Chapter 6 Learning Learning a change in an organism s behavior or thoughts as a result of an experience whether that experience is good bad or neutral Can be in the form of actions knowledge attitudes etc Basic Learning Habituation process of responding less strongly over time to repeated stimuli usually because it becomes non threatening o Used in infant research because it is displayed as early as 32 weeks after consumption Sensitization responding more strongly over time to repeated stimuli o Most likely to happen when a stimulus is dangerous or irritating o Ex Trying to study and the person next to you keeps whispering over time it gets so annoying that you can t concentrate anymore Classical Conditioning A form of learning in which animals come to respond to a previously neutral stimulus that had been paired with another stimulus that elicits an automatic response Best example Pavlov and his dog 1 Start out with a neutral stimulus one that doesn t provoke any particular response In this case Pavlov used a metronome 2 Pair the neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus UCS a stimulus that provokes an automatic reflexive response In this case the UCS is the meat powder and the automatic response or unconditioned response UCR that the dog portrays is salivation KEY IDEA The dog does not need to learn to respond to the UCS dogs naturally drool in response to food NATURE 3 After numerous trials Pavlov noticed if he presented the metronome alone without the meat powder it provoked the same response salivation This new response is called the conditioned response CR or a response previously associated with a non neutral stimulus that comes to be elicited by a neutral stimulus Learning had occurred for the dog The metronome had become a conditioned stimulus CS or a previously neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a conditioned response as a result of its association with an unconditioned stimulus NURTURE 4 In most cases the CR is pretty similar to the UCR but it is rarely identical For example Pavlov found that dogs salivated less in response to the metronome CS than to the meat powder UCS 2 Principles of Classical Conditioning 1 Acquisition the phase in which conditioned response is established The closer in time the pairing of the CS and the UCS the faster learning that occurs Longer delays usually decrease the speed and strength of the organism s response 2 Extinction phase in which the CR decreases in magnitude and eventually disappears when the CS is repeatedly presented alone without the UCS For example in Pavlov s experiment during extinction a new response in this case the absence of salivation gradually writes over or inhibits the CR The extinguished CR doesn t vanish it is merely overwritten by the new behavior 3 Spontaneous Recovery a seemingly extinct CR reappears often in a weaker form if we present the CR again say hours or even days later You don t really forget the CR just repress it Renewal effect when we extinguish a response in a setting different from the one in which we acquired it When we restore the animal to the original setting the extinguished response reappears 4 Stimulus Generalization the process by which CSs that are similar but not identical to the original CS elicit a CR In this case the dogs salivated not only to the original metronome but to sounds similar to it 5 Stimulus Discrimination when we exhibit a less pronounced CR to CSs that differ from the original CS This is how you can watch scary movies because we ve learned to discriminate between a televised stimulus and the real life version of it 3 6 High Order Conditioning the process by which organisms develop classically conditioned responses to previously neutral stimuli that later become associated with the original CS It explains why we feel thirsty after someone says Coke on a hot summer day because we have already learned to associate the sight sound and smell of a coke with quenching our thirst Examples of Classical Conditioning in every day life How we develop physiological associations to stimuli that signal biologically important events like things we want to eat or that want to eat us Advertisements by repeatedly pairing the sights and sounds of products with pictures of our favorite celebrities they establish a classically conditioned response between their brand and our positive emotions Acquiring and overcoming phobias Fetishes Operant Conditioning Learning controlled by the consequences of the organism s behavior Actual behaviors produced by an animal to get a reward operants Differences between classical and operant The Law of Effect If we re rewarded for a response to a stimulus we are more likely to repeat that response to that stimulus in the future Stimulus Response psychology everything we do voluntarily results from gradual buildup of S R bonds due to the law of effect Thorndike found that cats do not learn by insight grasping the underlying nature of the problem 4 Skinner Box Typically contains a bar that delivers food when pressed a food dispenser and a light that signals when the reward is coming It electronically records animal s responses and prints out a graph It is unsupervised and recorded information without human observation which was a huge improvement Used to study the operant behavior of animals Vocabulary response response Reinforcement any outcome that strengthens the probability of a o Positive reinforcement when we administer a stimulus o Negative reinforcement when we take away a stimulus Punishment any outcome that weakens the probability of a 5 Disadvantages of punishment o Tells you what NOT to do not what to do o Creates anxiety which can interfere with future learning o Encourages subversive behavior prompting people to become sneakier about the situations in which they can and can t display forbidden behavior o May provide model for aggressive behavior Discriminative Stimulus any stimulus that signals the presence of reinforcement Snapping fingers at a dog the finger snapping is the discriminative stimulus when it approaches the dog it receives reinforcement Extinction occurs when we stop delivering reinforces following a previously reinforced behavior Gradually this behavior declines in frequency and disappears Extinction burst basically the saying sometimes things need to get worse before they get better Schedules of Reinforcement The pattern of delivering reinforcement Continuous reinforcement when we reinforce a behavior every time Partial
View Full Document
Unlocking...