge – it is seen as sentient.

Kinship

• Kinship structures = a system of social organisation in which everyone is related to each other in defined ways.
• It determines an individual’s relationships and responsibilities to people and Country.
• It determines individual and group rights to Songlines and imagery.
• When kinship structures are disrupted, knowledge is disrupted.

Multimodal System of Learning

• All entities on Country have their own language. The winds, tides, night sky, animals, plants, rivers, etc. each have their own language, occurring in different senses – scent, sound, sight, texture, etc.
• Learning for Aboriginal peoples = learning to listen, observe, and sense the relationships between entities on Country.

The 8-Ways Model

• Story Sharing: Approaching learning through narrative.
• Learning Maps: Explicitly mapping/visualising processes.
• Non-verbal: Applying intra-personal and kinaesthetic skills to thinking and learning.
• Symbols and Images: Using images and metaphors to understand concepts and content.
• Land Links: Place-based learning, linking content to local land and place.
• Non-linear: Producing innovations and understanding by thinking laterally or combining systems.
• Deconstruct/Reconstruct: Modelling and scaffolding, working from wholes to parts (watch then do).
• Community Links: Centring local viewpoints, applying learning for community benefit.