Learning and Behaviour - created from Mind Map

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LEARNING - relatively permanent change resulting from experience

BEHAVIOUR - any activity an organism does that can be observed or measured

HISTORY

BRITISH EMPIRICISTS - John Locke, newborn's mind is a "blank slate/tabula rasa"

FUNCTIONALISM (mind evolved to help us adapt to the world around us) - William James

CLASSICAL CONDITIONING - reflexive/involuntary/inborn behaviours. Become produced in new situations (eg. Pavlovian response Bell: Food - Salivation, Bell - Salivation)

OPERANT CONDITIONING - goal directed/voluntary. Strengthening or weakening a behaviour as a result of consequences (eg. Lever press - food pellet, The effect: Likelihood of lever pressing increases.

5 SCHOOLS highlight different conceptions of the link between environ/events, internal states and behaviour

Watson's Methodological Behavourism

Hull's Neobehaviourism

Tolman's Cognitive Behaviourism

Bandura's Social Learning Theory

Skinner's Radical Behaviourism

Publicly observable behaviour (stimulus - response)

Mechanistic - behaviour is reflexive

Operationalisation of unobserved constructs (e.g. gravity)

Mediation of intervening variables

Mechanistic

physiological reactions (i.e. hunger)

Broader 'molar' level

Rats in a maze - goal directed, latent learning

Mentalistic

Cognitive maps

Animal cognition and comparative cognition

imitation/observational learning

RECIPROCAL DETERMINISM - observable behaviour, environmental events and internal events all interact

distinction between learning and performance

self-referent thoughts about abilities and accomplishments

Cognitive behavtiour therapy alter environment and internal processes

rejects internal events to explain behaviour

influence of environment and observable behaviour

thoughts and feelings are behaviours themselves

COUNTERCONTROL - deliberate manipulation of environ. to alter impact on our behaviour

PLATO (Nativist/nature/heredity) - everything we know is inborn "residing in our soul"

ARISTOTLE (empiricist/nuture) - abilities and tendencies are mostly learned

DESCARTES (Mind-body dualism) - some behaviours are reflexes automatically elicited from external stimulation, others are freely chosen and controlled by the mind.

STRUCTURALISM (The experimental study of human consciousness) - Wundt and Titchener

Ideas are connected or associated with each other

LAW OF SIMILARITY - associate events that resemble each other

LAW OF FREQUENCY - the more often two events occur together, the stronger the association

LAW OF CONTRAST - we associate events that are opposite to each other

LAW OF CONTIGUITY - associate events that occur in close proximity

reflexive behaviour is mechanistic and can be scientifically investigated

study of animal behaviour might provide info about reflexive human behaviour

INTROSPECTION - subjects attempt to accurately describe his/her thoughts, emotions, and sensory experiences.

Can determine the structure of the mind by identifying the basic elements that compose it

Knowledge a function of experience

Mind composed of finite set of elements (eg. colours, smells, sounds,etc) which combine through association to form conscious experience

influenced by Darwin's theory of evolution and still emphasized the study of consciousness