Chapter 1:

Question 1

History of Learning

Answer 1

Nativism vs. Empiricism:
Ancient Greeks to ~1800

Now we understand that its not nature OR nurture.
The argument is not “either, or.”
Rather it’s “both, and.”
The question now it to what extent? which is ore influential?

Beginning in 19th century:
New theoretical models of L&M
- Maine de Biran
- William James

Experimental Psychology

• Herman Ebbinghaus
• Classical and Instrumental Conditioning

Schools of Thought:

1. Behaviorism
2. Cognitive Revolution
3. AI / Connectionist Modeling / Neural Networks

Question 2

Plato: Nativist

Answer 2

We learn by remembering knowledge already acquired by the soul

The Republic: idealized society in which individuals are born with innate differences

People are born with innate differences, some are born to be philosophers, others were born to be laborers, etc.

Question 3

Rene Descartes

Answer 3

The mind is distinct from the body and is the source of free will and voluntary behavior

The body is governed by physical principles

“Cogito ergo sum”:
“I think, therefore I am.”

The Reflex Action:
For every bodily action there is a stimulus that makes it happen

Believed that there were animal spirits in the ventricles of the brain that circulated and caused different behaviors.
He thought that the PINEAL gland moved to allow the spirits to move through the ventricles. The pineal gland was basically thought to be the joystick of behavior.

Question 4

The Reflex Action

Answer 4

For every bodily action there is a stimulus that makes it happen

Rene Descartes

This idea was disproven by Galvani (1780) who showed that the nervous system operated by electrical transmission

Question 5

Erasmus Darwin

Answer 5

Charles Darwin’s grandfather

Proponent of the theory of evolution—i.e., descent with modification

Could not suggest a mechanism by which evolution occurs

Question 6

Jean-Baptiste Lamarck

Answer 6

Thought that traits are passed from parent to offspring based on circumstance.

Giraffe necks stretching by staring over time.

He was largely ignored until very recent years because of the study of epigenetics.

Darwin talked about change over a very long time, a people thought that that was the only way.
But epigenetics shows that parents can be affected by their experience, and pass those genetic changes in a single generation.

Question 7

Charles Darwin

Answer 7

The Beagle

The idea of evolution was already there, but he put forth a mechanism: Natural Selection

Question 8

Natural Selection

Answer 8

Inheritability (genetics)
Variability
Fitness (how many offspring)

Question 9

Evolutionary Psychology:

Answer 9

examines how behavior evolves through natural selection

Organisms with greater capacity for Learning & Memory are more fit

Question 10

Sexual selection

Answer 10

when females select a mate, males will compete for the opportunity

Sexual selection is a mode of natural selection

Peacocks

Stalk-eyed fly:
Gulp in air to cause the eyes to push out from the head, seem to see less poorly after doing this. So not evolutionarily advantageous, but sexually/fitness-wise it is advantageous because the females prefer males with eyes farther away from their heads

Question 11

Natural Selection
vs.
Epigenetics

Answer 11

Meiosis
Crossing Over
Mutations

The environment can induce epigenetic changes in gametes which can be passed on to offspring

Question 12

Francis Galton

Answer 12

cousin of Charles Darwin
Erasmus Darwin’s grandson

Human variability:
Man’s natural abilities are derived by inheritance under exactly the same limitations as are the form and features of the physical world (1869)

Eugenics
Survival of the Fittest

Modern Statistics & Scientific Methodology
Normal distribution or Bell-shaped curve

Correlation Study on People who were prayed for very much (monarchs) versus people who who were less prayed for (everyone else)

Question 13

Aristotle: Empiricist

Answer 13

All knowledge is acquired through experience

World’s First Naturalist
- Data & Theories

Associationism
Contiguity: spatial or temporal
Frequency
Similarity

Aristotle was always collecting data

Associative learning

Question 14

Associationism

Answer 14

Contiguity: spatial or temporal
Frequency
Similarity

Question 15

John Locke

Answer 15

Empiricist

Influenced by contemporary physical scientists
Complex Associations (cf., light)

Tabula Rasa (Blank Slate) This concept had a profound affect on Thomas Jefferson “All men are created equal”

Newton and prisms:
Breaking down a seemingly super complex things into simpler components
Like light into a prism

Question 16

Nature vs. Nurture

Answer 16

Our genetic constitution (genotype) characterizes the range of our capacities, but does not determine the scope of our neurocognitive abilities (phenotype)

Question 17

Maine de Biran

Answer 17

Memory can be divided into 3 forms:

Representative memory:
Can think and relive prior experience (facts & events, Declarative)

Mechanical memory:
Movement learning through repetition (habits)

Sensitive memory:
Emotional memory

Question 18

William James

Answer 18

The very 1st formal psychologist
The 1st to write a psychology textbook

Influenced by descriptions of reflex arcs

Habits form by strengthening neural pathways through repeated experience

Practiced behaviors and skills mediated through sequentially linked discharges that “awaken each other in succession”

William James remembered a man that was an army veteran. The kids would yell “Attention!” and he would salute automatically from habit.

Memory depends on strengthening of reflex pathways.
Memories are encoded & retrieved based on associations.

Conscious Memory

1. Primary memory: ability to hold and manipulate information in mind for a short period of time (working memory)
2. Secondary memory: permanent memories (long-term memory)

Question 19

Conscious Memory

Answer 19

1. Primary memory: ability to hold and manipulate information in mind for a short period of time (working memory)
2. Secondary memory: permanent memories (long-term memory)

William James

Question 20

Nativism:

Answer 20

knowledge is inborn

Not dependent on experience

Question 21

Empiricism:

Answer 21

knowledge is acquired through experience

Question 22

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Answer 22

First rigorous studies of human memory

Nonsense words: KIB, FOM, DAK
He got his nonsence words from Alice in Wonderland, Through the Looking Glass.

He was poor

Learning, Delay, Test, Relearn

Experiments

Question 23

Experiment

Answer 23

Test validity of given hypothesis by actively manipulating the variables under investigation

Question 24

Ivan Pavlov

Answer 24

Classical Conditioning: Stimulus predicts upcoming event

Canine Digestion: Nobel Prize, 1904

Learning Curve
Extinction

Essentially Associative Learning

Extinction Learning

Question 25

Edward Thorndike

Answer 25

Instrumental / Operant Conditioning

• Particular response required for reward

cats in puzzle cages

Associative Learning

Law of Effect

• Responses with positive outcomes increase in probability
• Responses with negative outcomes decrease in probability

Question 26

Law of Effect

Answer 26

Responses with positive outcomes increase in probability

Responses with negative outcomes decrease in probability

Question 27

Behaviorism

Answer 27

Psychology should restrict itself to the study of observable behaviors and avoid reference to unobservable, ill-defined mental events.

The point were psychology became more scientific.

Up to this point, Psychology was based on introspective observations and anecdotes

John Watson

Question 28

John Watson

Answer 28

Maze Learning
- Rats learn motor habits for moving through maze independent of external sensory cues

Behaviorist

Classical conditioning & Generalization
- Little Albert

Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own specified world to bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist I might select – doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors. I am going beyond my facts and I admit it, but so have the advocates of the contrary and they have been doing it for many thousands of years.”

Little Albert didn’t learn to just fear the white rat, but he also apparently generalized fear to a large white rabbit and even Santa Clause.

Strong Empiricist:

Had an affair with his research attendant, ended up leaving the research facility because of the scandal
Entered the Advertising game. Created the Blind taste test.

Question 29

Maze Learning

Answer 29

Rats learn motor habits for moving through maze independent of external sensory cues

John Watson

Question 30

B.F. Skinner

Answer 30

Skinner Box

Schedules of Reinforcement

Made them repeat the action many more times to get the reward.
Lead to more robust responding

Project Pigeon: Skinner was enlisted by the army to use pigeons to guide bombs. The project didn’t go anywhere

Intermittent Reinforcement
Skinner was a radical

Behaviorist: He believed that humans emit nothing more than learned responses to environmental stimuli

Wrote Walden Two

Question 31

Edward Tolman

Answer 31

“Behavior reeks of purpose”

Cognitive Maps
Latent Learning

Neo-Behaviorist

Latent Learning: we learn a ton of info about an environment, not just the action

Tolman was not into the Extreme Behaviorism.

Question 32

Cognitive Revolution

Answer 32

Focus on human abilities such as thinking, language, and reasoning

The Pushback against Behaviorism

This became big in the 1960’s

Noam Chomsky

Question 33

Noam Chomsky:

Answer 33

Political

Rejected Extreme Behaviorism

Believed that we are hardwired to learn certain things

Universal Grammer

The fact that all normal children acquire essentially comparable grammars of great complexity with remarkable rapidity suggests that human beings are somehow specially designed to do this, with data-handling or ‘hypothesis-formulating’ ability of unknown character and complexity.

Question 34

W.K. Estes

Answer 34

Conditioned emotional response

Noticed how perople respond to bombs in Engalnd, during WW2

Question 35

Gordon Bower

Answer 35

Learning by insight

Research data was improved after this

Question 36

George Miller

Answer 36

Information theory.
Measure of information contained in a message, based partly on listener’s prior knowledge

The Magical Number 7
Short-term memory can hold 5-9 objects

Capacity of learning.
He worked with phone companies. This is why phone numbers are 7 digits long.

Question 37

Information theory

Answer 37

Measure of information contained in a message, based partly on listener’s prior knowledge

George Miller

“Chris is a male student in my class”

Question 38

Connectionist & Neural Network Models

Answer 38

Attempts to model neural function, including encoding, storing, and retrieving information

Computational models

Question 39

Herbert Simon

Answer 39

Father of Artificial Intelligence

Symbol-manipulation model

Learning not based on associations, but on the mental manipulation of symbols

Question 40

David Rumelhart

Answer 40

Connectionist models

Distributed representations

No labeling of nodes or connections