Chapter Six Psychology Exam What Is Learning Innate Behaviors Unlearned Behaviors Reflexes motor or neural reaction to a specific stimulus in the environment Instincts behaviors trigged by a broader range of events Learning relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge that results from experience Associative Learning when an organism makes connections between stimuli or events that Classical Conditioning Pavlovian Conditioning organism learns to associate events stimuli Classical Conditioning II process by which we learn to associate stimuli and to anticipate occur together in the environment that repeatedly happen together events Operant Conditioning organism learns to associate a behavior and it s consequence punishment or reinforcement CL ASSICA L CONDITIONING Through his experiments Pavlov realized that an organism has two types of responses to its environment 1 unconditioned unlearned responses or reflexes and 2 conditioned learned responses Unconditioned stimulus UCS a stimulus that elicits a reflexive response in an organism Unconditioned response UCR a natural unlearned reaction to a given stimulus Neutral stimulus NS which is a stimulus that does not naturally elicit a response Conditioned stimulus CS which is a stimulus that elicits a response after repeatedly being paired with an unconditioned stimulus The behavior caused by the conditioned stimulus is called the conditioned response CR CLASSICAL CONDITIONING Pairing a new neutral stimulus with the conditioned stimulus is called higher order conditioning or second order conditioning Acquisition the initial period of learning Extinction is the decrease in the conditioned response when the unconditioned stimulus is no longer presented with the conditioned stimulus Spontaneous recovery the return of a previously extinguished conditioned response following a rest period Stimulus generalization an organism demonstrates the conditioned response to stimuli that are similar Habituation occurs when we learn not to respond to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly without change BEHAVIORISM John B Watson the founder of behaviorism Watson argued that in order for psychology to become a legitimate science it must shift its concern away from internal mental processes because mental processes cannot be seen or measured Through these experiments Little Albert was exposed to and conditioned to fear furry things Watson had succeeded in conditioning a fear response in Little Albert thus demonstrating that emotions could become conditioned responses The experiment would be considered unethical today OPERANT CONDITIONING In operant conditioning organisms learn to associate a behavior and its consequence Skinner believed that behavior is motivated by the consequences we receive for the behavior According to the law of effect behaviors that are followed by consequences that are satisfying to the organism are more likely to be repeated and behaviors that are followed by unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated Reinforcement and punishment work best when immediate Positive added Negative removed CONDITIONING Instead of rewarding only the target behavior in shaping we reward successive approximations of a target behavior 1 2 3 4 5 Reinforce any response that resembles the desired behavior Then reinforce the response that more closely resembles the desired behavior You will no longer reinforce the previously reinforced response Next begin to reinforce the response that even more closely resembles the desired behavior Continue to reinforce closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior Finally only reinforce the desired behavior Primary reinforcers are reinforcers that have innate reinforcing qualities Water food sleep shelter sex and touch among others are primary reinforcers A secondary reinforcer has no inherent value and only has reinforcing qualities when linked with a primary reinforcer For example a study by Cangi and Daly found that use of a token economy increased appropriate social behaviors and reduced inappropriate behaviors in a group of autistic school children REINFORCEMENT SCHEDULES When an organism receives a reinforcer each time it displays a behavior it is called continuous reinforcement In partial reinforcement also referred to as intermittent reinforcement the person or animal does not get reinforced every time they perform the desired behavior There are several different types of partial reinforcement schedules Among the reinforcement schedules variable ratio is the most productive and the most resistant to extinction Fixed interval is the least productive and the easiest to extinguish COGNITION AND L ATENT LEARNING OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING MODELING As the unreinforced rats explored the maze they developed a cognitive map a mental picture of the layout of the maze After 10 sessions in the maze without reinforcement food was placed in a goal box at the end of the maze As soon as the rats became aware of the food they were able to find their way through the maze quickly just as quickly as the comparison group which had been rewarded with food all along This is known as latent learning learning that occurs but is not observable in behavior until there is a reason to demonstrate it In observational learning we learn by watching others and then imitating or modeling what they do or say The individuals performing the imitated behavior are called models There are several ways that observational learning can occur 1 You learn a new response 2 You choose whether or not to imitate the model depending on what you saw happen to the model 3 You learn a general rule that you can apply to other situations If you saw that the model was reinforced for her behavior you will be more motivated to copy her This is known as vicarious reinforcement On the other hand if you observed the model being punished you would be less motivated to copy her This is called vicarious punishment Bandura conducted an experiment with a five foot inflatable doll that he called a Bobo doll In the experiment children s aggressive behavior was influenced by whether the teacher was punished for her behavior In one scenario a teacher acted aggressively with the doll hitting throwing and even punching the doll while a child watched There were two types of responses by the children to the teacher s behavior When the teacher was punished for her bad behavior the children decreased their tendency to act as she had When the teacher was