Behaviorism Flashcards
Descartes’ dualism
- Dualism
- The body – material, the mind (soul): immaterial
- Yet they do interact (not through the pineal)
- Higher mental activities come from the soul or mind
- Some information and concepts from senses
- Some though comes from the soul (abstract concepts e.g. substance, quality)
- Innate: “Primary germs of truth implanted by nature”
- Triggered by experiences
- Reflexes (nice precedent for strict behaviorism)
- Involuntary or nondeliberate, behavior w/o thought
- The behavior of animals (without thought)
- Mechanical-hydraulic theory (animal spirits)
Materialism
Materialism: there is only matter and energy • Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) • All behavior results from physical processes in the body (movement of atoms) • Even thought is a direct product of the brain • The mind and behavior can be studied scientifically • Everything arises from sensory experiences • Simple sensations – simple thoughts • Simple thoughts compounded into complex ones • Nothing in the mind that was not first in the senses…
Empirical psychology
The doctrine of empirical psychology:
John Locke (1632-1704)
“Let us then suppose the mind [at birth] to be, as we say, white
paper, void of all characters, without any ideas. How comes it to be
furnished?…I answer, in one work, experience. In that, all our
knowledge is founded, and from that it ultimately derives itself.”
Associationism
• Sensation and reflection (the minds operations on what it has
required from the senses)
• Coined the phrase “association of ideas”
but Hobbes and others previously articulated
the ideas of associationism (another important
concept for behaviorism)
Paul Broca and his patient “Tan”
Physiology: From brain to mind Paul Broca (1825-1880) • Monsieur Leborgne, “tan” • One of the first true localizations of a specific “higher” mental ability • Speech production • Followed soon after by Carle Wernike’s discover • Speech comprehension
Introspection (description and problems)
Introspection: the process through which one “looks within” to observe and record the contents of one’s own mental life.
• Wundt and his student Titchener began the study of experimental
psychology in the late 1800s.
• For the first time, it was a discipline separate from (but drawing greatly from
both)
• Biology (increasing proof of localizations of mental functions
• Philosophy (long historical debates, mind/body, nature/nurture)
• The focus was on conscious mental events
Problems with Introspection:
• Much of mental activity is unconscious and not available to the method of
introspection.
• Claims derived from introspection are subjective and not testable.
• But, did establish some other enduring methodologies
• RT experiments could parse out subtle cognitive processes
• Attend to tone, then press key
• Press key as quickly as possible
• Prevalently used even now (e.g. attention and dual-task experiments).
Structuralism
Structuralism: analysis of consciousness for basic elements (sensations, feelings) • Not as applicable to higher faculties (too variable)
behaviorism
The desire to be more scientific led to changes in psychology during
the first half of the twentieth century.
• The focus switched to stimuli and behaviors that could be objectively
studied.
• Introspection and other “mentalistic” approaches were avoided.
• Philosophical components
• Whole-scale application of Descarte’s reflexes (only stimuli and responses
without presuming any manner of internal processing/representations)
• Learning by simple association
• Mostly empirical (no innate knowledge, excepting unconditioned S/R)
Basic Process of Classical Conditioning
Ideas of classical conditioning originate from old philosophical
theories. However, it was the Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov who
elucidated classical conditioning. His work provided a basis for later
behaviorists like John Watson.
Pavlov’s famous experiment paired ringing a bell with presentation of
food. Initially, only presentation of the food caused the dog to salivate, but after a
number of pairings of bell and food, the bell alone caused salivation. This principle
of learning by pairing, which came to be called classical conditioning, was the basis
of Watson’s “Little Albert” experiment.
Operant Conditioning
Skinner (1950s) •Interested in determining the relationship between stimuli and response • Skinner (1957) •Argued children learn language through operant conditioning • Children imitate speech they hear • Correct speech is rewarded
•Operant conditioning
• Shape behavior by rewards or punishments
•Behavior that is rewarded is more likely to be
repeated
•Behavior that is punished is less likely to be
repeated
Mental Chronometry
Measuring how long a cognitive process takes
Reaction Time Task
Measures interval between stimulus presentation and person’s response to stimulus
Simple RT task: participant pushes a button quickly after a light appears
Choice RT task: Participant pushes one button if light is on right side, another if light is on left side
Choice RT - Simple RT = Time to make a decision
Problems Posed to Behaviorism
Problems with Behaviorism
• Language A controversy over language acquisition • Skinner (1957) •Argued children learn language through operant conditioning • Children imitate speech they hear • Correct speech is rewarded
• Biological preparedness
• Pavlov and Watson believed that laws of learning were similar for all
animals. Therefore, a pigeon and a person do not differ in their
learning.
• However, behaviorists later suggested that learning is constrained by
an animal’s biology.
Biological constraints predispose organisms to learn associations that are naturally adaptive. • Breland and Breland (1961) showed that animals drift towards their biologically predisposed instinctive behaviors.
Even humans can develop classically to conditioned nausea.
• Normal food aversions after food poisoning
• Chemotherapy/Radiation therapy
• Same biological drift to food associations
• Treatment technicians use of scapegoat tastes
• Meaningful context and insight about “simple” associations of stimuli and responses (humans and nonhuman animals)
• Behavior cannot be understood only in terms of stimuli and responses.
• Even unconditioned S/R can be state-dependent
• Salivate far more when hungry than when full
• Less or no appetite when sick, busy, grieving
• Behavior also depends on things like perception,
understanding, interpretation, and strategy.
• Especially large problems for humans
• Nearly all behavior is not reflexive
• Extensive intermediate info-processing
• Highly sensitive to context
(when associations might or might not
apply)
• Recent conceptual revisit though
• Visual statistical learning
• Superstitious behavior / lucky charms
Rescorla- Wagner’s model of classical conditioning
conditioned stimulus –> expectation of food –> salivation, tail wagging, looking for food, begging
Cognitive Maps
What do the two theories predict for the test on the right?
• Behaviorist: Straight, left, right, right
• Cognitive: Whatever gets me to the upper right of the area
