Conditioning and learning Flashcards
What is classical conditioning in three words?
Learning by association
What is operant conditioning in three words?
Learning by consequences
Explain the process of classical conditioning
‘Neutral’ stimulus comes to elicit a ‘conditioned response’ through being paired with an ‘unconditional stimulus’, making the neutral stimulus a ‘conditioned stimulus’
Food always causes salivation (unconditioned) so adding food and tuning fork (no salivation) adds the response to the tuning fork (now conditioned)
What does classical conditioning teach the subject?
That certain events will follow other events, introduces predictability
What is the applicability of CC?
Behavioural, psychological and emotional responses can all be classically conditioned
What are the stages of learning?
Acquisition - something previously meaningless is paired with something very meaningful
Reinforcement - repeatedly paired
Extinction - meaningless stimulus repeatedly presented on its own
Spontaneous recovery - leave it for a while and then randomly use the meaningless one = response
Generalisation - response generalised to a novel stimulus
Why is learning a taste aversion unique?
Can be acquired v quickly, even in the same trial
Occurred even with long days between access to food and administration of aversive agent
What are the therapeutic uses of CC?
Systematic desensitisation
- Gradually exposing fearful or phobic participants to their fears
- Start small (analogues of the real object) and move up to the real deal
- Ask them to remain in a calm state
What is a negative reinforcer?
When an aversive event is terminated following a response
Punishment vs rewards in OC
Punishment is less effective than rewards at getting people to change - both can be used in OC
What are reinforcement schedules?
Ratio schedules: Fixed Ratios and Variable Ratios (after how many occurrences they get the reward/ punishment
Interval schedules: Fixed Intervals and Variable Intervals (time intervals)
What is the typical operant learning curve?
Responses are reinforced = rate of response increases until a steady state is achieved
You can’t reward them every time otherwise they will get bored
What are the two reinforcement types?
Primary reinforcers - things we need to survive, is a reward regardless of any prior learning
Secondary reinforcers - reinforcing due to their association with other things, learned (like money)
Key points about OC?
Very resistant to extinction - stimulus being presented on its own
Behaviour followed by a reinforcer is very likely to be repeated
There may be no relationship between the behaviour + reinforcer but they become associated
Clinical applications of OC?
Illness is rewarded by greater attention (little kids become ‘sick’ because everyone fusses over them, reinforced by others)
Cognitive therapy for depression and behaviour modification programs use these
Theories that you can lessen pain by not rewarding it
