Unit 3: Behaviour, Populations and

environmentChapter 33: Effect of experience

Mrs Smith: Ch33 Effect of Experience 1

Higher Human Biology

04/18/23

Learning Intentions

Describe the effect of

experience on learning.

Success Criteria• State that repeated use of motor

skills result in a motor pathway being established. This “motor memory” is seen, for example, in riding a bike.

• Design and carry out an investigation on learning using a finger maze.

• State that motor skills may be improved with practice but once best performance has been reached no further improvement is achieved due to physical limitations.

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Effect of practice on motor skills

• Once a motor skill (e.g. riding a bike) has been mastered, repeated use of it promotes the establishment of a motor pathway in the nervous system.

• Repetition of the skill is though to result in an increased number of synaptic connections being formed between the neurones in the pathway.

• This leads to a motor memory for the skill.

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Motor skills + PracticeMotor skills + Practice

Learn motor skill

Improved performanc

e

Repeated

practice

No practice

Motor memory formed

cycling swimming

Becomes ‘rusty’ but NOT lost

completely

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Investigating learning using a finger maze.• The apparatus in the opposite

image is used by a learner, who is blindfolded.

• The learners task is to proceed through the maze from entrance to exit using the tip of the forefinger.

• The observers job is to measure the time taken for each trial by the learner.

• The experiment is repeated to give a total of ten trials.

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Experiment design featuresDesign feature Reason

Same learner used for each group of ten trials; same finger used each time, same design of maze used each time.

To ensure that no second variable factor in the investigation.

Ten trials per learner. To give the learner opportunity to reach the best score.

Learner blindfolded through all time trials. To prevent the learner improving their performance artificially.

Path between matchsticks just wide enough to accommodate one finger tip comfortably.

To prevent two fingers being used to explore simultaneously two routes at a junction and establish the correct one more quickly.

Experiment repeated with many learners and learning curves compared.

To obtain a more reliable set of results.

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•After several trials the time to complete the maze decreases.

• By trial & error a person forms a picture in head of route.

•Eventually a best time is reached.

• This is a minimum time needed to physically run finger through so once this physical limit is reached it can’t be improved upon.

Finger Maze ResultsFinger Maze Results

Practice Improves Performance7Mrs Smith: Ch33 Effect of Experience04/18/23

increase in number of correct responses

We can measuring learning by....We can measuring learning by....

Graph of learning = a learning curve

recording decrease in time needed

counting the decreasing

number of errors

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•Method of learning, especially in children and especially during play – physical tasks, social skills & attitudes.

Imitation: by Adults and Imitation: by Adults and ChildrenChildren

• Quick way of learning.

• Easier than reading a manual etc.

•Learning by demonstration is even easier if broken up into steps and learner repeats each step immediately.•Learning is even better if the demonstrator is an attractive role model (status is enhanced by the possession of the skill being demonstrated).

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Imitation of social skills• Behaviour acquired by

imitation is not restricted to the learning of physical tasks and skills.

• It also involves the learning of social skills and attitudes.

• Parents, other adults and perhaps older brothers and sisters, provide children with a variety of possible models to imitate.

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Imitation of social skills

• Children tend to imitate many aspects of a model’s cultural and social behaviour. Once learned, many of these values and traditions (e.g. Being kind and generous to others or belonging to a certain religion) may be adopted for life.

• Some may be accepted during childhood, then rejected during adolescence (e.g. A belief that smoking damages health changes to smoking seems attractive to a peer group). This may change again in adulthood to the original premise. 11Mrs Smith: Ch33 Effect of Experience04/18/23

Influence of media

People also learn by observing and then imitating behaviour presented in the media (e.g. TV and films).

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Influence of media

Children re-enact in detail recently view programmes. Experiments have shown that many of the children that have viewed violent scenes on TV become more violent. Where as many children shown TV containing ‘do-good’ themes tend to imitate this behaviour.

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Task: Torrance-TYK pg 263 Qu 1-4

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Many experiments done on rats & mice to compare

learning in hungry and well-fed individuals when food is available, but they have to learn how to get

it.

Trial & Error Learning Trial & Error Learning

Sooner or later they push the lever. If they

get the food the behaviour is repeated,

so becomes reinforced.

Association of pushing leaver (own behaviour ) with the delivery of food.

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Motivation

The effect of motivation on an animals ability to learn by comparing hungry and well-fed rats which must negotiate a maze before getting the reward of food. Hungry rats make less errors per trial, they are more motivated to learn.

Motivation = ‘inner drive’ that makes you want to participate in the learning process

Animals are motivated by:• Hunger, thirst, sexual drive, and curiosity

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Reinforcement = the process that makes an organism repeat a certain

behaviour

ReinforcementReinforcement

Reinforcement stimulus (reinforcers) increases the chance of the response being repeated

Reinforcers = Rewards

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This occurs when something pleasant or positive is received after a particular response has been made. - Increases the chance of the response being repeated

Positive reinforcement

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Negative reinforcement• An unpleasant or negative outcome

coming to a stop when a particular response is made

• Increases the chance of the response being repeated.

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Don’t confuse negative

reinforcement with punishment:

Negative reinforcement is

always associated with increases in behaviour, while

punishment always involves decreasing

or suppressing behaviour.

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Here the response is always reinforced every time

Continuous ReinforcementContinuous Reinforcement

Intermittent ReinforcementIntermittent Reinforcement This response is only reinforced some of the time• If the influence of the reinforcements that has previously occurred is strong enough, it will still to promote the response even if not being reinforced in that moment in time.

e.g. rat getting food every time lever is

pressed

e.g. child using green cross code, even when parent not there to remind them.

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People develop a superstition due to a favourable event, that has actually occurred by mere chance, but is thought to come from the person’s behaviour.

SuperstitionSuperstition

When the behaviour is repeated the favourable event occasionally occurs so reinforces the superstition, so the likelihood of the person repeating the behaviour. 22Mrs Smith: Ch33 Effect of Experience04/18/23

Shaping of BehaviourShaping of BehaviourThis occurs by …. rewarding behaviour that is similar (successive approximations) to the desired behaviour to help the learner learn in stages. • Usually used to learn something that is unlikely to occur spontaneously

e.g. Baby learning to hold cutlery properly – praise from parents helps baby learn to hold it correctly

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Shaping and Animals

• Animal trainers use shaping to teach dolphins to balance a ball on their snouts, pigeons to dance in patterns and bears to ride on bicycles.

• An especially useful application of shaping is training dogs to act as eyes for the blind.

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Extinction of BehaviourExtinction of BehaviourIf behaviour patterns are not rewarded they are likely to disappear (become extinct if not reinforced).

Intermittent reinforcement is more resistant to extinction than continuous reinforcement.

Once the food runs out, after a few presses of the lever resulting in no food, the rat stops pressing the lever.

If food is given intermittently (sometimes, but not everytime), even when the food has run out -for a while after, the rat will still try to press the lever to get food.

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Rewarded & Unrewarded BehaviourRewarded & Unrewarded Behaviour

Parents try to teach their children the difference between acceptable & unacceptable behaviour.

Good behaviour is reinforced through rewards.

If bad behaviour is ignored it should become extinct because it is not reinforced, however sometimes it is hard to ignore and instead the child gets attention.

Sometimes unacceptable behaviour has it’s own rewards (e.g. thief stealing money) so is reinforced.In this case responsible parents might resort to punishment.

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Evidence suggests that smacking your children is not effective in managing their behaviour. Out of 2,500 children involved in a study those who were smacked more frequently at the age of 3 were much more aggressive by age 5 (aggression increased by 50%).

Why should parents stop smacking children?1.Smacking teaches kids that hitting others is okay.2.Smacking makes a child preoccupied with feelings of anger and revenge instead of learning more effective and humane methods of solving a problem3.Often, children who are smacked because of “bad behaviour” only want to get their parents’ attention. Even negative attention is attention, and can reinforce behaviour. 4.Smacking may make a child resent his/her parents: Any human being will find it hard to feel loving towards a person who hits them. While it may make a child obey a parent, this is not because the child wants to obey. Children who are constantly smacked by their parents tend to do what their parents want for fear of being hit again.5.Smacking can cause injury to a child.

FYI: Smacking is not effective in behaviour management

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e.g.

GeneralisationGeneralisation

Child bitten by one dog scared of all dogs

…when the spread of a response (e.g. fear) extends to different but related stimuli.

Baby saying ‘mama’ to all

adults

Mama!

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…the ability to distinguish between different but related stimuli and give different responses.

DiscriminationDiscrimination

e.g. Child bitten by a large dog is scared of just large dogs

Taught by reinforcing the desired response

e.g. a baby saying ‘mama’ to the correct person is rewarded with

hugs & kisses, but none are given if ‘mama’ is said to the

wrong person29Mrs Smith: Ch33 Effect of Experience04/18/23

Task: Torrance-TYK pg 266 Qu 1-4

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Task: Torrance AYK pg266/267 Qu’s 1-5

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SQA Essay 2006

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