Chap 6 - Learning Flashcards
BF Skinner
dismissed importance of mental states and questioned philosophical concepts such as free will, thought application of basic learning principles could create a better, humane world - wrote novel about raising kids with praise and incentives, no punishment
Learning (definition, when does it occur)
a relatively enduring change in behavior, resulting from experience, occurs when animal benefits from experience so that its behavior is better adapted to the environment
Conditioning
Associations develop through conditioning, a process in which environmental stimuli and behavioral responses become connected
Classical conditioning aka Pavlovian conditioning
a type of learned response - a neutral object come to elicit a response when it is assocaited with a stimulus that already produces that response (ex - metronome and food)
2 types of conditioning in psychology
Classical/pavolvian, and operant/instrumental
Operant conditioning (aka instrumental conditioning)
occurs when you learn that a behavior leads to a particular outcome (this was skinner’s main interest)
What did John B. Watson argue?
he argued that Freudian theory was unscientific and ultimately meaningless - rejected psychological principles that could not be observed directly, like people’s mental experiences (couldn’t be studied through scientific methods) - OVERALL - observable behav only valid was the only valid indicator of psychological activity (behavioralism!!! Watson’s thing - environment is the only thing that impacts, nurture not nature) - influenced by Locke and Pavlov
John Locke
(1600’s) - tabula rasa (blank state) - infant born knowing nothing and acquires all of its knowledge through sensory experiences (these ideas influenced Watson and his behaviorism ideas)
Ivan Pavlov
interested in the salivary reflex (automatic, unlearned response when presented with food), realized it was a behavioral response, decided to study learning
Edwin Twitmyer
made same discovery about classical conditioning as Pavlov in humans - rang bell when doing knee tap, accidentally rang bell, and patient still did it
Conditioning Trial (Pavlov’s experiments)
neutral stimulus (unrelated to salivary reflex, such as metronome), presented with stimulus that reliably produces reflex, like food - pairing called conditioning trial
Critical Trials
metronome associated with salivary reflex, then removed, and metronome alone produces the salivary reflex
unconditioned response (UR)
a response that does not have to be learned, such as a reflex (ex - salivation when presented with food)
unconditioned stimulus (US)
a stimulus that elicits a response, such as a reflex, without any prior learning (ex - food)
normal reflex response
US - unconditioned stimulus, such as food, triggers unconditioned response (UR) - salivation
conditioned stimulus (CS)
a stimulus that elicits a response only after learning has taken place (metronome and salivation)
conditioned response (CR)
a response to a conditioned stimulus - a response that has been learned (conditioned response usually weaker than unconditioned response, so metronome is weaker than food itself)
Acquisition
the gradual formation of an association between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli (when animal learns that metronome beat predicts the appearance of food)
Contiguity
Pavlov found that the critical element in the acquisition of a learned association is that the stimuli occur together in time (strongest response when brief delay between the two)
extinction
a process in which the conditioned response is weakened when the conditioned stimulus is repeated without the unconditioned stimulus (don’t continue behavior forever - after a while of the metronome without food, salivation no longer occurs and weakens over time)
