L1 - What is learning Flashcards
Learning
An enduring change within an organism brought about by experience that makes a change in behaviour possible
Associative Learning
An organism changes its behaviour with regard to a stimulus as a consequence of associating it with a second stimulus. Two forms of associative learning are classical and instrumental conditioning.
What two types of relationship fall under association?
- A temporal correlation between events - one stimulus is continuous and contiguous with the other, e.g. occurs simultaneously or soon after the other.
- statistical relationship between their occurrence - when one stimulus appears the other is more or less likely to follow.
Instrumental Conditioning
Reinforcement or punishment are used to either increase or decrease the probability that a behaviour will occur again in the future. Your actions lead to consequences. US is response dependent.
Classical Conditioning (Pavlovian)
Occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired: a response which is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone. US is response independent.
Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
Stimulus with inherent biological importance to animal e.g food
Unconditioned Responce (UR)
Response automatically elicited by US (e.g consumption or salivation)
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
Initially neutral cue (e.g. sound) that acquires significance through conditioning
Conditioned Response (CR)
Response elicited by CS following conditioning
Experimental Paradigms
Sets of commonly used procedures to compare conditioning across:
- different species (difficult because they all respond differently)
- USs with different affective consequences
- Different response requirements
Appetitive
Activity that increases the likelihood of satisfying a specific need (e.g. predator searches for food if hungry).
Aversive
Causing avoidance of a thing, situation, or behaviour by using an unpleasant or punishing stimulus. (fear conditioning, freezing rat to shock). Also called conditioned suppression.
Habituation
With repeated or continued exposure to a stimulus, an organism’s response to that stimulus may diminish e.g. startle reaction to a loud noise
Sensitization
With repeated or continued exposure to a stimulus, an organism’s response to the stimulus may increase. E.g. if noise is very loud, responding may first increase before eventually habituating.
Examples of conditioning paradigms for animals
Conditioned salivation, fear conditioning, conditioned suppression, taste aversion, conditioned magazine approach, eyeblink conditioning.
What two types of change are not learning? Give examples.
Changes at the sensory and motor levels, e.g. fatigue, change in fitness.
Describe the conditioned salivation paradigm.
A dog is placed into a harness. A CS (e.g. tone, light) is presented along with food (US). Eventually the dog will begin to salivate (CR) when the CS is presented.
Describe the fear conditioning paradigm.
Typically used with rats. A rat is presented with a CS (tone, light) followed by a US (shock). Eventually the rat reacts with fear to the CS. Duration of freezing (CR)is a measure of learned fear.
Describe the conditioned suppression paradigm.
Stage 1: Instrumental baseline. A rat is taught to produce a response (e.g. press a lever for food) through operant conditioning on a variable interval (VI) schedule of reinforcement.
Stage 2: Pavlovian conditioning. CS (tone or light) presented, followed by shock (US).
Rat learns to stop pressing lever when CS is presented.
Describe the taste aversion paradigm.
A rat is given a flavoured solution (CS, e.g. sucrose water). After drinking the solution, the rat is made sick with an injection of LiCl (US). Afterwards the rat dramatically reduces its intake of solution.
