Chapter 6 Learning - Summary Psychology: Themes and Variations PDF

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CHAPTER 6: LEARNING Learning: is any relatively durable change in behaviour or knowledge that is due to experience Phobias: are irrational fears of specific objects or situations Conditioning: involves learning connections b.w events that occur in an organism’s enviornment Classical Conditioning ❖ Classical Conditioning: is a type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus ❖ Ivan Pavlov (1900’s) first to describe this, sometimes called Pavlovian conditioning ❖ Pavlov’s Demonstration: “Psychic Reflexes” ➢ Conditioned dogs to salivate in response to the sound of a tone ➢ Psychologists suggest that such conditioning must be evolutionarily adaptive, contributing to our reproductive fitness ❖ Terminology and Procedures ➢ The Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) ■ Is a stimulus that evokes an unconditioned response without previous conditioning. (meat powder) ➢ The Unconditioned Response (UCR) ■ Is an unlearned reaction to an unconditioned stimulus that occurs without previous conditioning. (salivation) ➢ The Conditioned Stimulus (CS) ■ Is a previously neutral stimulus that has, through conditioning, acquired the capacity to evoke a conditioned response. (tone)

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➢ The Conditioned Response (CR) ■ Is a learned reaction to a conditioned stimulus that occurs because of previous conditioning. (salivation) ➢ The UCR and CR consist of the same behaviour (salivation) ➢ A trial in CC consists of any presentation of a stimulus or pair of stimuli ❖ CC in everyday life ➢ CC often plays a key role in shaping emotional responses such as fears ■ Phobias are a good ex. ➢ Evaluating Conditioning of attitudes ■ Defn: refers to changes in the liking of a stimulus that result from pairing that stimulus with other positive or negative stimuli ■ Advertising campaigns use this frequently ● Most common is to present a product in association w/ an attractive person or enjoyable surroundings ➢ Conditioning and Physiological responses ■ Research revealed that functioning of the immune system can be influenced by contitioning ■ CC can lead to immunosuppression→ decrease in the production of antibodies ● UCS : injection of immunosuppressive drug ● UCR/CR: immunosuppression ● NS/CS: unusual-tasting liquid ■ CC can elicit allergic reactions, drug tolerance, experience of withdrawal symptoms when drug use is halted, sexual arousal (nightgowns, mood music, lit candles paired w/ sexual interactions), increased sperm release, fetishes for inanimate

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objects ➢ Conditioning and Drug Effects ■ The CR’s are physiological reactions that are just the OPPOSITE of the normal effects of the drugs ● Called Compensatory CR’s→ partially compensate for some drug effects ◆ Help maintain homeostasis ◆ Adaptive, counterbalance some of the potentially dangerous effects of various drugs ■ As the CCR strengthen they neutralize more and more of a drug’s pleasurable effects, producing a gradual decline in the user’s responsiveness to the drug (TOLERANCE) ■ “When the drug is administered repeatedly in the context of the usual pre-drug cues, these cues elicit a CCR that reduce the drug effect. As the drug is administered more and more often, and the CCR grows in strength, the reduction of the drug effect becomes more noticeable.” ■ Drug user is in company of the cues associated with drug use but is not administering the drug itself, withdrawal symptoms may be produced ❖ Basic processes in CC ➢ Acquisition: Forming new responses ■ Acquisition: the initial stage of learning something ■ Acquisition of a conditioned response depends on stimulus contiguity (proximity of stimulus and response) ● Stimuli is contiguous if they occur together in time and

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space ■ Stimuli that are novel, unusual, or especially intense have more potential to become CS’s because they are more likely to stand out ➢ Extinction: Weakening CR’s ■ Extinction: the gradual weakening and disappearance of a CR tendency ■ What leads to this? ● The consistent presentation of the CS alone w/o the UCS ■ How long does it take? ● Depends on the strength of the conditioned bond when extinction begins ➢ Spontaneous Recovery: Resurrecting responses ■ SR: is the reappearance of an extinguished response after a period of non-exposure to the CS ■ Renewal effect ● If a response is extinguished in a diff environment than it was acquired, the extinguished response will reappear if the animal is returned to the original environment where acquisition took place ● Extinction does not appear to lead to unlearning ● Helps explains why ppl relapse when they give up cigs, drugs, poor eating habits ● Reason why conditioned fears and phobias are difficult to extinguish permanently ➢ Stimulus generalization and Little Albert

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■ Stimulus generalization ● Occurs when an organism that has learned a response to a specific stimulus response in the same way to new stimuli that are similar to original stimulus ● CS for her fear was that specific bridge, but her fear generalized to all bridges ■ Basic law: the more similar new stimuli are to the original CS, the greater the generalization ● Can be shown in graphs called generalization gradients ■ Contributes to the development of panic disorders ● These ppl tend to overgeneralize ➢ Stimulus Discrimination ■ SD: occurs when an organism that has learned a response to a specific stimulus does not respond in the same way to new stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus ■ Basic law: the less similar new stimuli are to the original CS, the greater the likelihood (and ease) of discrimination ➢ Higher-Order Conditioning ■ HOC: in which a CS functions as if it were an UCS ■ New conditioned responses are built on the foundation of already established conditioned responses ■ CS→ TONE CS (UCS)→ RED LIGHT CR→ SALIVATION

Operant Conditioning ❖ Operant Conditioning→ a form of learning in which responses come to be controlled by their consequences ❖ Thorndike’s Law of Effect

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➢ Another name for OC is instrumental learning ➢ Edward L. Thorndike (1913) created this ➢ Law of Effect ■ If a response in the presence of a stimulus leads to satisfying effects, the association b.w the stimulus and the response is strengthened ➢ Law of effect helped w/ Skinner’s theory of OC ❖ Reinforcement: occurs when an event following a response increases an organism’s tendency to make that response ➢ Tell jokes (behaviour/response) → friends laugh (consequence/rewarding stimulus) → tendency to tell jokes increases (effect on behaviour) ❖ Terminology and Procedures ➢ Operant chamber (skinner box) ■ Is a small enclosure in which an animal can make a specific response that is recorded while the consequences of the response are systematically controlled ➢ Operant responses are voluntary, they are emitted (to send forth) ■ CC is elicited (draw out a reaction) ➢ Reinforcement contingencies ■ Are the circumstances or rules that determine whether responses lead to presentation of reinforcers. ■ Providing the rat with a small bit of food if the animal makes the response ➢ Cumulative recorder ■ Creates a graphic record of responding and reinforcement in a Skinner box as a function of time 6

■ DV on OC is subjects response rate ➢ Graphs used for results, where the horizontal axis→ passage of time, vertical axis→ accumulation of responses, ■ Slope→ the record of responding ● Rapid response rate produces a steep slope, whereas a slow response rate produces a shallow slope ❖ Basic process in OC ➢ Acquisition in OC refers to initial stage of learning some new pattern of responding ■ Shaping: consists of the reinforcement of closer and closer approximations of a desired response ● Needed when organism does not, on its own, emit the desired response ● Experimenter begins shaping by releasing food pellets whenever the rat moves towards the lever, then when the rat actually touches the lever, which then rat spontaneously presses the lever on occasion until behaviour is learned and an increase of lever pressing occurs ■ Shaping is key to training animals to perform impressive tricks, like at the zoo, circus, or marine park ➢ Extinction in OC → refers to the gradual weakening and disappearance of a response tendency b.c the response is no longer followed by a reinforcer. ■ Resistance to extinction→ occurs when an organism continues to make a response after delivery of the reinforcer has been terminated

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● Depends on factors such as schedule of reinforcement ■ Renewal effect also effects OC ● Explains why there’s difficulties faced by recovering addicts after their treatments in a drug treatment facility ends ➢ Stimulus Control: Genz and Discr ■ Discriminative stimuli ● Are cues that influence operant behaviour by indicating probable consequences (reinforcement or nonreinforcement) of a response ● Plays a key role in regulation of OC ■ DS is governed by Stimulus Gen and Stimulus Discr ● DR→ sound of the can opener (good chance getting fed) ● SG→ if cat responds to to the sound of new appliance (blender), generalizes the stimulus ● SD→ cat learned to respond only to the can opener and not to the blender ❖ Reinforcement: Consequences that strengthen the response ➢ Central process in reinforcement is→ strengthening of a response tendency ➢ Reinforcement is defined after the fact, in terms of its effect on behaviour ■ Food will reinforce lever pressing by a rat only if the rat is hungry ➢ Primary reinforcers: are events that are inherently reinforcing b.c they satisfy biological needs

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■ food , water, warmth, sex, affection through bodily contact ➢ Secondary/conditioned reinforcers: are events that acquires reinforcing qualities by being associated with PR ■ Money, good grades, attention, flattery, praise, and applause ➢ Reinforcement key to the development of superstitious behaviours ■ Birds would tend to repeat w.e behaviour they had been engaged in when the food was presented (which was accidental) ❖ Schedules of Reinforcement ➢ SR: determines which occurrences of a specific response result in the presentation of a reinforcer ➢ Continuous Reinforcement: occurs when every instance of a designated response is reinforced (given the reward at all time) ➢ Intermittent/partial Reinforcement: occurs when a designated response is reinforced only some of the time ■ Makes a response resistant to extinction more than CR ➢ Ratio-Schedules ■ Fixed-ratio (FR) schedule→ the reinforcer is given after a fixed number of nonreinforced responses ● Rat is R for every 10th lever press ■ Variable-ratio (VR) schedule→ the reinforcer is given after a variable number of non-reinforced responses ● Rat is R for every 10th lever press on the average ● Slot machine pays off once every 6 tries on the average ➢ Interval-Schedules ■ Fixed-interval (FI) schedule→ the R is given for the first response that occurs after a fixed time interval has elapsed ● Rat is R for the first lever press after a 2min interval has

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elapsed, and then must wait 2 min for the next R ■ Variable-interval (VI) schedule: the R is given for the first response after a variable of time interval has elapsed ● Rat is R for the frist lever press after 1 min interval, but the following intervals are 3min, 2min, 4 min… ● A person repeatedly dials a busy phone # (getting through is the reinforcer) ➢ RS produce more rapid responding than IS ➢ VS generate steadier response rate, greater resistance to extinction ❖ PR vs. NR ➢ Positive Reinforcement: occurs when a response is strengthened b.c it is followed by the presentation of a rewarding stimulus ➢ Negative Reinforcement: occurs when a response is strengthened b.c it is followed by the removal of an unpleasant stimulus ■ When the rat presses the lever, the shock is turned off for a period of time, pressing the lever takes away the aversive stimulus (shock) ❖ NR and Avoidance behaviour ➢ Escape learning: an organism acquires a response that decreases or ends some aversive stimulation ■ DECREASES/ENDS ■ Leaving a party where you were getting picked on by peers ➢ Avoidance learning: an organism acquires a response that prevents some aversive (negative) stimulation from occurring ■ PREVENTS ■ Elevator phobia, instead of taking the elevator one takes the

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stairs, avoiding the fear ■ 2 reasons why one cannot get rid of a phobia ● 1→ responses that allow you to avoid a phobic stimulus earn NR each time they are mad so avoidance behaviour is strengthen, continues ● 2→ avoidance response never allow you to dismiss the phobic CR because your never exposed to the CS (riding in an elevator) ❖ Punishment: Consequences that weaken responses ➢ Punishment: occurs when an event following a response weakens the tendency to make that response ➢ Positive punishment involves the application of aversive consequences (spanking a child) ➢ Negative P involves the removal of a reward (taking away toy) ➢ Problems w/ P as a disciplinary procedure include emotional side effects and increased aggressive behavior ➢ To be effective P should be ● Swift ● Consistent ● Explained ● Nonphysical ● Just sever enough to have an impact

Changing Direction in the study of Conditioning ❖ Recognizing biological constrainsts on Conditioning ➢ Instinctive Drift: occurs when an animal’s innate response tendencies interfere with conditioning process ■ Miserly raccoons, instead of putting the coins in the piggy bank 11

the raccoon started rubbing it together. Raccoons have an innate food washing behaviour ➢ Conditioned taste aversion: The “Sauce Bearnaise Syndrome” ■ Can be acquired even when there is a lengthy delay b.w the CS and the UCS ■ Be established through CC, and also seem to violate basic principles of CC ➢ Preparedness: involves a species-specific predisposition to be conditioned in certain ways and not others ■ Evolutionary forces gradually programmed humans to acquires conditioned fears of these objects easily ■ Can explain why certain phobias are more common than others ❖ Recognizing Cognitive Processes in Conditioning ➢ Latent learning: learning that is not apparent from behaviour when it first occurs ➢ These learnings suggested that ■ 1→ learning can take place in the absence of reinforcement ■ 2→ latent learning forms a cognitive map (maze) , mental representation of the spatial layout) ➢ Signal relations: preditcive value of a CS is an influential factor governing CC ➢ Response-outcome relations: when a response is followed by a desirable outcome, the response is more likely to be strengthened if it appears that the response cause the outcome

Observational Learning ❖ OL: occurs when an organism’s responding is influenced by the observation

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of others, who are called models ❖ Albert Bandura (1977, 1986) ❖ Basic Processes ➢ 4 key processes that are crucial to OL ■ Attention ■ Retention ■ Reproduction ■ Motivation ❖ According to Bandura, reinforcement influences which of several already acquired responses (performance) one will perform, more than it influences the acquisition of new responses ❖ OL accounts for the influence of mass media on behaviour (television ❖ OL used to explain why physical punishment increases aggressive behaviour PERSONAL APPLICATION ● Behaviour modification: is a systematic approach to changing behaviour through the application of the principles of conditioning ● Antecedents→ are events that typically precede the target response ○ target= overeating, overeating occurs at night → antecedentresponse connection ● Token economy: a system for doling out symbolic reinforcers that are exchanged later for a variety of genuine reinforcers (point system) ● Behavioural contract: a written agreement outlining a promise to adhere to contingencies of a behaviour modification program

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