Definition of Learning Unconditioned Behavior 09 19 2015 Extreme nurture side is shown by John B Watson with his famous quote on pg 82 Behaviorists are interested in observable behavior Learning a relatively enduring change in the potential to engage in a particular behavior resulting from experience with environmental events specifically related to that behavior Enduring may be a single exposure to a stimulus Potential to engage acknowledgment that the animal subject that you are being observed is not showing a change in behavior but learning may still occur o Behaviorally Silent Learning learning is happening but a change in behavior is not seen In experimental situations conditions should be optimal so that a change in behavior is shown Experience with environmental events specifically related o Can behavior change for reasons other than learning o Class list Instinct Mental illness Money environmental change Physical illness Puberty Drugs Medication Menstruation Fear Emotional state Imitation social situation when first encountered some of it might not necessarily be learned Aging Physical development o Actual answers Physiologic state Motivation or emotional state Change in stimulus environment Maturation or development Maturation or development If one of these variables is present it must be considered rather than assuming that learning is occurring because behavior is changing Reflex Simplest unit of unconditioned behavior E g suckling rooting grasp Patellar reflex blinking pharyngeal Instinctive Involuntary gag It is very important that babies grow out of some reflexes otherwise it might mean there is something very wrong Complex behavior Modal action patterns Sequence of behavioral responses o Collections of reflexes organized together Species specific o Differ on males females Courtship and mating rituals o Threespine Stickleback Male initiates behavior Zig zag dance Male courts Leads If interested female follows Male shows nest entrance Enter nest Trembles Spawns Fertilizes Sign stimuli is the stimulus that initiates the modal action pattern Male and female turkey quail o Obvious physical differences between both o Male sees female jumps on her What makes male turkey quail attempt courtship Experiment 1 Present female quail or variant model 2 Observe the males approach response Modal Action Patterns in Humans Smile wave greeting pretty much universal Eyebrow raise pretty much universal Yawning Involves a whole sequence of muscular movements Signs of infancy youth Head large in proportion to body Protruding forehead large in proportion to the size of the rest of the face Large eras eyes below the midline of the head Round protruding cheeks Also true for baby animals o If any of these aspects are changed your response changes Supra Normal Sign Stimuli Can elicit the modal action pattern but are different in some way from what you will find in nature It is man made or very unusual for it to happen naturally sometimes will respond even better with this stimuli than with natural sign stimuli o Herring gull chicks peck the red spot on parent s beak Modal action pattern this our normal sign stimulus o Experimenters did experiments with a whole bunch chicks and different beaks to see how many times they will peck each beak o o This suggests that the more red there is the more pecking there will be regardless of whether it looks like an actual beak Supra normal sign stimuli o Satin Bowerbirds o Mostly found in Australia o Males creates bower a round nest They decorate it with blue stuff because the female is attracted to blue Female visits the diff nests chooses the best decorated one to her Modal action pattern o Male collects blue stuff from human garbage Supra normal stimuli Elicits more of a response Human supra normal stimuli has not been studies too much But one example is makeup which is not universal This is a much more mild example compared to other animals Types of Learning 3 Types Single Stimulus 09 19 2015 Habituation hard to notice you stop responding to a repeated stimulus Helps you focus on what is really important Sensitization respond more to a repeated stimulus For example a fire alarm a Pinpointing a single stimulus even though there is always more than one stimulus happening Associative Learning Pavlovian Cond Classical Conditioning Multiple stimuli that are paired together Stimulus stimulus association Helps to predict what will happen next o Ex Conditioned taste aversion US Nausea disgust CS o Associations are not random we make them when they are Taste important to us o Conditioned stimulus CS o Unconditioned stimulus US must have it in order to associate Instrumental Operant Conditioning Behavioral response operant Consequence Reward or punishment All interactions are always being rewarded or punished whether you notice or not Exercises Mary met her math study group every week at Starbucks last semester Now when she goes to Starbucks she thinks of her study group friends Pavlovian Conditioning When Bill 1st moved to NYC he was up all night due to the constant traffic noise coming through his bedroom window Six months later he no longer notices it at all Single stimulus Every Sunday afternoon Jim visits his grandmother they have tea cake One Thursday he stopped by her house unexpectedly After a few minutes he realized that he had a strong craving for cake Pavlovian Conditioning Christine wants her daughter Sally to learn good manners so she praises Sally when she remembers to say please thank you correctly o Instrumental conditioning Single Stimulus Learning FAQ from Topics Assignment Rats pigeons are not better are learning than other animals but they 09 19 2015 habituate easily to the laboratory life All animals can be trained but what they learn how well they do it depends on the animal the type of training Habituation Procedure It is not damage Not due to fatigue or sensory adaptation Relatively stimulus specific Stimulation of the peripheral sensory receptor This is not learning Less intense stimuli more habituation Motor output Fatigue o Muscles that do the startle response have done it way too many times that they can t respond as much anymore Stimulus Specifity Generalization After habituation training A change in response to a very different stimulus is not really learning Human Infants Visual or Auditory Attention In the lab setting babies usually sit with the parents Frequently the parent won t be informed about what exactly is going on in