Chapter 7: Learning Flashcards
What is Classical Conditioning?
• In classical conditioning behaviour is controlled by associations:
- We learn about how things in the environment occur together, predict each other
What is Operant Conditioning?
• In operant conditioning-‐ behaviour is controlled by consequences:
- We learn about how our behaviour effects the environment…
- …or perhaps – how the environment affects our behaviour
What is learning?
• Learning is a process by which experience produces a relatively enduring change in an organism’s behaviour or capabilities. Learning is measured by changes in an organism’s responses and is a form of personal adaptation to the environment.
List some characteristics of Learning?
- A change in behaviour or behaviour potential
- A relatively consistent change
- process based on experience
Explain - A change in behaviour or behaviour potential
- Cannot ‘see’ learning per se
- Can see the results of learning:
- An improvement in performance
- Acquired general attitudes: An appreciation of modern art, an understanding of eastern philosophy
• The latter may influence how you spend leisure time
Explain - A relatively consistent change
- Consistent over different circumstances: can ride ANY bicycle
- Not necessarily permanent changes: stop practicing a skill and performance deadlines
- BUT: the skill is much more easily learned the second time, and so change may be permanent.
Explain - Process based on experience
- Learning can only take place through experience
- Experience is taking in information and making responses that affect the environment
- Learning happens when a response is influence by the lessons of memory: As apposed to being influence by maturation, illness or brain damage
Explain = Learning vs Performance
- Learning in and of itself is difficult to observe
- However leaning is a factor in performance
- Performance can be observed and measured
- Not a perfect correspondence, but the best we have
What are the two types of learning
- Associative
2. Non-‐Associative
Which Behaviours do NOT NEED LEARNING?
- Reflexes are: adaptive, unlearned (but not invariant), non-‐associative
- Habituation and Sensitization
Orienting responses: Habituation vs. Sensitization
Orienting responses:
Managing Environmental Stimulation: There is constantly masses of it…What is important-‐ what is not?
- Habituation: Response to stimuli decreases with frequent presentation
- Sensitization: Response to stimuli increases with frequent presentation
Define and explain HABITUATION:
• Habituation is a decrease in the strength of a response to a repeated stimulus. It allows organisms to attend to other stimuli that are more important.
• “A decline in responding to repeated presentations of a stimulus” (Bond & McConkey, 2001, p 4) - Busy roads, railways and sleep • Fits the definition of learning • Not merely fatigue - Test for dishabituation
- Example: Startle to a 1kHz tone is initially large and declines over time, but spikes when a flash of light is applied, showing the decrease in response is not due to fatigue
- Testing flavors: steadily decreases for the first 10 drops, flavor changes – dramatic spike
SOLOM AND CORBIT (1974) OPPONENT PROCESS THEORY:
- Whenever an A process is recruited, so too is a B process, which is opposite to the effects of A
- A process = being in love
- B process= not being in love; takes a while to turn off and a while to turn off
- Current state is the sum of the two processes:
- The B process grows with repeated presentations, The A state gets progressively smaller (every relationship you have and the B process gets bigger)
- The person eating the chips more regularly had a higher rate of craving;
Explain “opponent process theory of colour visions”
- We perceive colour as red or green, blue or yellow
- After-‐images appear in complementary colours: E.g. red images after exposure to green
- Evidence: thalamic and retinal ganglion cells that respond to red are inhibited by green.
Explain Sensitisation:
- Increased responsiveness with repeated stimulation
- Generally with stronger/important stimuli
- Generally relatively short lived
- Cyclone survivors sometimes sensitized to weather sounds (e.g. living in Queensland lots of cyclones)
Explain in Summary what learning is
- Learning is: an enduring change in behaviour potential
- Learning is not: temporary states, maturation or physical modification
- Learning allows: flexible adaptation to environmental demands:
- Different forms: habituation/Sensitization, classical conditioning, operant learning, vicarious learning
Classical Conditioning and definitions - Classical Conditioning
- Classical conditioning involves pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) that elicits an unconditioned response (UCR).
- Through pairing the neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS) that evokes a conditioned response (CR) similar to the original UCR.
Classical Conditioning and definitions - Acquisition
• Acquisition involves CS-‐UCS pairings. Extinction represents the disappearance of the CR when the CS is presented repeatedly without the UCS.
Classical Conditioning and definitions - Extinction
• Extinction: is a process, which the CS is presented repeatedly in the absence of the UCS, causing the CR to weaken and eventually disappear
Classical Conditioning and definitions - Spontaneous recovery
• After Extinction spontaneous recovery of the CR may occur when the CS is presented after a rest period and without any new learning trials.
Classical Conditioning and definitions - Stimulus Generalisation
• Stimulus generalization occurs when a CR is elicited by a stimulus similar to the original CS.
Classical Conditioning and definitions - Discrimination
- Discrimination occurs when a CR occurs to one stimulus but not another.
- In higher-‐order conditioning, once a stimulus (e.g. a tone) becomes a CS, it can be used in place of the original UCS (food) to condition other neutral stimuli
Examples of CLASSICAL CONDITIONING PRACTICALITY - exposure Therapy, Systematic Desensitisation, Flooding, Eversion Therapy.
- Bodily and psychological responses can be classically conditioned, including fears, sexual attraction, positive and negative attitudes, nausea and immune system responses.
- Techniques based on classical conditioning are highly successful in treating phobias.
- Exposure therapies: in which a patient is exposed to a stimulus (CS) that arouses an anxiety response (such as fear) without the presence of the UCS, allowing extinction to occur. (treatment of phobias)
- Systematic desensitisation: the patient learns muscle relaxation techniques and is gradually exposed to the fear-‐provoking stimulus.
- Flooding: immediately exposes the person to the phobic stimulus.
- Eversion Therapy: which attempts to condition an aversion (an repulsion) to a stimulus that triggers unwanted behaviour, by pairing it with a noxious UCS (e.g. treating pedophiles with pictures of children and an electric shock)
Classical Conditioning in Sickness and Health = ALLERGIC REACTIONS
• Allergic Reactions: classical conditioning can often account for the appearance of physical symptoms that do not seem to have a medical cause. (e.g. by consistently pairing a neutral stimulus (distinctive odour) with a substance that naturally triggers an allergic reaction, the neutral stimulus can become a CS that elicits a similar allergic response.
Classical Conditioning in Sickness and Health = Anticipatory nausea and vomiting
• Anticipatory nausea and vomiting: Initially neutral stimuli, such as hypodermic needles, the hospital room become associated with the treatment (the UCS) and acts as conditioned stimuli that trigger nausea and vomiting.
Classical Conditioning in Sickness and Health = THE IMMUNE SYSTEM
• The immune system: After being paired with an immunosuppressant drug (UCS), sweet water(neutral stimulus) becomes a CD that triggers a reduced immune response.
Who is Ivan Pavlov?
Ivan Pavlov (1849-‐1936)
- Russian Physiologist and Nobel Prize Winner
- Original interest in animal digestion
- Best known for his work on classical conditioning
Explain Pavlovs Dogs
- The dogs started to salivate prior to the food being delivered, due to the meat powder
- Neutral Stimulus: stimulus that elicits no response
- Unconditioned response/stimulus: a response/stimulus that is automatic
Explain ACQUISTION OF PAVLOV’S DOGS
Acquisition: the period during which a condition is being learned.
- Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): stimulates an unconditioned response; the meat
- Unconditioned response (UCR): salivation to the meat
- Conditioned stimulus (CS): stimulates a conditioned stimulus; the bell
- Conditioned response (CR): salivation to the bell
- Pavlov found greater salivation occurred with acquisition trials (increased slope) v extinction trials (decreased slope)
Possibilities after conditioning:
• Extinction:
- Acquired behaviour
- Not really gone – just suppressed
• Reconditioning:
- Relearning acquired behaviour is faster than original conditioning
• Spontaneous recovery:
- Extinguished behaviour suddenly reappears
Official Definition of Classical CONDITIONING
• “The pairing, in some fixed temporary relationship, of a neutral stimulus (to be conditioned stimulus) with a stimulus (unconditioned stimulus) capable of regularly and reliably eliciting a response (unconditioned response) [leading to a conditioned response]” (after Bond &McConkey 2011, 4.7)
What is Temporary Association (contingency) between stimuli
• Is a central factor in classical conditioning
Explain WATSON and BEHAVIOURALISM (temporary association)
Watson and Behaviouralism:
• Argues that conditioning can explain all behaviour
• All you behaviour was explicable in terms of the classical conditioning that occurred to you
– a blank slate that ‘learning’ could write on.
Explain Generalisation and Discrimination (Temporary association)
• Initially, some degree of CR may occur in response to similar stimuli (generalization)
And Discrimination…
• However increasing specificity of response can be achieved with further training
• Cf. ‘shaping’ in lecture on operant conditioning (to come)
Temporary Association: Equipotentiality premise:
- All stimuli are equally conditionable
* But are they?
Temporary Association: Gracia and Koelling (1966): Cue to Consequence Study
- 4 groups of rats exposed to different conditions
- For half of them after drinking the water (in bright noisy environment) or flavored water, were then shocked or made sick.
- Dependent variables: how much the rats then chose to drink
- The rats with the bright noisy water drank less then drank less
- Tasty water and made to feel ill drank less.
Temporary Association: Seligman
- Species-‐specific defense mechanisms (SSDMs)
- Preparedness theory of phobias: some associated are learned more easily and harder to extinguish
- Evolutionary history prepares us to acquire our fears more rapidly
Classical Conditioning SIEGEL - DRUGS
- If a drug changes bodily functioning in a certain way, the brain tries to restore balance by direct opposition to this action via homeostatic mechanisms, termed the conditioned compensatory response. In Siegel (1975) rats demonstrated an increased pain tolerance to the hot plate, if they had been previously tested on it, due to the familiar environmental cues invoking the conditioned compensatory response.
- This applied to the study means the caffeine itself (unconditioned stimulus) and the environmental cues associated with caffeine intake (conditioned stimulus) would provoke the conditioned compensatory response, resulting in the opposite effects of caffeine in an effort to maintain a state of equilibrium.
What is Operant Conditioning ?
Operant Conditioning: is a type of learning in which behaviour is influenced by the consequences that follow it.
Operant Conditioning ; THORNDIKE’S LAW OF EFFECT
- Thorndike’s law of effect states that responses followed by satisfying consequences are strengthened, whereas those followed by annoying consequences are weakened.
- Local cats and puzzle boxes
• Law of effect:
“if a response in a particular situation is followed by a satisfying or pleasant consequence, it will be strengthened” (Nairne, 2003, p248)
- If an actions brings a reward it becomes stamped into the mind
- Behaviour is due to consequences
Operant Conditioning: B.F Skinner
- Skinner analyzed operant conditioning in terms of antecedents, behaviours and consequences.
- The ABC model of Behaviour Modification:
- Antecedents: Events preceding the behaviour (‘Warning Light flashes on operators console’)
- Discriminative stimuli are antecedents that signal the likely consequences of particular behaviours in given situations. - Behaviour: The behaviour the person enacts as a response to the antecedents (‘Operator switches off machine’s main power source’)
- Consequences: Events that follow the enacted behaviour and affect the employee in some way (‘coworker thank operator for stopping the machine’
• Skinner Box: a special camber used to study operant conditioning experimentally.
Types of consequences of Operant Conditioning
• Skinner identifies several types of consequences, the main two being:
1. Reinforcement: a response is strengthened by its consequences
- Punishment: occurs when a response is weakened by outcomes that follow it.
What is SKINNER BOX?
• Skinner Box: a special camber used to study operant conditioning experimentally.
Operant Conditioning - Consequence: Explain Reinforcement
• Reinforcement occurs when a response is strengthened by its consequences.
- With positive reinforcement a response is strengthened by the subsequent presentation of a stimulus.
- Introduction of a consequence increases or maintains the frequency or future probability of a specific behaviour (e.g. receiving praise for completing a project) - With negative reinforcement, a response is strengthened by the removal of an aversive stimulus.
- The removal or avoidance of consequences increases or maintains the frequency or future probability of a specific behaviour (e.g. supervisors stop criticizing employees whose behaviour has improved)
What is Operant Extinction?
• In operant extinction, a response weakens and eventually disappears because it is no longer reinforced.
- When the target behaviour decreases because no consequence follows it. (e.g. performance tends to decline when managers stop praising employees for good work)
Explain (OPERANT.c - skinner)
• Punishment occurs when a response is weakened by its consequences-‐ when a consequence decreases the frequency or future probability of a behaviour (e.g. being demoted)
- With aversive punishment, the consequence involves the presentation of an aversive stimulus.
- With response cost, the consequence involves withdrawing a rewarding stimulus. Thus use of corporal punishment with children is controversial.
Five major operant processes: positive reinforcement,
- BEHAVIOUR
- CONSEQUENCE
- RESULT
- Response occurs
(Rat presses a lever) - A stimulus is presented
(Food pellets appear) - Response Increases
(Lever pressing increases)
Five major operant processes: negative reinforcement,
- BEHAVIOUR
- CONSEQUENCE
- RESULT
- Response occurs (Person takes aspirin)
- An aversive stimulus is removed (Headache pain goes away)
- Response increases (Increased tendency to take aspirin for headache
relief)
Five major operant processes: OPERANT EXTINCTION
- BEHAVIOUR
- CONSEQUENCE
- RESULT
- Response occurs (Rate presses a lever)
- A stimulus that was reinforcing the behaviour no longer appears
(No food pellets) - Response decreases (Lever pressing decreases)
Five major operant processes: AVERSE PUNISHMENT (POSITIVE)
- BEHAVIOUR
- CONSEQUENCE
- RESULT
- Response occurs
(Two siblings fight over a toy) - An aversive stimulus is presented
(Parents scold or smack
them) - Response decreases (Fighting decreases)
Five major operant processes: RESPONSE COST PUNISHMENT (negative)
- Response occurs
(Two siblings fight over a toy) - A stimulus is removed (No TV for a week)
- Response decreases (Fighting decreases)
OPERANT Conditioning: CATEGORIES OF RESPONSES
- Positive reinforcement: Chocolate each time you do something good= more likely to commit the behaviour
- Punishment: electric shock each time, less likely to commit action
- Negative reinforcement: taking a panadol reduces the pain-‐ more likely to take panadol in the future
- Response Cost: The offset of an event causes a decrease in behaviour
BEHAVIOUR
EVENT Onset
- Positive Reinforcement (Increases)
- Punishment (decreases)
Offset
- Negative Reinforcement (increases)
- Response Cost (decreases)
Forming and Strengthening Operant Behaviour = SHAPING, REINFORCEMENT, CHAINING.
- Shaping involves reinforcing successive approximations that increasingly resemble the final desired behaviour (e.g. praising child each time they become closer to tying their shoelace)
- Reinforcement: ^^allows us to achieve shaping
- Primary Reinforcer: Food, water (have an intrinsic value to themselves)
- Secondary Reinforcer (Conditioned reinforcer): money, praise (have acquired conditioned properties through classical conditioning)
• 3. Chaining: used to develop a sequence (chain) of responses by reinforcing each response with the opportunity to perform the next response
- Chaining often beings with the final response in the sequence and works backwards toward the first response.
- E.g. the rat has learned to climb a ladder to reach a string, pull on the string to raise the ladder and then climb the ladder again to reach food at the top.
Generalization and Discrimination: operant generalization, operant discrimination, stimulus control
• 1. Operant Generalization occurs when behaviour changes in one situation due to reinforcement or punishment and the new response carries over to similar situations
- A dog taught by its owner to ‘sit!’ will likely start sitting when other people give the command.
• 2. Operant discrimination occurs when an operant response will occur to one antecedent stimulus but not to another.
- Can teach an organism that pressing a level when a red light is on produces food, if the colour of the light is changed and no reinforcement is administered then the organism learns to response to one colour and not the other for food-‐ it distinguishes between them
• 3. Stimulus control: a behaviour that is influenced by discriminative stimuli is said to be under stimulus control.
Explain Schedules of Reinforcement: CONTINUOUS REINFORCEMENT
VS.
PARTIAL (INTERMITTENT) REINFORCEMENT
Schedules of reinforcement:
• Continuous reinforcement: every response of a particular type is reinforced
- Reinforce every correct response
- Very fast learning
- Very fast extinction
• Partial (intermittent) reinforcement: only a portion of particular type are reinforced.
Frequency and timing of Consequences in Partial Reinforcement. - lIST AND explain
- Fixed Ratio: reinforce fixed number of correct responses
- Fixed Interval: reinforce at fixed time intervals
- Variable ratio: Reinforce unpredictable, changing number of correct responses
- Variable Interval: reinforce at unpredictable, changing time intervals
What is Fixed ratio schedule?
Fixed Ratio schedules: reinforcement is given after a fixed number of responses (e.g. reinforcement occurs after every third response, regardless of how long it takes for those responses to occur-‐ wages)
What is Variable - ratio schedule?
- Variable-‐ratio schedule: reinforcement is given after a variable number of responses, all centered around an average (e.g. 3 responses are required for reinforcement-‐ number of goals shot)
What is Fixed Interval Schedule?
- Fixed interval schedule: first response occurs after a fixed time interval is reinforced (e.g. A rat is reinforced for pressing a level in a 3 minute interval experiment-‐ it is reinforced the first time it presses it and must wait until the 3 minutes is up to be reinforced again-‐ no matter how many times it presses it in that time period. If you ask for presents on your birthday you are reinforced, if you ask for them the next day -‐ no, you have to wait the fixed interval of 356 days)
What is Variable Interval Schedule?
- Variable Interval Schedule: reinforcement is given for the first response that occurs after a variable time interval centered around an average (e.g. on average there is a three minute interval between opportunities to obtain reinforcement-‐ pop quizzes on average every third week)
Explain Delay and Size REINFORCEMENT?
Delay and Size of Reinforcement:
• 1. Timing:
- Reinforcement strongest when following response-‐ not two days later
• 2. Size of Reinforcer: bigger is better
• 3. Reinforcement Schedules: continuous and partial (intermittent)
Which is most effective?
- In general ratio schedules provide higher rates of performance than interval schedules.
- The most effective reinforcement schedule for learning new tasks is continuous reinforcement-‐ providing positive reinforcement after every occurrence of the desired behaviour
- The best schedule for motivating employees is a variable ratio schedule in which employee behaviour is reinforced after a variable number of times-‐ as the Reinforcer is never expected at a particular time or after a fixed number of accomplishments; reducing the likelihood of extinction
Explain Schedules and Extinction and how to choose.
• Partial reinforcement extinction effect:
- Partial reinforcement makes behaviour resistant to extinction: Superstitious behaviour, Gambling
• Choose reinforcement schedule based on:
- Time behaviour needs to last
- Time available for training
Explain Escape vs Avoidance conditioning:
• ESCAPE conditioning: the organism learns a response to terminate an aversive stimulus.
- If you’re cold, putting on a jumper is negatively reinforced by the desirable consequence that you no longer shiver
• AVOIDANCE conditioning: the organism learns a response to avoid an aversive stimulus
- You dress warmly to avoid feeling cold in the first place.
- Escape conditioning and avoidance conditioning result from negative reinforcement.
- According to the two-‐factor theory of avoidance learning, fear is acquired through classical conditioning.
- This fear motivates escape and avoidance, which are negatively reinforced by fear reduction.
List 5 ways of Operant Conditioning Application
1• Specialized animal testing: through shaping and chaining animals can learn to perform some truly remarkable behaviour (e.g. trained police dogs)
2• Education and the workplace: efficiency of instructional method and motivation in the workplace.
3• Token Economies: is which desired behaviour are reinforced with tokens (e.g. points, gold stars) that are later turned into other reinforces (prizes, leisure time)
4• Operant conditioning principles have been applied in many settings to enhance performance and reduce behaviour problems.
5• Applied behavioural analysis: which combines a behavioural approach with the scientific method to solve individual and societal problems.
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
1. What type of behaviour is involved?
- How does learning occur?
- What is the sequence of events?
- Elicited: CR is a reflex like response (e.g. salivation, fear) triggered by CS (e.g. tone, sight of cars)
2. Through CS-‐UCS pairings, one stimulus (CS-‐tone) is associated with another stimulus (UCS-‐food)
- The CS occurs before the CR and triggers it (e.g. tone triggers salivation, sight of car triggers fear)
OPERANT CONDITIONING
- What type of behaviour is involved?
- How does learning occur?
- What is the sequence of events?
- Emitted: response (e.g. lever pressing) operates on the environment and is under the
organisms control - Organism’s responses are associated with reinforcing, punishing or neutral
consequences.
3.Consequence follow an organism’s response (e.g. food is delivered after a level is pressed); antecedent stimuli may set the occasion for
emitting certain response.
What may be some ‘crossroads of conditioning?’
• An Organism’s evolutionary history places biological constraints on learning.
- Organisms show faster classical conditioning when a CS has evolutionary significance.
- It is also difficult to operantly condition animals to perform behaviours contrary to their evolved natural tendencies.
- Instinctive drift occurs where an operantly conditioned response reverts to a more natural response.
- Preparedness means that through evolution, animals are biologically predisposed (prewired) to lean some associations more easily than others.
- Humans develop phobia to many stimuli, but we often fear things that seam to have greater evolutionary significance and are potentially dangerous – as a result of an evolution-‐based preparedness or due to learning experience that some stimuli are dangerous.
• Conditioned taste aversion: a conditioned response in which the taste (and some times the sight and smell) of a particular food becomes disgusting and repulsive)
- A conditioned aversion in nature: poisons in a butterfly cause food poisoning in the bird that eats it The bird feels discomfort, vomits and develops a conditioned aversion trigged by the sight of the butterfly and will no longer eat it.
explain cognition and conditioning
- S-‐R (Stimulus-‐response) psychology: the early belief that learning involves the relatively automatic formation of bonds between stimuli and responses.
- S-‐O-‐R (Stimulus-‐organism-‐response) or cognitive model of learning: in between the stimulus and the response is the organisms cognitive representation of the world.
- Insight: a sudden perception of a useful relationship that helps to solve a problem.
- Koehler’s study of animal insight and Tolman’s research on cognitive maps suggest that cognition plays a role in learning.
- Cognitive map: a mental representation of the spatial layout.
explain Cognition in classical Conditioning
Cognition in classical Conditioning
• Cognitive interpretations of classical conditioning propose that organisms learn an expectancy that the CS will be followed by the UCS. (Expectancy model)
• Belief that the most important factor in classical conditioning is not how often the CS and UCS are paired, but how well the CS predicts (signal) the appearance of the UCS.
Explain Cognition in Operant Conditioning
- Cognitive learning theorist view operant conditioning as the development of anexpectancy that certain behaviours will produce certain consequences under certain conditions.
- This depends on:
- The role of awareness: organisms develop an awareness or expectancy of the relation between their responses and probable consequences
- Latent learning: Learning that occurs but is not demonstrated until later, when there is an incentive to perform (remains hidden). Research on latent learning indicates that learning can occur without reinforcement.
- Self-‐evaluations are reinforces and punishers: our own self management can determine behaviour.
What is observational learning?
• Observational Learning: Observational learning occurs by watching the behaviour of a model.
What is social cognitive theory?
Social Cognitive Theory/ Social Learning Theory: emphasizes that people observe the behaviours of models and acquiring the believe that their can produce behaviours to influence events in their lives.
• Bandura’s Social cognitive-‐theory proposes that modeling involves:
- Attention: First we must pay attention to the model’s behaviour
- Retention: Second, we must retain the information in memory so that it can be recalled when needed
- Reproduction: Third we must be physically capable of reproducing the models behaviour or something similar to it.
- Motivation: Fourth we must be motivated to display the behaviour
• Observing successful models can increase people’s self-‐efficacy and motivate them to perform the modeled behaviour.
- Self-‐efficacy: represents people’s belief that they have the capability to perform behaviours that will produce a desired outcome
Explain Bandura’s Experiment:
- Children were shown a video of a person hitting a doll: one group saw the behaviour being praised, one group saw the behaviour being punished and one group saw no consequences for the model. They were then placed in the same situation.
- Children saw the model being punished-‐ less likely to be aggressive toward the doll
• Research suggests that viewing media violence:
- Decreases viewers’ concerns about the suffering of victims
- Habituates us to the sight of violence
- Provides aggressive models that increase some viewers’ tendency to act aggressively.
- Children can learn aggressive behaviour and prosocial behaviours by watching models and modeling is an instructional technique in everyday skill-‐learning situations.
- Psychologists have applied modeling concepts to increase adults’ prosocial behaviour.
- Social-‐cognitive theory has stimulated intervention programs to address social problems, such as illiteracy and HIV/AIDS
Explain the ADAPTIVE BRAIN:
- The brains ability to adapt and modify itself in response to experience underlies our ability to learn. No single brain structure regulates all learning.
- The hypothalamus and dopamine pathways play a role in enabling us to experience reward. The cerebellum and amygdala are involved in acquiring different types of classically conditioned responses.
- As we gain experience at novel tasks-‐ the brains frontal lobes-‐ the seat of executive functions such as decision making and planning-‐ tend to exercise less control land become less active.
- Learning also etches its imprints on the brains physical structure
- E.g. musicians have a larger amount of the brain dedicated to finger movement
• Research demonstrates the learning alters the brain.
EXPLAIN LEARNING SUMMARY ON A BIOLOGICAL LEVEL:
- Heredity determines each species potential to learn via habituation, classical and operant conditioning and modeling
- Evolution has biologically predisposed each species to learn some associations more readily than others. Multiple brain regions and neurotransmitters underlie our capacity to learn, such as dopamine pathways that help regulate our ability to experience rewards.
- Learning produces changes in brain activity and neural circuitry.
EXPLAIN LEARNING SUMMARY ON A ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL LEVEL:
- Cultural norms and socialization affect the content of what we learn
- The pairing of neutral stimuli with unconditioned stimuli can produce classically conditioned responses.
- The consequences of operant behaviour, the pattern of those consequences and the presence of antecedent stimuli affect where and how often the behaviour will recur.
• The behaviour of other people-‐ live or in the media-‐ may be imitated or provide
knowledge.
EXPLAIN LEARNING SUMMARY ON A PSYCHOLOGICAL LEVEL:
- Awareness plays a role in learning. Organism’s develop expectancies of CS-‐UCS associations and response-‐ consequence contingencies.
- As illustrated by superstitious behaviour, perceived associations can influence behaviour even when they are inaccurate.
- Learning can provide knowledge, which may be demonstrated overtly in behaviour at a later time.
- Self-‐evaluations, which may general feelings of pride and shame, can serve as internal reinforcer and punishers
