Behaviourism

Question 1

Noticed dogs salivated AND turned to the location where the food was presented

Answer 1

Zener 1937

Question 2

Basic concepts of behavioursim

Answer 2

Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov, 1897)
Operant Conditioning (B. F. Skinner 1938)

Question 3

Little Albert Experiment

Answer 3

John Watson & Rosalie Raynor, 1920
Classical (fear) conditioning
White rat + steel pipe and hammer
Stimulus generalisation

Question 4

Law of Effect

Answer 4

Edward Thorndike, 1905
Behaviours followed by something pleasant are repeated, followed by something unpleasant are not repeated

Question 5

Edward Thorndike

Answer 5

Law of Effect - 1905
Puzzle boxes - 1898
Work resonated with most behaviourists, just not Watson
Focused on instrumental behaviours (behaviours that require an action)

Question 6

Influential people in behaviourism

Answer 6

John Watson & Rosalie Raynor
Edward Thorndike
Ivan Pavlov
B. F. Skinner
James Olds
Edward Chace Tolman
Crespi

Question 7

Puzzle Box

Answer 7

Edward Thorndike, 1898
Put hungry cat in box, had to push lever to get out of box
Cats weren’t solving problem through understand, correct action was being strengthened by reward (food)
Pushing lever was instrumental behaviour

Question 8

Premack Principle

Answer 8

David Premack, 1962
Preferred activity can be used to reinforce unpreferred one

Question 9

Operant Conditioning Chamber/Skinner Box

Answer 9

B. F. Skinner 1938
Variant of puzzle box
Reinforcer - stimulus/event that increases likelihood of subsequent behaviour
Punisher - stimulus/event that decreases likelihood of subsequent behaviour
Positive - stimulus added
Negative - stimulus removed

Question 10

Primary & Secondary Reinforcer

Answer 10

Primary - effective for all species members from birth, doesn’t have to be learned.
Secondary - not innately effective, but through experience and assoociationion with primary reinforcers (effective as long as CS-US link is maintained)

Question 11

Superstitious Behaviour

Answer 11

Skinner set timer to 15 secs and left pigeons
Pigeons repeated behaviour they were doing when they first got the food

Other researchers found that this was actually food searching behaviour, so theory remains controversial

Theory seems fairly sound in humans

Question 12

James Olds

Answer 12

Discovered pleasure centres, 1956
Put electrodes in rat brains and allowed them to stimulate these
Areas in limbic system stimulated repeatedly

Question 13

Research for Reward Centre

Answer 13

Drugs block DA, rats stop stimulating
Pathway stimulated by cocaine/opiates/amphetamines, this is blocked by DA antagonists
Increased Nucleus Accumbens activity in men looking at attractive women or people about to receive money
Increased DA secretion in NA when hungry/thirsty rats are given food/water

Neurons in medial forebrain bundle (pathway from midbrain through hypothalamus to NA) most susceptible to pleasure

Question 14

Edward Chace Tolman

Answer 14

Dissatisfied with stimulus-response approach
Proposed animals established means-ends relationship (response=reward)
Stimulus doesn’t stimulate response, but internal cognitive state that leads to response

Question 15

Crespi

Answer 15

1942
Rats running through maze sped up for larger reward, slowed for smaller reward

Question 16

Latent Learning

Answer 16

Something is learned but not manifested as behaviour change until later. Learning without reinforcement.

Question 17

Cognitive map

Answer 17

Mental representation of physical features of environment. Controversial in animals.

Question 18

Spatial representations

Answer 18

Capacity to encode process, store information about the shape and layout of physical environment

Question 19

Reinforcement Schedules

Answer 19

Skinner box
Interval schedule (time elapsed) - fixed (FI scallop) and variable
Ratio schedule (number of responses) - fixed and variable

Continuous reinforcement - after every correct response. stronger correlation.
Intermittent reinforcement - after some responses. more resistant to extincition. weaker correlation.

Question 20

Basic Principles of Operant Conditioning

Answer 20

Discrimination (of stimulus associated with reinforcement)
Generalisation
Importance of context (Thorndike)

Question 21

Stimulus Control

Answer 21

Particular response only occurs when appropriate stimulus is present.
Skinner said most behaviour is under stimulus control
Shows discrimination + generalisation

Question 22

Shaping

Answer 22

Learning that results from reinforcements of successive approximations to a final destined behaviour

Question 23

Extinction

Answer 23

Reinforcement stops - responses drop fairly fast
Rest period provided - spontaneous recovery

Question 24

Basic Principles of Classical Conditioning

Answer 24

Acquisition - CS + US presented together
Second order conditioning - use previous CS as US
Extinction
Spontaneous recovery

US = UR
US + CS = UR
CS = CR

Question 25

What did Pavlov think occurred during conditioning?

Answer 25

Stimuli activated distinct brain regions and association strengthened the link between them.
Extinction occurred through inhibitory connection

Question 26

Habituation

Answer 26

Process in which repeated exposure results in gradual reduction in responses
Will revert to original reaction if enough time has passed

Question 27

Learning

Answer 27

Experience that results in a permanent change
Deliberate (explicit)
Unconscious (implicit)

Question 28

Contingency

Answer 28

Organism has an expectation about how well the CS signals appearance of US

Question 29

Experiment with mice and tones and freezing and light and not freezing (blocking)

Answer 29

Rescorla, 1968

Question 30

Experiment with people, spider and snake pictures, and shocks

Answer 30

Ohman and Soares, 1998
Called discrimination training