~Infant Learning Flashcards
What is Learning?
Learning refers to a change in behaviour (or in behaviour potential) that meets 3 requirements
What are the 3 requirements of Learning?
- Learning leads to individuals to think, perceive, or react to the environment in a new way
- Learning-related changes result from the person’s experiences (not from hereditary influences, maturational processes, or physiological damage).
- Learning-related changes are relatively permanent, or at least medium to long-term (not immediately forgotten or caused by a temporary state like fatigue)
Does it count as learning if you have learned enough that you could do something new, or could think about the world in a new way, that would qualify as learning even if you’re not necessarily demonstrating it outwardly?
Yes
Is puberty considered as Learning?
No
Is physiological damage, like a brain injury, considered to be learning?
No
What are the two forms of Associative Learning?
Classical & Operant Conditioning
What is Classical Conditioning?
You are learning an association between two stimuli
Through classical conditioning, we learn that the ___ predicts the arrival of the ___.
Condition Stimulus (CS) // Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
Once learned, the ___ elicits a preparatory response of the ___.
Condition Stimulus (CS) // Conditioned Response (CR)
In Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning experiment, the Conditioned Stimulus (CS) is the ___, the Unconditioned Stimulus (US) is the ___, and the Conditioned Response is the ___
Bell // Food // Salivation
Who created Classical Conditioning?
Pavlov
What is Classical Conditioning useful for in learning?
Lets us make predictions about what is likely to come up in our immediate environment, and prepare accordingly
Who did the famous Classical Conditioning experiments on Little Albert?
John Watson
In Classical Conditioning, the ___ and ___ are related to each other automatically, or unconditionally.
Unconditioned Stimulus (US) // Response
In the Little Albert experiment, the Bunny was the ___, Alberts response to the Bunny was the ___, the loud bang was the ___, and Alberts response to the loud bang was the ___
Conditioned Stimulus (CS) // Conditioned Response (CR) // Unconditioned Stimulus (US) // Unconditioned Response (UR)
What is Counter-Conditioning?
Teaching a baby not be fearful of something, like the family dog, using classical conditioning skills
What is Operant Conditioning?
Operant Conditioning is learning an association, the association is a little bit more involved, and there are three major parts to it.
Put another way, OPERANT CONDITIONING is the learning of a stimulus (S), response (R), outcome (O) association
Operant Conditioning is much more about our ___
Voluntary Behaviours
Through operant conditioning, children learn that their ___ lead to a particular consequence. This affects the likelihood that they will repeat that behaviour in future (making it more or less likely)
behaviours
What can Operant Conditioning be useful for doing?
Can be useful for shaping kids into safe, healthy, productive behaviours. Can also help reduce undesirable behaviours
In Operant Conditioning, the ___ is crucial, because that is what leads to the change in behaviour in the future
outcome piece
Rewarding a toddler with a treat or praise when they use the potty is an example of ___
Operant Conditioning
What are the 4 possible consequences/outcomes that occur in the context of Operant Conditioning?
Reinforcement and Punishment. Positive and Negative Outcomes
Which dimensions deal with how the outcome you experience changes your future behaviour?
Whether the outcome is a form of Reinforcement or a form of Punishment
If you experience Reinforcement, that outcome makes you ___ to repeat that behaviour in future.
more likely
If you experience Reinforcement, that outcome makes you ___ to repeat that behaviour in future
more likely
Punishment is an outcome where you become ___ to repeat the behaviour in future
less likely
Whether something is reinforcing or punishing, is entirely defined by the ___ it has on the child’s behaviour, so it’s ___ from what we as the parent intend for it to be
impact // separate
What is a Negative Outcome?
Something taken away or restricted (subtracted)
What is a Positive Outcome?
Something given or administered (added), something is added to the environment
What is Positive Reinforcement?
- The first, and most intuitive of the outcomes.
- Some kind of reward for your behaviour.
- When you do something, and then get something (a thing is ADDED to your environment), and that makes you more likely to repeat your behaviour in the future
What is an example of Positive Reinforcement?
You help your sibling with something, and your parent Positively Reinforces you by giving you your favourite ice cream, this makes you want to help your sibling again in the future when the opportunity arises
What is Negative Reinforcement?
When your action leads to something being removed from the situation, in a way that makes you more likely to repeat that same behaviour in future.
-Often in practice, the thing that’s being removed is something annoying, so you’re motivated to get rid of it.
What is an example of Negative Reinforcement?
Your mum is always complaining that your room is a messy disaster, you become so tired of her nagging that you clean your room so that you don’t have to hear it anymore.
-Future situations will likely involve avoidance behaviours
Negative Reinforcement is always something that makes you ___ to repeat your behaviour
more likely
What is the difference between Positive and Negative Reinforcement?
In Positive Reinforcement you’re getting something pleasurable and that makes you want to repeat it, and in Negative Reinforcement you are escaping or avoiding something that is probably unpleasant/aversive, and getting away from that nuisance makes you want to repeat that behaviour more in future
What is Positive Punishment?
Positive Punishment is adding something to the environment in a way that makes you less likely to repeat the behaviour in the future
What umbrella would physical punishment fall under?
Positive Punishment
What is Negative Punishment?
Geared at situations where you’re less likely to repeat a behaviour in the future, except now you are doing so by taking away something
What is an example of Negative Punishment?
Getting grounded. You are taking something away that the child wants to be able to do, in the hopes that it will make them less likely to repeat that behaviour in the future
Why is Natural Consequence the most effective?
Your punishment doesn’t feel arbitrary, even if it sucks, it doesn’t feel like your parents are just making up rules for the hell of it
Why does Punishment tend to be less effective?
It yields variable behaviour, sometimes equally undesirable (doesn’t teach the child what to do instead of what they were punished for)
What is an example of Cued Cheating?
“Don’t hit when mom is looking”
Delays between ___ and ___ weaken learning
behaviour // consequence
At ___ infants remember that their kicking (response) makes a mobile move (consequence)
2-3 months
In infants, memory lasts days to weeks, especially with ___ reminders
contextual
Through ___, infants learn that they can elicit favourable responses from others. Caregivers learn how to elicit favourable responses from infants
Operant Conditioning
Imitation requires:
- Encoding the model’s behaviour
- Use mental representation to reproduce it
Can newborns imitate facial expressions?
No
When can younger infants imitate?
Only when model is present and continues action
At 9 months, how advanced is imitation?
Some show deferred imitation of simple acts (24h later)
At 14 months, how advanced is imitation?
Nearly half show deferred imitation of televised model (24h later); most show deferred imitation of life model after one week
At 2 years, how advanced is imitation?
Can imitate when model absent and materials/context differ
What are the benefits of imitation?
Allows toddlers to learn basic routines and social skills
What does imitation skill show in infants?
It shows an ability create and retrieve symbolic representations.
When are infants able to learn through Operant Conditioning?
From the beginning, in the newborn stage, but not as efficiently as older babies and children
How long were 2mo infants able to remember that their kicking led to the mobile moving?
3 days
How long were 3mo infants able to remember that their kicking led to the mobile moving?
Up to a week, and longer in some cases.
A lot of infants early memory at this stage does seem to be pretty constrained to the ___ where the initial experience occurred.
immediate context
Infants’ memory doesn’t seem to ___ as much as it does among older kids and adults
Generalize
What is the Stepping Reflex?
The idea is that if you hold a newborn baby and hold them up over a surface or treadmill, they will move their legs as though they are trying to walk
What is Deferred Imitation?
Being able to encode an action and replicate it days or weeks later
At what age does imitation become a lot more sophisticated?
8-12 months
What does the growing skill of imitating novel between 8–12 months show us?
It shows an ability create and retrieve symbolic representations
At what age can you see an infant becoming capable of Deferred Imitation?
9 months
At 9 months, an infant can remember and imitate a task up to ___ after seeing it
24 hours
At 14 months, a child can remember and imitate a televised model up to ___ after seeing it
24 hours
At 14 months, a child can remember and imitate a live model up to ___ after seeing it
1 week
At what age do kids become much better at imitating when the model is completely absent and the materials/context differ from where they saw the action being performed
2 years
