Chapter 7- Learning - textbook summary PDF

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7.1 What is Learning Learning – involves the acquisition, from experience, of new knowledge, skills, or responses that result in a relatively permanent change in the state of the learner - Learning is based on experience - Learning produces changes in the organism - These changes are relatively permanent Habituation – a general process in which repeated or prolonged exposure to a stimulus results in a gradual reduction in responding - Happens when you leave near an airport or railroad tracks and you “stop hearing” the noise Sensitization – Presentation of a stimulus leading to an increased response to a later stimulus - Example would be people having houses broken into and becoming hypersensitive to late night sounds 7.2 Classical Conditioning: One thing leads to another Ivan Pavlov - Experiments with his dogs o Gave him food >> dog salivates when eating o Dog began to salivate with the anticipation of food o Used a metronome as a stimulus  Dog initially didn’t salivate at the sound but when paired with the food the dog would salivate at the sound of the metronome Classical Conditioning - When a neutral stimulus produces a response after being paired with a stimulus that naturally produces that response o Pavlov’s dog salivating at the metronome Basic Principles of Classical Conditioning - Unconditioned stimulus o Something that reliably produced a naturally occurring reaction in an organism - Unconditioned response o A reflexive reaction that is reliably produced by an unconditioned stimulus - Conditioned stimulus o A previously neutral stimulus that produces a reliable response in an organism after being paired with an unconditional stimulus - Conditioned response o A reaction that resembles an unconditional response by is produced by a conditioned stimulus Second Order Conditioning

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A type of learning where a CS is paired with a stimulus that became associated with the US in an earlier procedure

Acquisition, Extinction, and Spontaneous Recovery - Acquisition – the phase of classical conditioning when the CS and US are presented together - Extinction – the gradual elimination of a learned response when the CS is presented without the US - Spontaneous Recovery – the tendency of a learned behavior to recover from extinction after a rest period Generalization and Discrimination - Phenomenon of generalization o The CR is observed even though he CS is slightly different that the CS initially presented  Using a stimulus that closely resembles the original will produce the same response - Discrimination o The capacity to distinguish between similar yet distinct stimuli Little Albert - Took a 9-month-old child o US was a large metal rod being struck and making a loud noise o UR was crying from the baby - Paired the stimulus with the presence of a while rat o Rat became associated with the loud noise and then became the CS  Albert would cry at the presence of the rat alone  Would also cry at other white fluffy things >> example of generalization Deeper Understanding of Classical Conditioning - Cognitive elements of classical conditioning o Reliability of conditioned stimulus  Reason Little Albert wasn’t afraid of researchers and why Pavlov himself didn’t trigger the dog salivating o Classical conditioning occurs when an animal has set up an expectation  Rescorla-Watson model introduced cognitive component that accounted for variety of classical conditioning phenomenon  Model predicted that it would be easier when the CS was an unfamiliar event than when it was familiar - Neural elements of classical conditioning o Central nucleus of the amygdala plays a role in producing both outcomes (behavioral and physiological responses) through two distinct connections with other parts of the brain

If connections are disrupted, the autonomic responses associated with things like fear cease Evolutionary elements of classical conditioning o Adaptiveness on conditioned food aversion  To have an adaptive value, the mechanism should have several properties  Rapid learning should occur >> one to two trials (otherwise an animal can die from eating toxic substance)  Conditioning should be able to take place over very long interval period  Toxic substances don’t take effect right away when ingested  Organism should develop the aversion to the smell or taste of the food, not just its ingestion  Learned aversion should occur more often with novel food than familiar ones 

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Modern Application - Researchers gave participants root beer or coconut before exposing them to toxins/radiation o Participants developed food aversion to these things as they associated them with the nausea caused by the toxin  Similar to patients undergoing chemo and developing food aversion - Biological preparedness o A propensity for learning particular kinds of associations over other o Some behaviors are relatively easy to condition in some species but not others 7.3 Operant Conditioning: Reinforcements from the environment Operant Conditioning - A type of learning in which the consequences of an organism’s behavior determine whether it will repeat that behavior in the future Development of Operant Conditioning - Edward Thorndike o Focused his research on instrumental behaviors  Required an organism to do something o Law of Effect  The principle that behaviors are followed by a “satisfying state of affairs” tend to be repeated, and those that produce an “unpleasant state of affairs” is less likely to be repeated BF Skinner – Role of Reinforcement and Punishment - Operant behavior o Behavior that an organism performs that has some impact on the environment

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Developed the Skinner box – allowed researchers to study the behavior of small organisms in a controlled environment o Focused on the effects of reinforcement and punishment o Reinforcer – any stimulus or event that increases the likelihood of the behavior that led to it  Positive reinforcement – a stimulus is presented that increases the likelihood of a behavior  Negative reinforcement – a stimulus is removed that increases the likelihood of a behavior o Punishment – any stimulus or event that decreases the likelihood of the behavior that led to it  Positive punishment – a stimulus is administered that reduces the likelihood of a behavior  Negative punishment – a stimulus is removed that decreases the likelihood of the behavior Reinforcement is generally more effective than punishment in promoting learning o Punishment signals that an unacceptable behavior has occurred, but doesn’t specify what should be done instead

Primary and Secondary Reinforcement and Punishment - Primary reinforces are things like food, comfort, and shelter o They satisfy biological needs - Secondary reinforcers such as verbal approval or money derive their effectiveness from their associations with primary reinforcers through classical conditioning Immediate versus delayed reinforcement and punishment - The more time that elapses, the less effective the reinforcer o In other organisms, the increased time in reinforcement inhibits the association to be made about the desired behavior - Same with punishment, the longer the delay between behavior and punishment, the less effective the punishment will be in suppressing the targeted behavior Basic Principles of Operant Conditioning - Discrimination, Generalization and Importance of Context o Learning takes place in contexts  Not in the free range of plausible situation o Most behavior is under stimulus control, which develops when a particular response occurs only when an appropriate discriminative stimulus is present - Extinction o Just like classical conditioning, operant behavior also undergoes extinction when the reinforcement stops  Unlike classical conditioning, the reinforcement only occurs when the proper response has been made

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Schedules of Reinforcement o Operant conditioning focuses on the pattern with which reinforcement appears  Schedules of reinforcement  Interval schedules o Fixed interval schedules  Reinforcers are presented at fixed periods of time, provided that the appropriate response is made o Variable interval schedules  A behavior is reinforced on the basis of an average time that has expired since the last 0reinforcement  Ratio schedules o Fixed ration schedule  Reinforcement is delivered after a specific number of responses have been made o Variable ratio schedule  The delivery of reinforcement is based on a particular average number of responses Intermittent Reinforcement o Whereby only some of the responses made are followed by reinforcement o **most effective form of reinforcement Intermittent Reinforcement Effect o The fact that operant behaviors that are maintained under intermittent reinforcement schedules resist extinction better than those maintained under continuous reinforcement

Shaping Through Successive Approximations - Shaping o Learning that results from the reinforcement of successive steps to a final desired behavior Cognitive Elements of Operant Conditioning - Latent Learning o Something is learned, but it is not manifested as a behavioral change until sometime in the future - Cognitive Maps o A mental representation of the physical features of the environment Neural Elements of Operant Conditioning - First hint as to how brain structures might contribute to reinforcement was a discovery of the “pleasure centre” o Medial forebrain bundle, through hypothalamus into the nucleus accumbens are most susceptible to stimulation that produces pleasure - High dopamine levels are usually associated with positive emotions

o Research has shown that dopamine is more closely associated with the expectation of the reward than the reward itself Evolutionary Elements of Operant Conditioning - Work of Breland’s’ showed that all species are biologically predisposed to learn some things readily than others **Instinctive Drift o Raccoons and washing the tokens with the expectation of food o Adaptive behavior evolved over long periods of time and in particular environmental contexts

7.4 Observational Learning: Look at Me Observational Learning - An organism learns by watching the actions of other - Research with children has shown that observational learning is well suited to seeding behaviors that can be spread widely across a culture through a process called diffusion chains o Individuals initially learn a behavior by observing another individual performing that behavior, and then become models from which other individuals will learn the behavior Observational Learning in Animals - A study showed that monkeys would develop a fear of snakes having never seen a snake before and just from observing the fear reactions of other monkeys o Observational learning chain o Supports the idea that some species are predisposed to specific behaviors -

Chimpanzees raised in a more humanlike environment showed more specific observational learning that did those had raised by their mothers and performed similarity to human children o Enculturation hypothesis  Being raised in a human culture has profound effect on cognitive abilities of chimpanzee and their ability to understand the intentions of others when performing tasks using tools  Increases their observational learning capacities

Neural Elements of Observational Learning - Mirror neurons o Are a type of cell found in the brains of primates o Fire when an animal performs an action

o Plays a critical role in the imitation of behavior as well as the prediction of the future behavior

7.5 Implicit Learning: Under the Radar Implicit Learning - Learning that takes place largely independent of awareness of both the process and the products of information acquisition - Occurs without our awareness Cognitive Approaches to Learning - Implicit learning has characteristics that distinguish it from explicit learning o When asked to carry out implicit tasks, people differ relatively little from one another o When asked to perform explicit tasks, individual differences are much greater Implicit Learning is Resistant to Some Disorders That Affect Explicit Learning - Group of patients suffering from various psychoses were so severely impaired that they could not solve simple problems o Yet they were able to solve an artificial grammar learning task Implicit and Explicit Learning Use Distinct Neural Pathways - The fact that individuals with disorders show intact implicit learning strongly suggests that the brain structures that underlie implicit learning are distinct from those that underlie explicit learning - Explicit instructions showed increased brain activity in the prefrontal cortex, parietal cortex, hippocampus - Implicit instructions showed decreased brain activity primarily in the occipital region which is involved in visual processing - **found using fMRI

7.6 Learning in the Classroom Techniques for Learning - Students use many techniques to help with learning o Eg. Highlighting and underlining - Distributed Practice o Cramming for exams isn’t effective  Massed practice – little to no time in between repetitions o Even though it is proven more successful than mass practice, there is still little inclination as to why this is

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Interleaved Practice o Practice schedule that mixes different kinds of problems and materials within a study session  Particular effective for mathematics Practice Testing o Enhances the transfer of learning from one situation to another

Testing Aids Attention - Found that lecture style learning, people often fell off topic - However, when intermittent testing occurred, it encouraged those to study and pay attention to the material being taught Control of Learning - Judgements of Learning o People tend to study the things that they judge they have not learned well...