PSY 2012 0004 Katie s Notes Chapter 6 Learning 6 1 Behaviorism Behaviorists applies to theorists and researchers with quite a range of views Behaviorists insist that psychologists should study only observable measureable behaviors not mental processes Behaviorists seek the simplest possible explanation for behavior and resist interpretations in terms of understanding or insight Methodological behaviorists study only the events that they can measure and observe o But they sometimes use those observations to infer internal events Intervening variable something that we cannot directly observe but that links a variety of procedures to a variety of possible responses o Such as hunger Radical behaviorists deny that hunger fear or other internal private events cause behavior o For Example if food deprivation leads to hunger and hunger leads to eating why not just say that food deprivation leads to eating A methodological behaviorist might observe facial expressions to make inferences about sadness A radical behaviorist however would study the facial expressions themselves not as a means of inferring something else Rise of Behaviorism In the early 1900s the structuralists used introspection to study psychology o Subjects described their own experiences in order to study thoughts and ideas Behaviorists deemed it useless to ask people to describe private experiences o Accuracy of their reports is impossible to gauge Behaviorists insisted that psychology deal with observable and measurable events Jacques Loeb insisted that animal and human behavior could be described as simple responses to simple stimuli o For example flinching from a loud sound shading eyes from strong light o Stimulus response psychology the attempt to explain behavior in terms of how each stimulus triggers a response The behaviorists returned to examining aspects of animal learning that comparative psychologists had abandoned They tried to understand basic laws of learning by studying how animal s behavior is changed through training and trial and error 1 PSY 2012 0004 Katie s Notes Assumptions of Behaviorism Behaviorists make several assumptions 1 Determinism a The idea that we live in a universe of cause and effect 2 The ineffectiveness of mental explanations a Behaviorists prefer simply to describe what the individuals do instead of inferring what they are trying to so or what they are feeling while they do it b Behaviorists insist that such statements explain nothing i Q Why did she yell at him A She yelled because she was angry Q How do you know she was angry A We know she was angry because she was yelling 3 The power of the environment to mold behavior a The outcome determines how often the behavior will occur in the future b For example If you insult your parents and get grounded you are most likely not going to insult your parents again On the other hand if you get straight A s and are rewarded with a chocolate cake you will probably shoot for straight A s in the future 6 2 Classical Conditioning Ivan P Pavlov was a physiologist who won a Nobel Prize for his research on digestion His description of classical conditioning was a by product of this research Pavlov saw that dogs used in his research salivated when they saw the lab workers who fed them experiences o He suspected that the reflex was psychological based on the dog s previous Pavlov presumed that animals are born with certain autonomic connections called unconditional reflexes between a stimulus such as food and a response such as secreting digestive juices The process by which an organism learns a new association between two stimuli a neutral stimulus and one that already evokes a reflexive response is known as classical conditioning Pavlovian conditioning o Such as salivating when food is present and salivating when a sound is heard because food will follow shortly afterward The unconditioned stimulus UCS is an event that automatically elicits an unconditioned response and the unconditional response UCR is an action that the unconditioned stimulus elicits At first the metronome is a neutral stimulus meaning it had no salivation response because the dog was unfamiliar with that the metronome meant Unconditioned stimulus Unconditioned response Conditioned stimulus Conditioned response Food Salivation Metronome sound Salivation that follows metronome 2 PSY 2012 0004 Katie s Notes More Examples of Classical Conditioning A puff of air is blown into a rabbit s eye just after a musical tone is played After several repetitions of this procedure the rabbit closes its eye when the musical tone is played Unconditioned stimulus Unconditioned response Conditioned stimulus Conditioned response Air puff Closing eye Musical tone Closing eye to the tone A TV commercial for Mega Burger shows a delicious cheeseburger A classic rock song is played during the commercial You see the commercial several times and now when the song is playing on the radio you get hungry Unconditioned stimulus Unconditioned response Conditioned stimulus Conditioned response Hunger at sound of rock song Cheeseburger Rock song Hunger 3 PSY 2012 0004 Katie s Notes Concept Check When the training starts the CS elicits and the UCS elicits No response UCR After the training the CS elicits and the UCS elicits The CR the UCR The Phenomena of Classical Conditioning The process that establishes or strengthens a conditioned response is known as acquisition Suppose you are in a classical conditioning experiment At first you repeatedly hear a buzzer CS that precedes a puff of air into your eyes UCS As a reaction you start to close your eye once you hear the buzzer CR Then the buzzer stops predicting an air puff After a few trials your response to the buzzer extinguishes o The decrease of the conditional response is called extinction To extinguish a classically conditioned response repeatedly present the conditioned stimulus CS without the conditional stimulus UCS Extinction is not the same as forgetting o Now suppose you sit there for a long time with nothing happening and then suddenly you hear the buzzer again Chances are you will blink your eyes Spontaneous recovery is a temporary return of an extinguished response after a delay Stimulus generalization the extension of a conditioned response from the training stimulus to similar stimuli Example If you get stung by a bee when you were a child you probably are afraid of bees This also means you might be afraid wasps and hornets because the resemble bees