L1 Conditioning

Question 1

Why can we use mice and animals to test things that we can later apply to ourselves?

Answer 1

We have an evolutionary history together, we grew up in similar environments and our biology has many similarities that cross over (we feel fear for the same reasons, hunger is the same etc.)

Question 2

What does learning and behaviour focus on?

Answer 2

Seeing how people (and animals) learn to anticipate future events from past experience.

Question 3

Why do we constantly need to learn?

Answer 3

We live in a constantly changing environment, we evolved to manage this and survive through constant learning and re-learning.

Question 4

What is the fundamental difference between Psychology and Philosophy

Answer 4

Psychologists test their theories and update them with new data, Philosophers don’t.

Question 5

What is Descartes’ Dualism Theory (17th century)?

Answer 5

He believed that human behaviour consists of machine-like reflexes (habits, automated responses) and the mind or the soul.

Animals differ from humans in that they only have reflexive behaviour.

Question 6

What was Thomas Hobbes main argument against Dualism?

Answer 6

He argued that even the activities of the mind could be explained by mechanical laws.

(mainly pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain)

Question 7

What is John Locke and David Hume’s Associationism?

Answer 7

We are born knowing nothing, we learn everything from sensory experience.

(Born a blank slate)

It is the search for the natural laws that govern mental activity.

e.g. the law of contiguity - we learn to associate stimuli or events if they repeatedly occur close in time and space.

Question 8

What was Immanuel Kant’s thoughts on knowledge and learning?

Answer 8

He thought that not everything was learned and that we are born knowing some things.

There are some aspects of us that are innate.

Question 9

What is preparedness in regards to learning?

Answer 9

The phenomenon that we are primed to learn to associate certain stimuli faster than others means there is some biological influence to what we learn.

Even certain individuals are primed to learn certain things faster than others.

Question 10

What was Charles Darwin’s basic tenents on evolution?

Answer 10

There is random variation in the environment.

Therefore there needs to be random variation among members of species in order to keep up with the changing environment.

Characteristics of parents are passed onto offspring.

Natural Selection: Increase in the proportion of individuals that possess characteristics that enhance survival.

Question 11

What was Herbert Spencers ‘Natural Selection’ of behaviours?

Answer 11

Our behaviours are naturally selected just like evolutionary traits.

There is random variation in the behaviour of an individual.

Behaviours that were followed by desirable outcomes (or the absence of undesirable outcomes) are more likely to be repeated.

Therefore the environment determines the selection of ‘rational’ behaviours (seek rewards, avoid punishment), not the individual (argument against free will).

Question 12

How did Ivan Pavlov discover Classical (or Pavlovian) conditioning?

Answer 12

When his assistant walked into the room the dogs began to salivate (presumably anticipating food)

Question 13

In the case of Pavlov’s dogs, what is the Conditioned Stimulus (CS) and what is the Unconditioned Stimulus (US)?

Answer 13

Assistant is the conditioned stimulus, the food is the unconditioned stimulus.

Question 14

What is an unconditioned stimulus (US)?

Answer 14

It is a stimulus that creates a response without training (food (US) makes salivation (UR)).

Question 15

What is an unconditioned response (UR)?

Answer 15

It is a response that is elicited automatically from a stimulus being shown without prior conditioning

(salivation (UR) from food (US)).

Question 16

What is a conditioned stimulus (CS)?

Answer 16

It is a neutral stimulus that does not provoke any reaction, it only generates a response if paired with the US. (assistant (CS) paired with food (US))

Question 17

What is a conditioned response (CR)?

Answer 17

It is the response of the animal who has paired the conditioned stimulus with the unconditioned response, therefore, generating a response when the conditioned stimulus is shown.

(salivating (CR) after seeing assistant (CS))

Question 18

What is the process of generating a CR?

What does the learning curve look like?

Answer 18

The learning curve looks like this because you cannot learn to infinity (you can only salivate so much)

Question 19

What was Pavlov’s ‘stimulus stimulus’ (S-S) theory?

Answer 19

He assumed the mental representation of two stimuli (the CS and the US) were becoming associated.

(e.g., bell-food)

Question 20

What is the Stimulus-Response (S-R) theory?

Answer 20

The assumption that the CS would become directly associated with the CR.

(e.g. bell-salivation)

Question 21

What was Seligman’s argument for Preparedness?

Answer 21

He argued we have fears of some things over others (spiders over cars) because we were far more likely to be killed by spiders and snakes rather than cars in our evolutionary history, therefore we can generate phobias of them faster.

Question 22

How did John Garcia prove preparedness? What was the name of the conditioning?

Answer 22

Taste Aversion Conditioning

He exposed an animal to taste (CS) then induced nausea (US). (nausea through LiCl or radiation)

It turned out to be one of the most powerful conditioning procedures, aversion to the taste develops after only one pairing, showing animals are more primed to be conditioned by nausea.

Question 23

If animals are exposed to an electric shock, which of the following stimulus would generate faster learning of avoidance behaviour?

Taste or Tone

Why?

Answer 23

The tone will generate a fast learning response, nausea will generate a slow learning response.

Because of preparedness, rats learn to associate food with nausea and tone with shock faster, hence certain combinations of stimuli are learnt more readily than others.

Question 24

What is B.F. Skinner’s Operant Conditioning (instrumental conditioning)?

Answer 24

Learn to associate an action with a consequence.

Operant means you can manipulate your environment to get what you want (you are instrumental in the process).

e.g.

Action 1 = Reward

Action 2 = No Reward

Over time the animal will perform action 1 more frequently than action 2, hence the environment (consequences of the animal’s actions) will ‘shape’ the animal’s behaviour.

Question 25

What is the Skinner Box?

Answer 25

A box where you can administer stimuli (lights, speakers) and another device that an animal can perform (lever, button) actions on and a place where you can administer a reward or punishment.

Question 26

When testing for animal behaviour using operant conditioning, what kind of behaviour should you use?

Answer 26

Unnatural behaviour for the animal. If the animal were to do the behaviour by itself (scratch the ear) you wouldn’t know if it were because of your actions or they just decided to do it.

Question 27

What is the main difference between Classical and Operant Conditioning?

Answer 27

In Classical Conditioning the animal has no control in the conditioning and does not need to act. In Operant Conditioning in order to receive a reward (or punishment) the animal must perform a certain action (perform the operant response).