Instrument learning, Habit formation & Skill learning

Question 1

Law of Effect Q: Do Reinforcing outcomes strengthen S-R connections?

Answer 1

According to Law of Effect: behaviours (responses, R) that are followed by reinforcers (yay) become more likely to happen again due to a direct link between stimulus (S) & response (R) (S-R connection)

However, critics argue it’s not just S-R connections that matter.
Animals (incl. humans) learn about outcomes (O) of behaviours too.
e.g., if you study hard (R) and get good grades (O), you learn that studying leads to good grades, not just that you should study hard whenever you’re in a classroom

Question 2

Law of Effect Q: Are learned instrumental behaviours Stimulus-elicited behaviours?

Answer 2

Are these behaviours simply triggered by certain stimuli (S-R) or are they done to achieve a specific outcome (R-O)?

Question 3

Define: Instrumental behaviours

Answer 3

Behaviours learned because they produce a desirable outcome

Question 4

Define: Response-Outcome (R-O) theory

Answer 4

Behaviours are performed because individual wants to achieve a specific outcome
e.g., you may clean your room (R) because you want your parents to be happy with you (O)

Question 5

What is Reinforcer Devaluation used for?

Answer 5

To test if behaviours are really about achieving outcomes (R-O) or just reactions to stimuli (S-R)
So, making outcomes less desirable and seeing if behaviour decreases

Question 6

Reinforcer Devaluation: Rat study

Answer 6

Rat is trained to push a rod left for a sugary treat (R-O connection), right for savoury food
Instrumental conditioning procedure: reinforcer delivered for pushing rod
Then sugary treat is made less desirable (e.g., adding a bad taste to it)
Rat should stop pushing rod to left if motivated by outcome, and push right
Vice versa with other rats (bad savoury food)
If rat still pushes rpd as much, suggests the behaviour may be more about S-R connection
If rat doesn’t now that outcome (food) makes them feel sick, it’s R-O connection
Was R-O connection
Used as a critique against Law of Effect
(Colwill & Rescorla)

Question 7

Define: Habitual behaviour

Answer 7

After a lot of repetition, behaviours can become habits.
= they’re performed automatically in response to certain stimuli and aren’t influenced by desirability of the outcome

Question 8

Define: Goal-guided behaviour

Answer 8

Behaviours are performed because individual wants to achieve specific outcome
They are flexible and change if outcome changes

Question 9

Example: Habitual vs Goal-guided behaviour

Answer 9

e.g., if rat has been pushing rod for food for a long time, might continue to push it even if food is no longer desirable (habitual)
If it stops pushing rod when food is no longer desirable, it’s goal-guided

Question 10

Law of Effect: S-R vs R-O

Answer 10

Law of Effect initially focused on S-R connections, however research shows that learning about the outcomes (R-O connections) also plays a crucial role

Question 11

(Law of Effect): Behavioural Flexibility

Answer 11

Animals (& humans) can learn to perform behaviours to achieve specific outcomes, showing goal-directed behaviour
However, with extensive repetition, behaviours can become habits, showing stimulus-elicited responses

Question 12

Define: Habituation

Answer 12

Unlearning a response through habituation involves returning to a pre-trained state, effectively erasing the learned behaviour
Argued it can lead to inflexible behaviour
Sometimes described as ‘over-learned’ because seems like too much learning leads to inflexible behaviour; behaviour governed by S-R connection (reflex manner)

Question 13

Explain: Pavlovian conditioning & Extinction

Answer 13

Extinction involves presenting conditioned stimulus (CS) with unconditioned stimulus (US), leading to decrease in conditioned response (CR)
However, doesn’t eras learned behaviour, only suppresses it

Question 14

According to Law of Effect, are S-R, S-O or R-O connections involved?

Answer 14

S-R connections
However, since then, evidence suggests S-O and R-O motivate organism to make response, as opposed to association directly evoking behavioural response (like activating S-R association does)

Question 15

Issues with Thorndike’s cat-box experiment

Answer 15

Counterintuitive; trained cats didn’t pull the lever to get out of the box for food, merely elicited by ‘in the box’ stimuli (random fuckin lever)
Common sense suggests organisms do things to achieve outcomes (R-O connection)

Question 16

Explain: Habits and rats

Answer 16

When a learned instrumental behaviour is no longer sensitive to reinforcer, said to have become a habit

To distinguish instrumental behaviour that’s sensitive to outcome/reinforcer value from behaviour that’s not, psychologists say habit is instrumental behaviour whose production is insensitive to value of outcome or associated reinforcer, whereas goal-guided behaviour is instrumental behaviour whose production is sensitive to value of its outcome or associated reinforcer