Psych 1101 Chapter 7 Learning cognitive learning taking in information from a textbook or a lecture and taking that information in and the resulting change in your behavior What is Learning How do we learn learning is a relatively permanent change in an organism s behavior due to experience we learn by association our mind naturally connects events that occur in sequence the events linked in associative learning may be two stimuli as in classical conditioning automatic OR a response and its consequences as in operant conditioning observational learning learning that occurs from viewing others experiences modeling Classical Conditioning classical conditioning learning process that occurs through associations between an environmental stimulus and a naturally occurring stimulus this laid the foundation for John B Watson s behaviorism which held that psychology should be an objective science that studied only observable behavior Pavlov repeatedly presented a neutral stimulus NS such as a tone just before an unconditioned stimulus US such as food which triggered the unconditioned response UR of salivation after several repetitions the tone alone now the conditioned stimulus CS began triggering a conditioned response CR salivation Classical Conditioning Terminology unconditioned stimulus US food evokes unconditioned response unconditioned response UR salivation automatic not learned response to US conditioned stimulus CS bell previously neutral stimulus following conditioning evokes CR conditioned response CR salivation learned reaction to CS Conditioning and Learning acquisition responses are best acquired when the CS is presented half a second before the US classical conditioning is biologically adaptive extinction the diminishing of a conditioned response when the conditioned stimulus occurs repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus spontaneous recovery the reappearance of an extinguished conditioned response generalization the tendency to respond to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus discrimination the learned ability to distinguished between a CS and other irrelevant stimuli Application of Classical Conditioning Principles classical conditioning is one way that virtually all organisms learn to adapt to their environment conditioning principles have important application such as how to treat fear anxiety phobias recall Little Albert provides important insights into drug abuse and addiction Operant Conditioning Law of Effect rewarded behavior is likely to recur Operant Conditioning learning in which behavior results in rewarding or punishing stimuli occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior shaping a procedure in which reinforces e g food guide an animal s natural behavior toward a desired behavior successive approximations rewarding responses that are closer to the desired behavior and ignoring all other response Operant Conditioning Reinforcement the goal is to increase the target behavior punishment decrease the behavior a reinforcer is any event that increases the frequency of a behavior response reinforcers positive presenting a pleasant rewarding stimulus after a response negative reducing or removing an unpleasant stimulus which increases the behavior e g snooze button headache primary reinforcers food when we are hungry innately satisfying continuous reinforcement when the desired response is reinforced every time it occurs partial intermittent reinforcement produces slower acquisition of the target behavior than does continuous reinforcement but the learning is more resistant to extinction reinforcement schedules may vary according to the number of responses rewarded or the time gap between responses Reinforcement Schedules fixed ratio schedules reinforce behavior after a set number of responses variable ratio schedules provide reinforcers after an unpredictable number of responses fixed interval schedules reinforce the first response after a fixed time interval amount of time variable interval schedules reinforce the first response after varying time intervals variable unpredictable schedules produce more consistent responding than fixed predictable schedules Operant Conditioning Punishment punishment attempts to decrease the frequency of a behavior by administering an undesirable consequence for example spanking positive punishment or withdrawing something desirable negative punishment punishment can have several drawbacks suppressing not changing unwanted behaviors teaching fear and increasing aggressiveness Classical vs Operant Conditioning In classical conditioning the organism learns associations between two stimuli and the response is automatic In operant conditioning the organism learn associations between its behavior and resulting events consequences and changes in behavior occur accordingly Cognition and Learning