Learning change in an organism s behavior or thought as a result of experience o Basic forms Habituation react less strongly over time Sensitization begin to react more strongly over time Ivan Pavlov Russian physiologist and 1904 Nobel Prize winner o Most famous for work on digestion of the dog o This included the first work of classical conditioning o Classical conditioning Form of learning in which a subject comes to respond to a previously neutral stimulus that has been paired with another stimulus that elicits an automatic response Neutral Stimulus nothing happens Unconditioned stimulus automatically causes the response Unconditioned response automatically response to neutral or unconditioned stimulus Conditioned stimulus begins to elicit a response with the unconditioned stimulus Conditioned response response that used to respond to a neutral stimulus but now elicited with a conditioned stimulus Steps Start with a neutral stimulus which does not elicit a particular response o Metronome NS Pair the NS repeatedly with the unconditioned stimulus which elicits an unconditioned response o Meat powder US and salivation UR Eventually the NS becomes a conditioned stimulus eliciting a conditioned response o Metronome and salivation o The organism reacts the same way to the previously NS as it did to the UCS Principles Acquisition is the phase during which a CR is established Extinction is the reduction and elimination of the CR after the CS is presented repeatedly without the UCS Spontaneous recovery is when an extinct CR reemerges after a delay in exposure to the CS Renewal effect the sudden reemergence of a CR following extinction when an animal is returned to the environment in which the CR was acquired Stimulus generalization when similar CS s elicit a CR Stimulus discrimination when we exhibit a CR only to certain stimuli not similar others o Movie about tornado vs tornado in real life Higher Order Conditioning process where organisms develop classically conditioned responses to CS s associated with the original CS Becomes weaker the farther from the original CS Conditioning and Alcohol o CC can explain why we sometimes get more drunk in new settings Application of CC o Advertisers repeatedly pair their products with stimuli that elicit positive emotions Can show latent inhibition o Helps to explain how and why we acquire some fears and phobias Little Albert o Fetishism seems to be partly due to classical conditioning Japanese quails and terrycloth cylinders Operant Conditioning learning controlled by the consequences of the organism s behavior o The organism gets something because of its response o Also known as instrumental conditioning o Reinforcements are outcomes that strengthen the probability of a response o Positive reinforcement involves giving a stimulus o Negative reinforcement involves taking away a stimulus that you don t want o Punishment is any outcome that weakens the probability of a response Positive physical shock unpleasant outcomes vs Negative removing a stimulus that you want to experience Disciplinary actions are punishments only if they decrease the chance of the behavior happening again Does Punishment Work Not as well as reinforcement say many Disadvantages o Tells what not to do o Creates anxiety o Encourages subversive behavior o May provide model for aggressive behavior The Law of Effect o If we re rewarded for a response to a stimulus we re more like to repeat that response to the stimulus in the future o Learning involves an association between a stimulus and response S R with the reward stamping in this connection o E L Thorndike Discovered principles of the law of effect after experimenting with cats in puzzle boxes Found no insight in cats o B F Skinner Followed up on Watson and Thorndike s work on behavior Designed the Skinner box to more effectively record activity Operant Conditioning Terminology o A discriminative stimulus signals the presence of reinforcement o Acquisition extinction spontaneous recovery stimulus generalization and stimulus discrimination all apply in OC Schedules of Reinforcement refers to the pattern of delivering reinforcers o Simplest is continuous reinforcement leads to the quickest reinforcement o Partial reinforcement occurs when we reinforce responses only some of the time More resistant to extinction o o Vary along two dimensions Consistency of administering reinforcement Fixed or variable o The basis of administering reinforcement Ratio or interval o Fixed ratio after regular number of responses o Variable ratio after specific number of responses on average o Fixed interval after specific amount of time o Variable interval after an average time interval o Each schedule yields distinctive response patterns Applications of OC o Animal training using shaping by successive approximations and chaining o Shaping condition a target behavior by progressively reinforcing behaviors that come closer and closer to our goal o Chaining linking related behaviors to form a longer series o Premack Principle and procrastination o Using token economies in clinical settings to shape desired behaviors Primary and secondary reinforcers o Applied behavior analysis for language deficits in autism Skinner and Radical Behaviorism o Early behaviorists did not believe that thinking played much of a role in learning o Thought that thinking and emotions are behaviors just covert ones o Today psychologists acknowledge at least some role for cognitions Latent learning refers to learning that is not directly observable o Implies that reinforcement is not necessary for learning to occur Tolman Honzik s maze trials Observational Learning simply means learning by watching others o Don t have to engage in trial and error to learn how to do something new Reel and Real World Violence o Many types of research has examined the impact of violent media on behavior o Results suggest that media violence impacts real world aggression in some cases o But media violence is only one small contributor to real world aggression Mirror Neurons become activated when an animal observes or performs an action o May play a role in observational learning and having empathy for others Insight learning suggests humans and some other animals may gain insight o Kohler s chimpanzees and Aha moments Biological Influence on Learning o Conditional taste aversions Develop after only one trial Can have very long delays 6 8 hours Show little generalization Animal research