Chapter 8: Learning Flashcards
learning
enduring changes in behavior that occur with experience.
When does learning occur?
When information moves from short term to long term memory
How does learning and memory work together?
Without one, the other cant function. Without learning and memory, we cant process, retain, or make use of new information.
They work together when you learn how to ride a bike, and everytime you go on it you don’t have to learn again, you just retrieve the knowledge from memory
What is orienting response?
Automatic shift of attention toward a new stimulus
What is an example of orienting response?
When you’re in a dark room, someone lights a candle, and you look at it immediately
What is habituation?
Results in a decrease in responding to this now familiar stimulus (orientating response)
Sensory process by which organisms adapt to constant stimulation
What is an example of habituation?
If you’re in a dark room, someone lights a candle, you look at it immediately. After a while, if the candle’s brightness and location stays the same, you would no longer respond to it (respond as in looking at it)
How is habituation learning?
Because habituation is a change in behavior due to experience
Why would someone argue habituation and orienting response isn’t learning?
Because each disappears immediately with a slight change in the stimulus (not learned)
Btw - habituation IS learning. just a question
What is association?
process by which two pieces of information from the environment are repeatedly linked so that we begin to connect them in our minds.
They form as the result of two events occurring together, regardless of whether or not the relationship between the two make any sense.
What is an example of a person learning by association?
Everytime you go to feed your cat, you open a drawer to get the can opener.
So everytime a drawer is opened, the cat responds to that noise knowing that food is coming by eagerly running to the kitchen. Even with the false alarms, they’ll still do it. But the association with the sound and being fed is strong for the cat
This is learning by association, it is powerful
What is conditioning?
A form of associative learning in which a behavior becomes more likely because the organism links that behavior with certain events in its environment
Whats an example of conditioning in its rawest term?
The cats are ‘conditionined’ to the sound of the drawer opening because they’ve come to associate that sound with food
Associations are key to what two major conditioning models of learning?
Classical Conditioning - Organisms learning from the relations between stimuli (involuntary)
Operant Conditioning - Organisms learn from the consequences of the behavior (voluntary)
What is classical conditioning?
form of associative learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus to which one has an automatic, inborn response.
(like the cats)
What happened with Ivan Pavlov’s dog experiment when serendipity (accidental discovery) occurred?
Would test dogs saliva by making them salivate (a reflex, automatic response to a particular stimulus such as food that requires no learning)
They would first use a tubes in their mouths to collect the saliva, using the apparatus.
Then they’d give the dog meat powder where they’d salivate.
After a while, they noticed the dogs would begin to salivate just when the doctors were getting the apparatus tube ready. They accidentally realized classical conditioning occurred
They tried it with a bell to see if the dogs would eventually respond to the bell with the meat powder after a few tries and it worked.
Pavlov’s term unconditioned response (UCR)?
Unconditioned - unlearned
the natural automatic, inborn reaction to a stimulus.
In Pavlov’s experiment, it would be the salivating.
Pavlov’s term unconditioned stimulus (UCS) ?
the environmental input (the meat powder) that always produces the same unlearned response (salivating)
Without learning, how does the UCS produces UCR?
In Pavlov’s experiment, the meat powder (UCS) poruduces salivation (UCR)
What is conditioned stimulus (CS)
a previously neutral input that an organism learns to associate with the UCS
For example, the bell in Pavlov’s experiment is the CS (conditioned stimulus)
What is conditioned response (CR)?
Behavior that an organism learns to perform when presented with the CS alone
In Pavlov’s experiment it would be the dog salivating when ringing the bell, before it got the food
What is forward conditioning and backward conditioning?
Forward conditioning - Presenting the neutral/conditioned stiumulus (bell) before the UCS (meat powder) or simutanteously
Backward conditioning - Presenting the neutral stimulus (bell) after the UCS (meat powder)
Due to the ineffectiveness of backward conditioning, what are the two most fundamental criteria for the success of stimulus-response conditioning?
- Multiple pairings/Reps of the UCS (meat) and CS (bell) are necessary for an association to happen so the CS (bell) can work
- The UCS and CS have to be paired or presented very close together in time for an association to form.
Briefly sum up UCR, UCS, CS, and CR?
UCS - Unconditioned stimulus - Food
UCR - Unconditioned response - Normal salivation based on UCS
CS - Conditioned stimulus - Ringing bell
CR - Conditioned response - Salivating based on CS
What is stimulus generalization?
When the association between UCS and CS to a broad away of similar stimuli
What is an example of stimulus generalization?
When the cats run to the kitchen not only to the sound of a drawer opening but also maybe the sound of a cabinet opening or anything related to food preparation
Or a baby is conditioned to be afraid to white rats. When hes sees other white fluffy things or white beards, he develops fear of that too.
What is stimulus discrimination?
Occurs when a CR (salivation) occurs only to the exact stimulus it was conditioned to
What is an example of stimulus discrimination?
When the dogs only salivate to the bell, not to a buzzer or clicking noises. It discriminated the other stimuli, only responded to the conditioned stimulu
What is extinction?
When the UCS is no longer paired with the CS
How does extinction happen?
When the dogs learn that the meat powder isn’t accompanied by the bell, they gradually stopped salivating to the bell. It can take as many as 100 times for the pair to be apart for extinction to occur
What is spontaneous recovery?
The sudden reappearance of an extinct/extinguished conditioned response
What is an example of spontaneous recovery?
Had a car accident in a parking lot from a bad turn. For months, you’re scared to go in that parking lot again. Then after a while you start parking in that lot again for a long time. Then after a few months, you had a panic attack from a situation you thought was happening again.
This sudden feeling is the conditioned response returning spontaneously.
How did John Watson and Rosaile Rayner show classical conditioning with the baby experiment?
They showed the baby a white rat. Baby responded OK. Then they paired it with loud noise, which made the baby upset. When they showed the white rat alone, the baby was upset with the white rat. He developed being upset with other white things such as the white beard and white fluffy things.