learning

Process by which experience produces a relatively enduring change in behavior or capabilities (knowing how)
Distinguish between Knowing how or learning and doing or performance
Performance is the outcome and we look for changes in performance when we are trying to measure learning

Treated organism as a tabula rasa
John Watson and little Albert
Explained learning solely in terms of directly observable events

Focused on animal behavior in natural environments
Focused on functions of behavior

How behavior influences chances of survival, reproduction

Cognitive and biological factors are important
Environmental shaping of behavior
Personal adaptation
You and individuals that are not in the same environment will learn differently because you have each adapted differently so that means that there is some sort of interaction with the current environment that you both have in common as well as past environments

This involves natural selection where there is some sort of adaptation
Some ability to be flexible, that gets passed on through genes as they become a part of nature

When we think of culture it impacts how we learn
Skills
Patterns of social behavior
Beliefs and preferences
Sense of identity
How brain organizes perceptions

Decrease in response strength to a repeated stimulus
Not the same as sensory habituation
Habituation is a simple form of learning
Sensory habituation is information is still available if it becomes relevant
Sensitization- increase in the strength of a response to a repeated stimuli

Associating one stimulus with another
Basic form of learning
we all do this
If you have something lucky you bring to an exam with you
Special thing you do before an athletic event
Anyone with a pet has seen this form of learning

First to note this concept of classical conditioning
He studied salivary response in dogs
When a dog gets hungry they start drooling
This is a natural response- no learning involved
Noted dogs salivated at sounds such as tones or footsteps
He made a connection that dogs can salivate to certain sounds even when the foods not there

The process of learning to associate two stimuli
One stimulus elicits a response that was originally elicited only by other stimulus
What he found was that the dogs salivated when they saw food but sometimes they would salivate when they heard people walking in

Period during which association is being learned
Have stimulus and a response to it which requires no learning
Pair this response with another stimulus

Unconditioned stimulus- elicits a reflexive or innate unconditioned response (UCR) without prior learning. An example would be the food for the dogs
Unconditioned response- response elicited by UCS without prior learning. When dogs see food the unconditioned response is salivating
Conditioned stimulus- different than the unconditioned stimulus. Through association with UCS, comes to elicit a conditioned response similar to the original UCR. Another stimulus, not the food but something different like a sound that evokes the conditioned response. Pavlov used a tone like a pitch fork tone to create a stimulus that came with the food
Conditioned response- response elicited by a conditioned stimulus. The salivation
UCR and CR are the same but what elicits them is different

Food produces salivation- UCS-UCR
When you pair the food with the tone. Pair food UCS and tone= learning trial- called acquisition
When you hit the tone to elicit salivation you get the unconditioned response
The tone is now the new stimulus (CS) and the salivation is the conditioned response
Even though conditioned response and unconditioned response are the same they still term differently because they are the things that impact them or that developed that make them happen differently

Before conditioning
There is a tone and nothing happens
And then the food is brought in and the dog salivates

During conditioning
The process of acquisition- the conditioned stimulus which is the tone is done at the same time as the unconditioned stimulus which is the food
The both together make the unconditioned response which is salivation

After conditioning
the dog just hears the tone which is the conditioned stimulus and they just begin to salivate which is the conditioned response

Forward short delay- CS is present when UCS is presented. When the tone and the food are presented together. That is when we see that there is optimal learning. Optimal learning occurs when the CS and the UCS are there together. Give the tone first and then give the food

*good multiple choice question- which types of CS UCS pairings are best for learning? You would say forward short delay

Forward trace- that is when the CS appears and then goes off. This only works if the delay between this and the unconditioned stimulus is no more than 2-3 seconds

Simultaneous- they are presented at the same time and learning is slower exactly at the same time

Backward- presented afterward, little learning. The tone is given after the food

Multiple CS-UCS pairings
When you do multiple attempts you get more acquisition
If you use an intense or aversive unconditional stimulus you can produce something called one trial learning which is when the trial is very intense or aversive you don't have to do multiple trials of it you can just learn it once
Forward (short delay) pairing
When the time interval between the CS and the UCS is shorter than that it improves the acquisition

Extinction- process in which the CS is presented in the absence of the UCS. When the tone is presented without the food. Causes the conditioned response to weaken and will eventually disappear
Spontaneous recovery- after a rest period without any additional learning you can give those conditions again and the CR would come back. Usually comes back weaker than you originally had it

Generalization- when we look at when a stimulus is similar to the initial condition stimulus and it elicits a CR which helps in survival
Discrimination- when a CR occurs to one stimulus but not to another. This is better when the stimulus is very different. When the stimulus are very similar there is not a lot of discrimination
When the tones are very close together you get generalization and when the tones are very far apart you ger discrimination

Creating a chain of events that have 2 conditioned stimulus
Before higher order conditioning there would be a neutral stimulus that does not create salivation
During higher order conditioning the researcher combined the neutral stimulus with the tone and it produced salivation
After higher order conditioning the neutral stimulus becomes the 2nd CS and will create salivation
This means that they have learned to salivate to the neutral stimulus not from food but from the tone that was paired with the food
Higher order conditioning is when the original thing that creates the conditioned response is now moved away
Expands the influences of classical conditioning on behavior

Exposure therapy- used for people with phobias. Looking through people who have fear or anxiety
Fear is a conditioned response, we learn to be afraid
Exposure therapy would allow us to start feeling the condition and stimulus without the conditioned response
Exposure therapy is the extinction of CR through exposure to CS without the presence of UCS

Systematic desensitization is the process of muscular relaxation paired with gradual exposure to fear inducing stimulus
Flooding is exposure to fearful stimulus. If you are afraid of spiders flooding would be putting you in a room full of spiders
VR exposure therapy- virtual reality to be able to feel that fear around phobias

Attraction to people
Positive and negative attitudes- both used in advertising
Conditioned aversions- when you got sick from eating a certain food you won't eat that food anymore because it made you sick when in reality you didn't get sick from the food it was just a bug
Anticipatory nausea and vomiting- common among cancer patients. When they feel like they are going to vomit without actually having a reason to vomit.

Said that it was a little bit more complicated
Said that if the response or whatever we do is followed by some satisfying consequence a person is more likely to do it again
He also said that if a response or something we do is followed by an unsatisfying consequence or something bad happens a person is less likely to do it again
Instrumental learning- behavior is instrumental in bringing about certain outcomes where we are more likely to do something that causes good than we are to do something that causes bad

Skinner turned this into operant conditioning
Skinner said we don't just learn things randomly but that we learn things in a way that help us adapt personally
It's all based on reinforcement and punishment
Reinforcement is when a response is strengthened by the outcomes that follow
Punishment is when a response is weakened by the outcome that follows

Skinner said we have ABC
A is the antecedents of behavior- what happened first
B is the behavior
C is the consequence that follows the behavior
He says if there is something going on (A) and the behavior is going on (B) than C will occur

Pavlov says that behavior changes due to association of two stimuli (CS-UCS) presented prior to the response (CR) and it focuses on elicited behavior
Operant conditioning says behavior changes as a result of the consequences that follow it and it focuses on emitted behaviors

Positive reinforcement- response is strengthened by presentation of a stimulus (the positive reinforcer) that follows it
Primary reinforcer- stimuli that are reinforcing because they satisfy biological needs (food, drink)
Secondary reinforcer- acquire reinforcing properties through association with primary reinforcers (money, praise)
Negative reinforcement- response strengthened by the removal or avoidance of an aversive stimulus (negative reinforcer)
Reinforcers strengthen behavior
Negative reinforcers avoid or remove something unpleasant
Use sunscreen to avoid sunburn therefore increase behavior of using sunscreen

Weakening and eventual disappearance of an operant response over time
This happens because the response is no longer reinforced
Resistance to extinction is influenced by patterns of reinforcement that has maintained behavior
This is a good alternative to punishment

Aversive punishment is positive punishments response being weakened by subsequent stimulus presentation

Response cost
Response weakened by removal of a stimulus
Examples: loss of privileges or money, misbehaving child gets "time out" that removes opportunity to watch TV or play
Advantages over positive punishment- less likely to create strong fear, does not model aggression
Negative punishments are better than positive punishments but reinforcements are always better than punishments
Negative punishment (taking away their TV or time out time) is better than positive punishment (hitting or scolding) because it doesn't model aggression but ideally for learning we know that reinforcements work better than punishments

Satisfy biological needs

Become reinforcers through association with primary reinforcers

Immediate- stronger effect on behavior
Delay of gratification- involves ability to forego immediate reward for more satisfying outcome later, individual variability, role in drinking, smoking, criminal behavior etc.

Shaping is the process reinforcing successive approximates toward a final response
Chaining is looking at reinforcing each response with opportunity to perform the next response and it develops a sequence of behaviors

Generalization- operant response that occurs to a new antecedent stimulus or situation similar the original one
Operant discrimination- when a response occurs to one antecedent stimulus but not another

Continuous reinforcement looks at every single response of a particular type that is reinforced
Partial reinforcement- only some of them are reinforced

Ratio- certain percentage of responses are reinforced

Interval- certain amount of time that must elapse between reinforcements

Fixed- reinforcement that occurs after a fixed number of responses or fixed time interval

Variable- reinforcement occurs after an average number of responses or passage of time


Now combine these

Fixed ratio- reinforcement is given after a fixed number of responses

Variable ratio- reinforcement given after a variable number of responses, centered around an average

Fixed interval- first correct responses after a fixed time interval is reinforced

Variable interval- reinforcement given for first correct response after a variable time interval, centered around an average

Continuous and partial reinforcement
Continuous reinforcement- more rapid learning, consequences easier to perceive, extinction more rapid
Partial reinforcement- slower learning, more resistant to extinction- especially on VR schedule

Gambling is reinforced on a VR schedule
Do not know which response will be reinforced. Could always be the next one
Difficult to extinguish

Escape conditioning- learn responses to terminate aversive stimuli. Stop something that is painful
Avoidance conditioning- learn response to avoid aversive stimuli
Two factor theory or avoidance- both classical and operant conditioning are involved in avoidance
Association between 2 stimuli develops- classical conditioning
Negative reinforcement maintains avoidance response- operant conditioning

Amygdala- visual presentation of fearful event increased activity in right amygdala, also have lower frontal cortex activity
PTSD- increased activity in right amygdala with decreased frontal cortex activity

Animals assist people who have disabilities, police, military
Entertainment industry

Education and workplace- teaching machines (skinner) and computer assisted instruction, immediate feedback, self-paced learning
Token economies- desired behavior reinforced with tokens, exchangeable for rewards
Modifying problem behavior
Applied behavior analysisehavior modification is based on positive reinforcement
Positive reinforcement is a growing field of psychology

We are biologically prewired to learn behaviors related to survival
Behaviors contrary to natural tendencies are learned slowly if at all

Classical conditioning says that we learn taste aversions
Rats easily learn taste aversion
Light and sounds don't matter

Are we biologically prepared to fear certain things
Most phobias develop for things that have evolutionary significance, snakes, spiders, dangerous places
Few phobias for harmful events- guns, knives
Instinctive drift- conditioned responses drifts back toward instinctive behavior
Caution for those who adopt wild animals

Nucleus acumbens and dopamine are involved in ability to experience reward
Enriched environments produce more dendrites and synapses

SOR (cognitive) model of learning
O= the organisms cognitive representation of the world
Expanded on limited view of S (stimulus) and R (response) model
It is not as simple as stimulus and response, its our own experiences and beliefs that are the O's which are our cognitive representation in the world that impacts the response that we are going to use

The eureka moment
Sudden perception off useful relationships

Mental representations of spatial layouts
Suggests that learning provides knowledge and expectation of what leads to what
After learning simple maze
Many rats chose 4th path
Tolman proposed had develop cognitive map

Classical conditioning- expectancy model. What came out of classical conditioning is the expectant model. The CS produces expectancy that the UCS will follow
Operant conditioning- develops awareness of response consequence contingencies, latent learning, occurs at time A but is not demonstrated until time B, self-evaluations, can serve as reinforcers and punishments
Observational learning- learning that occurs by observing the behavior of a model
Highly adaptive- if learning were trial and error on our own we would learn very slowly, learn important events, when things are about to occur, how to respond

Bandura- modelling process- revolutionized study of child psychology
Four basic steps- attention, retention, reproduction and motivation