Learning

Learning

1. Classical Conditioning

   • Learning
     • Conditioning
       • Involves learning connections between events that occur in an organism's environment
       • Principles of conditioning improve self-control
     • Any relatively durable change in behaviour or knowledge that is due to experience.
     • Behaviors are the product of experience, they represent learning.
   • Pavlov's Demonstration
     • Psychic Reflexes
     • Worked with dogs
     • Key Elements
       • Neutral Stimulus
       • Unconditioned Stimulus
       • Unconditioned Response
     • Built a broad theory of learning
       • Attempted to explain aspects of
         • Emotion
         • Temperament
         • Neuroses
         • Language
     • Tone acquired the capacity to trigger the response
     • Learned associations were formed by the events in an organism's environment
   • Effects of Classical Conditiong
     • Phobias
       • Products of classical conditioning
       • Traumatic experiences are not always associated with stimuli automatically leading to conditioned fears or phobias.
     • Attitude
       • Evaluative Conditioning
         • Refers to changes in the liking of a stimulus that result from pairing that stimulus with other positive or negative stimuli.
     • Physiological Processes
       • Imunosuppression
         • A disease in the production of antibodies.
     • Drug Tolerance
       • The brain responds to drug use (US) by compensating with an opposite response (UR)
       • Drug paraphernalia or situations (CR) can become CC to elicit the compensatory response (CR) even prior to using the drug.
   • Phenomena
     • Acquisition
       • Refers to the intial stage of learning something.
       • Usually something novel, unusual or very intense that results in CC
       • Timing is a factor
       • Stimulus Contiguity
         • How close the stimuli are together.
     • Extinction
       • Presenting a CS repeatedly, after conditioning, without the US.
         • Resulting in no response
     • Spontaneous Recovery
       • Extinguished CR after a period of nonexposure to the CS
         • Often the CR isn't as strong as it once was.
   • Generalization
     • Responding to a new stimulus in a way similar to the response produced by an established CS.
       • A similar stimulus leads to a similar CR
     • things with similarities share problems
     • People with panic disorder may overgeneralize
   • Discrimination
     • Responding differently to a new stimulus than one responds to established CS
     • When Stimuli Share properties
       • for example two tones of a similar pitch would require people to learn to discriminate

2. Cognitive & Evolutionary Perspectives

   • Learning is a very general process, because the biological bases of learning and the basic problems confronted by various organisms are much the same across species.
   • Edward Tolman
     • Latent Learning
       • Preformed an experiment on lab rats in a maze
         • Group A received treats at the end of the maze everyday.
         • Group B received no treats whatsoever.
         • Group C received treats after the 11th trial.
           • They had been learning the maze all along
           • Had no motivation to demonstrate the learning until a reward was introduced.
           • Formed cognitive map of the maze
       • Learning that is not apparent from behavior when it first occurs.
       • First suggested that learning can take place in the absence of reinforcement
       • Secondly suggested that the rats who displayed latent learning had formed a cognitive map of the maze.
         • At a time when cognitive processes were thought to be irrelevant to understanding conditioning - even in humans.

3. Operant Conditioning

   • A form of learning in which responses come to be controlled by their consequences of their own voluntary actions
   • Reinforcement
     • Positive
       • Increase in responding is due to giving something good or rewarding
       • Something good is given
     • Punishment
       • Consequences that DECREASE the likelihood of responding in a similar way again
     • Negative
       • Increased responding is due to removing something bad
       • Something bad is removed
     • Penalty
       • Like a time out, or getting something suspended
     • The terms positive and negative refer to whether response increases because of the presentation of something (positive) or because the removal of something (negative).
   • Phenomena
     • Acquisition
       • Initial stage of learning a new response
       • Some response are more complex and require a process called SHAPING
     • Shaping
       • Occurs when rewards are given for behavior that is closer to the desired end result
         • Ex. giving a dog a treat when doing tricks.
     • Extinction
       • Response is no longer followed by a reinforcer
       • When reinforcer is withdrawn, the subject often increases the behavior.
         • Then the behavior decreases gradually.
       • Resistance of Extinction
         • sometimes you want resistance, schedules of reinforcement affect this.
   • Types of Schedules of Reinforcement
     • Rules that an experimenter uses to determine when particular responses will be reinforced
     • Strongly affects speed and strength of training.
     • Continuous
       • Every Response followed rapidly by reinforcement
     • Intermittent or Partial Reinforcement
       • Reinforcement delivered only some of the time.
     • Ratio Schedules
       • Fixed-Ratio
         • Produce steady consistent rates of responding, but might stop for a period after reinforcement.
         • Number of responses required for reinforcement stays the same.
         • Extinction when reinforcement no longer given.
       • Variable
         • A certain number of responses required for reinforcement, but the number may change.
         • Extinction takes much longer
     • Interval Schedules
       • Fixed
         • Reinforcement delivered for first response after a fixed allotment of time
         • Extinction takes much longer
       • Variable
         • Allotted time before a new response will yield reinforcement changes
   • Punishment
     • Associated with:
       • Poor relationships
       • Elevated Aggression
       • Delinquency
       • Behavioral problems in children
     • In adulthood:
       • Increased aggression criminal behavior
       • Mental Health Problems
       • Child Abuse
     • An event that follows a response that weakens or suppresses the tendency to make that response.

4. Observational Learning

   • Bandura
     • Researcher who studied effects of viewing adult aggressive behavior on children
     • Children acted out what they observed
       • "Monkey See, Monkey Do"
     • Bobo Doll Experiment
       • Adult hitting Bobo Doll
     • Adult was either praised or punished
       • Children were more likely to follow if adult was praised for aggression.
       • If punished child would assume if they did the same, they also would be punished.
   • Occurs when an organisms responding is influenced by the observation of others - called models.
   • Mirror Neurons
     • Neurons that are activated by performing an action or by seeing another monkey or person perform the same action.
     • "Monkey See, Monkey Do."
     • One line of research that explains how observational learning works biologically, is the role of mirror neurons.