L5: Skinner's Operant Psychology VS. Associative Learning Theory

Question 1

List the 3 types of phenomena that posed a challenge to Hull-Spence S-R theory.

Answer 1

• learning without reinforcement
• reinforcement without drive reduction
• extinction (esp. partial reinforcement extinction effect), punishment and avoidance learning

Question 2

Outline the two paradigms that demonstrated learning without reinforcement.

Answer 2

• Tolman showed that rats in a maze are capable of latent learning.
• Sensory preconditioning: when two stimuli AB are paired without reinforcement, and then A is subsequently rewarded, B elicits expectation of reward, showing that an AB association has been learnt without reinforcement

Question 3

Why has sensory preconditioning attracted more attention than latent learning?

Answer 3

Hull argued that simply removing the rat from the maze could be rewarding. If very small rewards are allowed, latent learning is difficult to disentangle from instrumental learning. Sensory preconditioning does not have this drawback.

Question 4

How did Harlow show reinforcement could without drive reduction?

Answer 4

He showed that monkeys would learn to pull a lever in order to watch a model train through a window, a stimulus that wouldn’t reduce any of the drives thought to be tied to physiological states.

Question 5

How did Amsel’s frustration theory explain the partial reinforcement extinction effect?

Answer 5

In the course of training, the subject experiences frustration before a reward. Over time it comes to associate the frustration with a future reward. During extinction training, the frustration is ineffective in extinguishing the behaviour, because frustration is now a CS for reward.

Question 6

What was Skinner’s underlying philosophical approach to science?

Answer 6

Radical empiricism.

Question 7

How was Skinner’s radical behaviourism different from early models?

Answer 7

It focused purely on measurable behaviour, and rejected all concepts such as drives that were not directly measurable.

Question 8

How did Noam Chomsky’s critique of Skinner’s Verbal Behaviour affect the field of psychology?

Answer 8

It was part of a broader trend to reject radical behaviourism and include mental phenomena in learning models, called the “cognitive revolution”

Question 9

Why was Kamin’s discovery of blocking an important factor in the cognitive revolution?

Answer 9

Blocking cannot be explained with simple S-R models. If stimuli have difference salience to animals, that requires including attention in learning models.

Question 10

List six features of associative learning theory that developed post-cognitive revolution.

Answer 10

• distinction between learning and performance
• theory is not monolithic. general associative principles apply, but vary within specific species and paradigms
• initially focused on classical conditioning in animals
• Stimuli compete for associative strength
• Limited interest in applications (contrast with Skinner)
• Rescorla-Wagner and later theorists applied associative learning theory to causal learning in humans