Learning

What is Learning?

a relatively permanent change in an organism’s behavior due to experience

Behaviorism

The psychological domain that argues that psychology should be an objective science

Pavlov

Russian scientist that studied the affect of salivation on digestion

Problem: Dogs would start salivating before they got food.

Solution: Forget the digestion, let’s study learning!

Learning Pavlov noticed the dogs

salivated naturally when they ate.

He paired bringing food with ringing a tone.

After a while he rang the tone, but didn’t bring food.

What did the dogs do?

Classical Conditioning

A form of learning where an organism learns to associate stimuli

4 Parts of Classical Conditioning Unconditioned Stimuli

(UCS)- something that causes a natural response

Unconditioned Response (UCR)- what happens naturally as a result of the UCS

Conditioned Stimuli (CS)- a previously neutral stimuli that, after learning, produces the natural response

Conditioned Response (CR)- same as UCR, but in response to the CS

4 Parts of Pavlov UCS-

UCR-

CS-

CR-

4 Parts of Pavlov

UCS- Food

UCR- Salivation

CS- Tone

CR- Salivation

Other examples?

Flinching when seeing lightning Shocking animals after a tone Fear of drawing/tests

Parts of Learning

Parts of Learning

Acquisition- gaining learning Extinction- when the CS is no longer paired

with the UCS, learning is lost Spontaneous recovery- after extinction, if one

waits awhile, learning can come back

Generalization

Conditioned responses occurring for similar stimuli (even ones that aren’t conditioned)

Example: Children fearing cars and learn to avoid motorcycles and trucks as well

Discrimination

The ability to tell the difference between stimuli

Example: Being afraid of pit bulls but not beagles

Examples of Classical Conditioning

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBfnXACsOI (John Watson, Little Albert)

http://teachertube.com/viewVideo.php?title=The_Office_Conditioning&video_id=247611 (The Office)

Aversive Conditioning

Using classical conditioning to keep animals (people) away from harmful substances

Developed by Garcia after studying taste aversions in rats

What things won’t you eat any more?

Applications of Classical Conditioning

Teaching people new things Psych Therapy Aversive Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

A type of learning that teaches using reinforcement and punishment

B.F. Skinner

English major who decided to study psychology as a graduate student

Focused on Thorndike’s law of effect: rewarded behaviors will likely be continued

Taught animals tricks

Principles of Operant Conditioning

Reinforcement- Something that causes a behavior to increase Positive- good behavior results in a reward Negative- good behavior results in taking away

something bad

Punishment- Something that causes a behavior to decrease

Shaping

When behavior is trained through closer and closer approximations

Types of Reinforcement

Primary- innately satisfying (meets a need) Food

Secondary- paired with primary to become satisfying Money

Immediate- happens right now Get a treat for

answering a question

Delayed- reward comes in the future Graduating high

school

Reinforcement Schedules Fixed-ratio- behavior is

reinforced after a specific number of responses You can take a break from

homework after completing 2 assignments

Variable-ratio- behavior is reinforced after an unpredictable amount of responses

Traveling salesperson

Fixed-interval- behavior is reinforced for the first desired response after a specific time Baking time on a cake

Variable-interval- behavior is reinforced for the first desired response after a variable time length Getting e-mail

Punishment

Reduces behavior

Why?

Applying something undesirable

Taking away something desirable

Motivation

Extrinsic- Outside of you Rewards and

punishments

Intrinsic- Inside of you Event is valuable for

its own sake

Legacies of BF Skinner

Computers at school

Rewards at school/work

Child-rearing

Cognition in learning

Sometimes we learn without being conditioned

Known as latent learning

Observational Learning

We learn things from watching others

Monkey see, monkey do

Albert Bandura

Bobo Doll experiment Children watched a

video of an adult beating up a Bobo doll

Children beat up the Bobo doll

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqNaLerMNOE

Biological Basis? Mirror Neurons- fire

when perform an action or see someone else doing it

Provides the foundation for observational learning