LEARNING

Learning…

Learning: relatively permanent change in behavior caused by experience

18-1 Learning Examples

Classical Conditioning

Type of learning in which a stimulus gains the power to gain a response

Stimulus: anything in the environment that one can respond to

Response: any behavior or action

Classical Conditioning Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hhqumfpxuzI

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gQmHgBZhlwc&safety_mode=true&persist_safety_mode=1

One stimulus begins to produce the same response as another stimulus because the learner has developed an association between the two

Components of Classical Conditioning

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): the UCS is a stimulus that triggers a response reflexively and automatically, just as scalding water makes someone jump away

Hot shower water is a UCS for jumping away. Classical conditioning cannot happen without a UCS. The only behaviors and emotions that can be classically conditioned are those that are reliably produced by a UCS

Components of Classical Conditioning

Unconditioned Response(UCR): the unconditioned response is the automatic response to the UCS. If hot water is the UCS, jumping away is the UCR. This relationship is reflexive, not learned.

Jumping from hot water

Components of Classical Conditioning

Conditioned Stimulus (CS): a previously neutral stimulus that, through learning, gains the power to cause a (conditioned) response.

The word flush provokes a neutral response, before conditioning. It is a neutral stimulus before learning

Components of Classical Conditioning

Conditioned Response (CR): The CR is the response to the CS (conditioned stimulus). It is the same behavior that is identified as the UCR (unconditioned response)

Jumping away

Pavlov’s Dogs

For each: identify the UCS, UCR, CS, and CR

Your romantic partner always uses the same shampoo. Soon, the smell of that shampoo makes you feel happy.

The door to your house squeaks loudly when you open it. Soon, your dog begins wagging its tail when the door squeaks.

The nurse says “Now this won’t hurt a bit” just before stabbing you with a needle. The next time you hear “This won’t hurt” you cringe in fear.

You have a meal at a fast food restaurant that causes food poisoning. The next time you see a sign for that restaurant, you feel nauseous.

While George was having a cavity filled by his dentist, the drill hit a nerve that had not been dulled by anesthetic, a couple of times.  Each time he cringed in pain.  George now gets anxious each time he sees the dentist.

Every time a psychology instructor enters the classroom, she goes straight to the board to write an outline on it.  Unfortunately, she has long finger nails and each time she writes the outline, her nails screech on the board, making students cringe.  After a few weeks of this, students cringe at the sight of the teacher entering the classroom.

Make up your own examples! How would you experiment to prove

learning? You need:

UCS UCR CS CR*Can anybody think of some we could test inthe classroom?

Acquisition

Process of developing a learned response When a neutral stimulus is repeatedly

paired with a UCS Each pairing is called a trial Pavlov repeatedly paired the meat

powder with the tuning fork

Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery

Extinction Not like what

happened to the dinosaurs

Diminishing of a learned response

Responses tend to linger

Spontaneous recovery: return of an extinguished classically conditioned response after a rest period

Weaker than the original one

Generalization and Discrimination

Generalization: producing the same response to two similar stimuli

Pavlov used a different tuning fork with his dogs.

Discrimination: producing different responses to two stimuli

A child being able to discriminate between different animals

John Watson

Behaviorism: view that psychology should restrict its efforts to studying observable behaviors, not mental processes

Phobias can be explained by the principles of classical conditioning

Little Albert http://www.youtube

.com/watch?v=Xt0ucxOrPQE

Association Principle

Human Taste Aversions

Food examples Soup cookie

9 point scale 1=dislike 5=neutral 9= really like

Taste Aversion

John Garcia Can use nausea

producing drugs as a UCS to condition an aversion to a particular taste

Taste aversion: learning to avoid a food that makes you sick. The signal or CS is the taste of a food. The reflex that follows it is sickness. Organisms quickly learn to associate taste with sickness.

Examples?

Operant conditioning

Type of learning in which the frequency of a behavior depends on the consequence that follows that behavior

Candy bar example

Law of Effect

Behaviors with favorable consequences will occur with more frequency and behaviors followed by less favorable consequences will occur with less frequency

Reinforcement vs. Punishment

Reinforcement: any consequence that increases the future likelihood of a behavior

Getting money for good grades

Punishment: any consequence that decreases the future likelihood of a behavior

Bad behavior- detention

WHAT AFFECTS OUR LEARNING MORE- IMMEDIATE REWARDS

OR DELAYED REWARDS?

Negative Reinforcement

Negative reinforcer: strengthen a response by reducing or removing an aversive (unpleasant stimulus)

List of examples

Negative Reinforcement vs. Punishment

Negative reinforcement strengthens behaviors

If you clean your room, you will no longer have to stay inside

If you do what I want I will remove an aversive stimulus

Punishment weakens behaviors

Because you did not clean your room, you have to stay inside today

Because you did not do what I want, I will supply an aversive stimulus

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPHcw2vz9H0&feature=related

B.F. SKinner

Developed the fundamental principles and techniques of operant conditioning and devised ways to apply them in the real world

Shaping: reinforcement of behaviors that are increasingly similar to the desired one; the operant technique used to establish new behaviors or shape new behaviors

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA&feature=related