1A: Intro to Learning

Question 1

What is behaviour

Answer 1

Anything a person or other animal does that can be measured.
Anything that a person says or does.
Distinctions: internal/external, overt/covert.
Eg sweating = external, overt.
Sadness = internal, covert

Question 2

Reflex

Answer 2

A relationship between a specific event and a simple response to that event. Usually refers to an unconditioned reflex.

Question 3

Kinds of reflexes

Answer 3

Startle response
Orienting response (turn towards a stimulus eg loud noise)
Flexion response (withdrawal)
Vomiting reflex

Question 4

Modal Action Patterns (MAP)

Answer 4

Fixed action patterns (used to be instincts)
Fixed sequence of responses elicited by a stimulus (releaser).
Unique to species and evolved for consistent environments.
Eg salmon swim upstream to breed.

Question 5

General behaviour traits

Answer 5

Any general behaviour tendency that is strongly influenced by genes.
Eg introversion and general anxiety.
Differ from MAP: occur in a wide variety of situations, and are more variable within species.

Question 6

Learning

Answer 6

A change in behaviour due to experiences.
A change in behaviour due to a change in the environment.
Immediate or delayed.

Question 7

What is learning?

Answer 7

The acquisition of new knowledge.
The transference if already known facts.
The acquisition of new skills.
The acquisition of likes and dislikes.
Learning is a process:
Declarative: semantic, episodic
Non-declarative: procedural, behavioural, emotional.

Question 8

Watson’s Methodological Behaviourism

Answer 8

Study of ‘publicly’ observable behaviour.
Subjective activities too difficult to assess and excluded unless method of measurement exists.
Practice makes perfect ~10 years + hours

Question 9

Hull’s Neobehaviourism

Answer 9

Operationalisation of unobserved constructs and events eg gravity.
Medication by intervening variables which experienced the stimulus - response relationship.
Physiological reactions such as hunger.
Note: not mental processes.

Question 10

Tolman’s cognitive behaviourism

Answer 10

The whole is more than the sum of its parts.
Patterns of behaviour rather than a chain of S-R connections.
Intervening cognitive processes eg. Cognitive map.
Latent learning: occurs despite absence of evidence of learning.

Question 11

Bandura’s social learning theory

Answer 11

Social learning theory: importance of observational learning and cognitive variables in explaining human behaviour.

Question 12

Skinner’s radical behaviourism

Answer 12

Internal states not explanations of behaviour but an event to be explained.
Covert and overt governed by the same rules.
Capacity to manipulate environment for positive effect.
Operant conditioning as natural selection in an individual.

Question 13

Habituation

Answer 13

Decrease in strength of elicited behaviour through repeated presentations of eliciting stimulus.
Can be long- or short- term.

Question 14

Sensitisation

Answer 14

Increase in strength of elicited behaviour through repeated presentations of eliciting stimulus.
Generalisation common.

Question 15

Habituate or sensitise?

Answer 15

Differentiation in outcomes by:
Intensity (low = habituation, high = sensitisation, intermediate = sensitisation then habituation). 
Adaptive significance (currently relevant = sensitise, currently irrelevant = habituate).