CH 7 THE LEARNING APPROACHClassical Conditioning: “Pavlovian Conditioning”When the dog sees food it’s mouth salivates, but if a light is switched on before the dog eats, the light promotes salivation even if there’s no food within the bowl.Learner is forming a new association, not learning a new behavior*Allows organisms to prepare for environmental events by learning about the relationship between stimuli-adaptive-seen in all animalsImportant Terminology***- US (Unconditional Stimulus): any stimulus that innately elicits a reflexive UCRo Dog drooling when wanting food- UR (Unconditional Response): a reflexive, innate responseo Blinking when someone points puffs air into their eye, salivating with food- CS (Conditional Stimulus): a stimulus hat elicits a CR after pairings with a USo Sound of bell/turning on of light to mean food- CR (Conditioned Response): a response elicited by a CSo Dogs drooling when the light comes on, associating it with foodClassical Conditioning and Pavlov’s Dogs: Before conditioning- US=food- UR=salivationAfter conditioning- CS= light- CR= salivationClassical Conditioning and Little AlbertWhat would happen with people?Watson & Raynor decided to try this with human babiesOne of the baby’s names was Little Albert*First thing they wanted to find was what babies were afraid of: being dropped, loud noisesBefore conditioning: - US=loud noise- UR=fear (crying)After conditioning:- CS= rat- CR=fear (crying)Cries when he sees a furry coat, when Watson came in with a burry mask: Little Albert generalized them into one category*We don’t know what happened to Albert. Before they could de-condition him, they pulled him out of the study. Learned taste aversion: Blue Jay eats a Monarch Butterfly (their caterpillars eats milkweed plants: poisonous)->blue jay throws up the butterfly*Forms association with being violently ill and monarch butterflies: Blue jays don’t eat monarch butterflies Happens with humans as wellEx: catching the flu after eating pizza, even though the pizza had nothing to do with the flu, you avoid pizza.Important Classical Conditioning Phenomena:Second-Order Conditioning (“higher-order”)-Ex: flashing a red light then puffing air into the persons eye repeatedly one after another, then we end up blinking to the flashing light even when there’s no puff of air. Acquisition: process of acquiring the conditioningExtinction: conditioning is weakening -> disappears.-when it’s fully gone=’fully extinguished’Spontaneous Recovery: conditioned again after extinction, it can come back. Re-learned condition. Generalization: shares the similar qualities with the original condition stimulus (Little Albert generalizing a furry rat to ANYTHING furry)Discrimination: very specific and narrow stimulus. Opposite of generalization Ex: animal associating something with a specific person, no one else. -elephants associating with only one caretaker.Applications:Sexual Fetishism:Ex: being sexually attracted to shoes, sexual arousal from bee stings, etcPhobias: irrational fearsCommon phobia: social phobia-oral presentationsspiders, snakes, etc. even if a spider is harmless, people are still afraid.Heights, fear of flying*when you don’t deal with a phobia, it gets biggerqQs (similar to quiz/exam questions)A young child goes to the doctor to receive an immunization. The shot is painful and the child cries. The next day the child sees the doctor at Target and the child cries. In this example,pain from the shot is? Unconditioned stimulusThe doctor is? Conditioned stimulusThe crying in response to the doctor? Conditioned responseThe child goes to Target (NO DOCTOR) and cries. In this example, Target is? Second-Order ConditioningIn classical conditioning, second-order conditioning or higher-order conditioning is a form of learning in which a stimulus is first made meaningful orconsequential for an organism through an initial step of learning, and then that stimulus is used as a basis for learning about some new stimulus. For example, an animal might first learn to associate a bell with food (first-order conditioning), but then learn to associate a light with the bell (second-order conditioning). SAME TYPE ON EXAM:We discussed numerous examples of classical conditioning. For the puking blue jay,what is the conditioned stimulus? Milkweed plants Nausea Monarch butterflies Throwing-up Can not tell without more informationA puff of air hits the eyes causing a blink. This air puff is paired with a red light flash, soon the red light alone causes a blink. The red light is the? Conditioned StimulusThe eye blink in response to the puff of air is? Unconditioned Response10/23INSTRUMENTAL (OPERANT) CONDITIONINGThorndike and the Law of Effect: The strength of a response is determined by the consequencesEx: raising your hand and saying the wrong answer and everyone laughs, you’re most likely not going to raise your hand again because of what happened.Thorndlike’s Puzzle Box: Put a cat in the box, the cat had to step on the lever to opens the door, cat leaves the box. -when he did this 60 times: gradual decline in the time it takes for the cat to step on the lever. The graph showed a decline in latency (y axis) and trial (x axis).-if a human was placed in the box and had to do the same thing, how would the graph look like? An L . the first time we’ll step on it the next times, the timing will be the same because we know how it’ll work.Insight: ex: suspended bananas where a chimp couldn’t reach them but there were boxes around, and the chimp stacked the boxes. -> Evidence of insightInstrumental (OPERANT) Conditioning and B.F. SkinnerDeveloped:The idea of operants-parallel to Thorndlikes idea of law of effect. We bring about an effect, we operate in the environment and the consequences determine whether we’ll repeat/operate on the action again.The Skinner Box-cage that can control every variable in the environment: water, food, pain Through the floor. Giving a rat water in a water cup bounded to the wall, when the rat is first placed, it explores and some show no inclination to press a lever (then the exp might have to the shake the lever). Rats that pull the lever learn that the leverpulling provides water -> time to pull the lever gets faster because they know.What is Reinforcement and Punishment?(forget the idea that reinforcement is good and punishment is bad, that is not the case)Reinforcement- anything that increases the frequency of a