Associative and casual learning

Question 1

Associative learning

Answer 1

a change in response to a stimuli in the presence of an associated event
including classical and operant conditioning

Question 2

Classical conditioning

Answer 2

one stimuli evokes a response because it is already paired with another stimulus that already evokes a response

Question 3

Classical conditioning process

Answer 3

unconditioned stimuli leads to unconditioned response (reflexive)
conditioned stimulus neutral at start pair with unconditioned stimuli to get conditioned response which occurs after many pairings

Question 4

Stimulus generalisation

Answer 4

respond to test stimulus due to previously learning an association with a similar stimulus
e.g. similar tone frequency might induce blinking

Question 5

Second order conditioning

Answer 5

A new CS can be introduced by initially pairing it with the original CS
e.g. - changing whistle as cs to black square as cs to induce salvia

Question 6

Extinction training

Answer 6

Progressive weakening of the conditioned response by repeatedly presenting
the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus

Question 7

Importance of extinction training

Answer 7

can be used to unlearn fear
e.g. tone and shock paired. repeat tones without shock can unlearn fear response of freezing

Question 8

Taste aversion conditioning

Answer 8

Learned avoidance of a taste, when exposure to that taste has been paired to an aversive
stimuli
e.g. mouldy chocolate leads to sickness and then avoidance
only needs one pairing

Question 9

Conditions of Pavlovian conditioning

Answer 9

Timing of stimuli
Predictability of stimuli

Question 10

Timing of stimuli

Answer 10

Contiguity- US and CS must occur close together in time
depends on context - tone and shock needs to be same time but taste is within 24hrs

Question 11

Predictability of stimuli

Answer 11

Contingency - regular and predictive relationship

Question 12

Association not cause and effect

Answer 12

leaner doesn’t understand cause and effect
assumes what happens in the future is what happened in the past

Question 13

Operant conditioning

Answer 13

Reinforcement from the environment changes behaviour.

Question 14

Thorndike’s cat

Answer 14

put cats in boxes and food is outside
cat uses trail and error to escape. eventually learn lever moves door so learning curve leads to decreased time to escape
behaviours irrelevant to escape also decrease

Question 15

Trail and error learning

Answer 15

Undertaking a number of alternate behaviours (trials) and making a number of incorrect choices (errors), before the desired behaviour is performed.

Question 16

Law of effect

Answer 16

Behaviours followed by favourable outcomes become more likely.
Behaviours followed by unfavourable outcomes become less likely.

Question 17

Reinforcer

Answer 17

Any stimulus or event that functions to increase the likelihood of the behaviour that led to it

Question 18

Punisher

Answer 18

Any stimulus or event that functions to decrease the likelihood of the behaviour that led to it

Question 19

Learned Helplessness

Answer 19

Failure to respond after a period of time, when there is no contingency between a response and reinforcer

Question 20

Seligman’s dogs

Answer 20

learned helplessness
random shocks could not be stopped by lever-pressing
inescapable shocks due to height of wall or paralysis medication

Question 21

4 types of operant conditioning

Answer 21

Positive reinforcement - add to increase behaviour e.g. more revision due to receiving high grade
Positive punishment - add to decrease behaviour e.g. alarm set off
Negative reinforcement- remove increase behaviour e.g. press button to stop alarm
negative punishment remove decreases behaviour e.g. less money from buying too much stuff

Question 22

Rescorla-Wagner model

Answer 22

learning product of : intensity of CS, intensity of US and surprisingness of US
surprise key element of learning as if surprised by something don’t expect it so will learn

Question 23

Category/discrimination learning

Answer 23

more complex stimuli
chick learns to peck large red circle compared to small for reward
Chicks learn to always pick larger despite how relative size changes so learn relative not absolute relationship between stimuli
Pigeons discriminate photo of trees and fish. Careful manipulation can lead to identifying what characteristics are used to identify image

Question 24

Contingency learning

Answer 24

Learning through gathering predictabilities between behaviours and their consequences. (know linked in someway)

Question 25

causal learning

Answer 25

Gradually learning the cause-effect relationships among a set of two or more events. Adaptive function to perform more complex and efficient behaviour

Question 26

Studying contingency learning

Answer 26

Allergist task paradigm humans figure out what food customer poisoned by present images of food and outcome. must combined images to work out what happened

Question 27

Causal learning in primates (trap tube test)

Answer 27

transparent with food in the middle. if food falls in trap loss it but get it to other end then gain it. solved via wooden stick or flipping the tube. Only 1/4 monkeys and 2/5 chimpanzees used stick to avoid trap ad inverted control did not improve results so more likely associative then causal

Question 28

Causal learning in primates (Gravity task)

Answer 28

food falls down opaque tube into one of three cups must pick correct cup by ignoring gravity and looking at where tube ends animals (tamarins and dogs) fail this so no causal learning

Question 29

Causal learning in humans and rats

Answer 29

analogous- washing hung in back garden. see water on window at front. Action depends on what caused water either rain so need to bring clothes in or sprinkler so can lead clothes out. replicated with rats with levers X- very hard to replicate cross species may be due to task design

Question 30

Causal learning in crows

Answer 30

drop nuts in front of cars either associative learning due to contingency between presence of cars and crushed nuts or causal where car is cause of crushed nuts