7 - Learning Flashcards
What happens after military nurses return home after serving reflects the operation of a kind of learning based on what?
Association – sights, sounds, and smells become associated with negative emotions in a way that creates an enduring bond, so that encountering similar sights, sounds, and smells at home elicit similarly intense negative feelings
Learning
the acquisition of new knowledge, skills, or responses from experience that results in a relatively permanent change in the state of the learner
Key Ideas of Learning
Learning is based on experience
Learning produces changes in an organism
The changes are relatively permanent
Habituation
a general process in which repeated or prolonged exposure to a stimulus results in a gradual reduction in responding
Sensitization
presentation of a stimulus leads to an increased response to a later stimulus
Which period did most fundamental work on learning theory take place?
During the Behaviourism period, between 1930s and 1950s
Classical conditioning
When a neutral stimulus produces a response after being paired with a stimulus that naturally produces a response
US
unconditioned stimulus, something that reliably produces a naturally occurring reaction in an organism
UR
unconditioned response; a reflexive reaction that is reliably produced by an unconditioned stimulus
CS
conditioned stimulus; a previously neutral stimulus that produces a reliable response in an organism after being paired with an US
CR
conditioned response; a reaction that resembles an unconditioned response but it produced by a conditioned stimulus
Phases of classical conditioning
acquisition, extinction, first spontaneous recovery, second spontaneous recovery
Acquisition
the phase of classical conditioning when CS and US are presented together
Describe the increase of learning during acquisition
starts low, rises rapidly, slowly tapers off
Second order conditioning
conditioning where a CS is paired with a stimulus that became associated with the US in an earlier stimulus
Classical Conditioning and Drug Overdoses
Phenomenon of addicts dying from drug overdose even though they are experienced drug users, the dose isn’t usually higher than usual, and deaths occur in unusual settings. When taking drugs in the same place a lot, their brain gets conditioned for the compensatory physiological reactions and drug tolerance as a protective function. Thus when the drug user takes drugs in a new environment, the usual dose becomes an overdose because the body doesn’t protect itself.
Extinction
the gradual elimination of a learned response that occurs when the CS is repeatedly presented without the US
Describe the decrease of learning during extinction
abrupt decline and continues to drop until eventually the object ceases to respond with the UR to the CS.
Spontaneous recovery
the tendency of a learned behaviour to recover from extinction after a rest period
Generalization
the CR is observed even though the CS is slightly different from the CS used during acquisition
Discrimination
the capacity to distinguish between similar but distinct stimuli
Little Albert
John Watson (and Rosalie Rayner) experiment with the white rat and the baby
What did Watson want to investigate through the Little Albert experiment?
- Show that a relatively complex reaction could be conditioned using Pavlovian techniques
- Show that emotional responses such as fear and anxiety could be produced by classical conditioning and therefore need not be the product of deeper unconscious processes or early life experiences
- Confirm that conditioning could be applied to humans as well as other animals
Examples of classical conditioning in real life?
listening to a song eliciting a positive emotional response because of listening to it with a significant other
advertising using attractive women for products targeted at young males
Expectation
Rescorla-Wagner model of classical conditioning, CS serves to set up an expectation. The expectation in turn leads to an array of behaviours associated with the presence of the CS
What does the Rescorla-Wagner model account for?
variety of classical conditioning phenomena that were difficult to understand from a simple behaviourist view, ex: that conditioning is easier when the CS is unfamiliar because familiar events already have expectations associated with them
Eyelid conditioning
following the tone, a puff of air in eyes, leads to blinking when a tone is heard
What part of the brain is known to be critical for emotional conditioning?
Amygdala, particularly the central neucleus
Rats and freezing
Freezing is a fear response in rats, when they freeze, their autonomic nervous system goes to work. When the connections linking the amygdala and the midbrain are disrupted, rat doesn’t freeze, and if the connections linking the amygdala and the hypothalamus are severed, the autonomic responses associated with fear cease.
Food aversion and cancer patients
Cancer patients tend to develop aversion to foods they eat before they undergo chemo, so to fix it, they are told to eat unusual foods like coconut flavoured candy before the treatment, and this spared them from aversion to more typical or common foods.
Biological preparedness
a propensity for learning particular kinds of associations over others. (rats respond to taste/smell cues over visual cues, and birds are the other way around)
Operant conditioning
a type of learning in which the consequences of an organism’s behaviour determine whether it will be repeated in the future
Instrumental behaviours
behaviours that require an organism to do something, solve a problem, or otherwise manipulate elements of its environment
Thorndike’s puzzle box
food was placed outside a box where a cat could see it. If the cat triggered the appropriate lever, it would open the door and let the cat out.
The law effect
behaviours that are followed by a “satisfying state of affairs” tend to be repeated and those that produce an “unpleasant state of affairs” are less likely to be repeated
Operant behaviour
term coined by Skinner, refers to behaviour that an organism produces that has some impact on the environment
Skinner Box
operant conditioning chamber, allows researcher to study the behaviour of small organisms in a controlled environment
Reinforcer
any stimulus or event that functions to increase the likelihood of the behaviour that led to it
Punisher
any stimulus or event that functions to decrease the likelihood of the behaviour that led to it
Positive (in context of reinforcement and punishment)
Something is added
Negative (in context of reinforcement and punishment)
Something is taken away
Negative reinforcement
something bad is taken away (a good thing)
Positive punishment
something bad is added (a bad thing)
Positive reinforcement
something good is added (a good thing)
Negative punishment
something good is taken away (a bad thing)
Primary reinforcers
help satisfy biological needs
Secondary reinforcers
derive their effectiveness from their associations with primary reinforcers through classical conditioning
The longer the gap between the behaviour and the punishment/reinforcement…
the less effective the punishment/reinforcement will be
Three term contingency
Skinner; discriminative stimulus, response, reinforcer
Research on stimulus control
Group of pigeons were trained to respond to Picasso paintings, and they then responded to other paintings by Picasso and other Cubists, while pigeons trained to respond to Monet paintings then responded to other paintings by Monet and French Impressionists.
What does the research on stimulus control (pigeons and paintings) show?
Stimulus control is effective even if the stimulus has no meaning to the respondent
Unlike ___ conditioning, where the ___ of learning trials is important, in ____ conditioning, the ____ with which reinforcements appear is crucial
classical, number; operant, pattern
Schedules of reinforcement
Skinner, two most important are interval schedules and ratio schedules
Interval schedules
Based on time intervals between reinforcements
Ratio schedules
Based on the ratio of responses to reinforcements.
FI
fixed interval schedule; reinforcers are presented at fixed time periods, provided that the appropriate response is made
VI
variable interval schedule; behaviour is reinforced based on an average time that has expired since the last reinforcement
FR
fixed ratio schedule; reinforcement is delivered after a specific number of responses have been made
Continuous reinforcement
reinforcement after each response
VR
variable ratio schedule; delivery of reinforcement is based on a particular average number of responses
List reniforcement schedules from least to most effective
Variable interval, fixed interval, variable ratio, fixed ratio
intermittent reinforcement
when only some of the responses made are followed by reinforcement
intermittent reinforcement effect
the fact that operant behaviours that are maintained under intermittent reinforcement schedules resist extinction better than those maintained under continuous reinforcement
Shaping
learning that results from the reinforcement of successive steps to the final desired behaviour
successive approximation
each step of behaviour that gets incrementally closer to the overall desired behaviour
Superstitious behaviour
when subject behave as though there is a correlation between their responses and reward when in fact the connection is merely accidental.
One of the first researchers to question Skinner’s strictly behaviourist interpretation of learning
Edward Chace Tolman, strongest early advocate of a cognitive approach to operant learning
What did Tolman suggest?
That an animal establishes a means-ends relationship, that is, the conditioning experience produced knowledge or a belief that, in this particular situation, a specific reward (end state) will appear is a specific response (means to that end) is made.
Similarities between Tolman and Rescorla-Wagner
Both theories say that stimulus does not directly evoke a response, rather it establishes an internal cognitive state, which then produces the behaviour
Latent learning
something is learned, but it is not manifested as a behavioural change until sometime in the future
Latent learning and rats
rats in a control group didn’t receive any reinforcement improved through 17 days in the maze but not by much. rats received regular reinforcements showed fairly clear learning, their error rate decreased steadily over time. Rats in the latent learning group were treated like control rats for the first 10 days, then were regularly rewarded for the last 7. Their dramatic improvement on day 12 shows that they learned a lot about the maze and location of the goal box even though they never received reinforcements. Also, in the last 7 days, they performed better than the regularly reinforced group.
Cognitive map
a mental representation of the physical features of an environment
Cognitive maps and rats
- rats were trained to run from a start box to a goal box
- rats were placed in the maze and the main straightaway that they usually used to get to the goal box was blocked. Instead of taking the next closest path, they chose the one that led most directly to where the goal box had been during their training
.:. the rats had formed a cognitive map or their environment and knew where they needed to end up spatially compared to where they began.
Trust Game
Player given $1, has option to give it up so that their partner would receive $3, who then had an option of splitting this prize with the player. Players were given descriptions of their partner either trustworthy, neutral, or suspect. It was seen through fMRI that the signals in the part of the brain that distinguished between positive and negative feedback were evident only when the player played a neutral partner.
Pleasure centres
the nucleus accumbens, medial forebrain bundle, and hypothalamus
Parkinson’s disease and reward learning
Parkinson’s is involved with the overproduction of dopamine, which results in impaired reward-related learning
Evolutionary elements of operant conditioning
when running a t-maze with food in right arm, rats will often run the left arm of the maze the next time. it makes sense because their evolutionary preparedness as foragers would make them search for food and rarely return to where food has already been found. So it makes sense that they would search the left arm after the right arm.
Complex T maze and rats
Like many other foraging species, rats placed in a complex t maze will systematically travel from arm to arm in search of food, never returning to the arms they have already visited.
Misbehaviour of organisms
Pigs are biologically predisposed to root out their food, and racoons to wash their food. Trying to train this out of them can be futile.
Observational Learning
learning takes place by watching the actions of others; isn’t quite accountable by behaviourism
Beating up Bobo
Children who were exposed to an adult model who behaved aggressively towards a Bobo doll were likely to behave aggressively themselves. When they observed this adult being punished/praised for their actions, they reacted accordingly.
Diffusion chian
individuals initially learn a behaviour by observing another individual perform that behaviour, and then serve as a model from which other individuals learn the behaviour.
enculturation hypothesis
being raised in a human culture has a profound effect on the cognitive abilities of chips, especially their ability to understand the intentions of others when performing tasks such as using tools, which in turn increases their observational learning capabilities.
mirror neurons
type of cell found in brains of primates that fire when an animal performs an action and when an animal watches someone else perform the same specific action
Implicit learning
learning that takes place largely independent of awareness of both the process and the products of information acquisition
Implicit learning tends to be (less or more) affected by age than explicit learning.
less
Artificial grammar and implicit learning
participants were exposed to rules of an artificial grammar and later tested on new letter strings. Participants show reliable accuracy at distinguishing the valid, grammatical strings from the invalid, nongrammatical strings even though they usually can’t state explicitly the rule they were following when making such judgements.
Implicit/explicit learning and areas of the brain
research participants were scanned with fMRI while engaged in either implicit or explicit learning about the categorization of dot patterns. They performed equally well, but the occipital region showed decreased activity after implicit learning. The left temporal lobe, right frontal lobe, and parietal lobe showed increased activity during explicit learning.
Artificial grammar and brain regions
Broca’s area is activated while learning artificial grammar
Why does a difficult practice test have the greatest benefit?
increases verbatim learning of the exact material, enhanced the transfer of learning from one situation to another
JOLs
judgements of learning; people’s judgements of what they have learned, which plays a critical role in guiding further study and learning. ie: People typically devote more time to studying items that they judge they have not learned very well.
Why are JOLs sometimes inaccurate?
after rereading material, something may seem learnt even though it’s the result of low-level processes like perceptual priming, and not the kind of learning that will be required for the test.
