Learning

Question 1

Learning definition

Answer 1

It is a relatively permanent change in behaviour that occurs as a result of experience or practice

Question 2

Classical conditioning - definition

Answer 2

Learning to make involuntary response to a stimulus other than the original, natural stimulus that normally produces a response

Question 3

Operant conditioning - definition

Answer 3

Learning to make voluntary actions based on positive or negative consequences

Question 4

Probability learning - definition

Answer 4

Learning associations in our environments by attending to probabilistic information
e.g. Children learn that sharing increases probability of making friends than being bossy

Question 5

Programmed learning - definition

Answer 5

In Programmed learning, material that is to be learned is broken up into small parts which are linked together. Arrangement of these parts is called program and that’s why it’s called programmed learning

Question 6

Theories of classical conditioning

Answer 6

1. Stimulus substitution

2. Information expectation

Question 7

Conditioned emotional response

Answer 7

John Watson - Little Albert experiment - Learning of phobias is and example of conditioned emotional response
Classical counterconditioning was demonstrated by Mary Cower Jones

Question 8

Important researchers

Answer 8

1. Ivan Pavlov - Classical Conditioning (1890s)
2. E.L. Thorndike - Law of effect (1898)
3. B.F. Skinner - Instrumental conditioning
4. Breland and Breland - Instinctive drift (1961)
5. Albert Bandura - Observation learning (social learning, modeling) (Bobo doll experiment -1960s)
6. Tolman - Latent learning (1930)
7. Kohler - Gestalt learning
8. Rescorla - cognitive explanation for IC
9. Pressey - Programmed learning
10. Brunswick - Probability learning
11. Seligman - Learned helplessness
12. Lewis Terman - High IQ students
13. John Watson - Phobias are learned (conditioning of emotional responses)
14. Mary Cover Jones - classical counter conditioning

Question 9

Habituation and Sensitization

Answer 9

Habituation - Behavioral response decreases to a innocuous stimulus
Sensitization - Behavioral response increases to fearful stimuli

Question 10

Observation learning - definition

Answer 10

It is the learning of new behavior through watching the actions of a model/others

Question 11

Learned helplessness - definition

Answer 11

The tendency to fail to act to escape from a situation because of a history of repeated failures in the past

Question 12

Insight learning - definition

Answer 12

Insight learning occurs when a new behavior is learned through cognitive processes rather than through interactions with the outside world

Learning that happens when you gain a sudden insight. It involves perceptual reorganization of the elements in the environment such that new relationship among objects is suddenly seen

Question 13

Latent learning - definition

Answer 13

Latent learning is learning that is not apparent from behavior until it’s application becomes useful

Question 14

Probability learning

Answer 14

It emerged from Brunswick’s experiments

1. he put rats in a T maze and varied reward probability
2. Rats learned probability matching

Probability learning is descriptive, not prescriptive. It is not a question of rationality
1. What it does is correctly describe how animals are good at modifying their behavior to match unpredictable nature of our world

Factors contributing to reach optimal strategy

• Large financial incentives
• Regular feedback
• Extensive training - In an experiment, optimal strategy was achieved after about 1600 trials

Question 15

Programmed learning

Answer 15

It is developed by Pressey and popularized by Skinner

In Programmed learning, material that is to be learned is broken up into small parts which are linked together
- Arrangement of these parts is called program and that’s why it’s called programmed learning

Features

1. Small steps
2. Immediate feedback
3. Self pacing
4. Active responding

It uses many principles of shaping like small steps (successive approximations), immediate rewards etc.

Types of programmes - Linear and Branching

Advantages and Disadvantages

Question 16

Self Instructional learning

Answer 16

The ability to cognitively plan, organize, direct, reinforce and evaluate one’s own independent learning without a teacher’s prompting
1. Use of computers is ideal e.g. Coursera

Question 17

Modeling and social learning

Answer 17

Processes that determine if child reproduces behavior

Factors affecting modeling

Evaluation of social learning theory

Question 18

Classical conditioning - Importance, elements, principles

Answer 18

Pavlov’s experiments helped study the mental processes through direct observation of behavior, leading to a more rigorous and scientific study in Psychology

Elements - UCS, NS, CS, UR, CR

Principles

• CS must come before UCS
• CS and UCS must come very together in time; ideally no more than 5 seconds apart
• Neutral stimulus must be paired with UCS many times before conditioning takes place
• CS is usually a stimulus that stands out i.e. distinctive from others

Question 19

Acquisition in CC

Answer 19

It is the process of CS acquiring the ability to elicit CR after repeated reinforced trials

Factors affecting acquisition

1. Temporal arrangement of CS-UCS (simultaneous, trace, delayed, backward)
2. Type of unconditioned stimuli
3. Intensity of CS
4. Biological constraints
5. Schedules of reinforcement

Question 20

Extinction and Spontaneous recovery in CC

Answer 20

If CS is presented in the absence of UCS repeatedly, CS loses the ability to elicit CR. It is called extinction

• But, after a period of rest, if CS is presented again, it elicits CR, but to a weaker degree than before. This is called spontaneous recovery
• -This shows that the original learning is not completely extinguished, but is just inhibited

For IC, if the response is not reinforced for a number of trials, the frequency of response drops

Diagram

Question 21

Variations and exceptions of CC

Answer 21

Variations
1. Higher Order Conditioning
2. Pseudo conditioning
Exceptions
1. Conditioned taste aversion
2. Biological constraints

Question 22

Instrumental conditioning

Answer 22

Thorndike - Law of effect - If an action is followed by a pleasurable consequence, it will tend to be repeated. If an action is followed by an unpleasant consequence, it will tend not to be repeated
- This is the basic principle behind learning voluntary behavior

Skinner experiments

1. The heart of operant conditioning is the effect of consequences of behavior
2. Skinner box - organism’s rate of response is measure of conditioning

Question 23

Schedules of reinforcement

Answer 23

Continuous and Partial

1. Fixed ratio
2. Variable ratio
3. Fixed interval
4. Variable interval

Partial reinforcement effect - The tendency for a response that is reinforced after some, but not all correct responses will be more resistant to extinction than if a response receives continuous reinforcement

Diagram

Question 24

Types of reinforcement and punishment

Answer 24

Positive reinforcement
Negative reinforcement
Punishment
Omission training

Question 25

Punishment v/s Negative reinforcement

Answer 25

4 differences
Disadvantages of punishment
How to make punishment more effective

Question 26

Determinants of Operant conditioning

Answer 26

1. Features of reinforcement (Types, frequency, quality, schedules)
2. Nature of response or behavior to be conditioned
3. Interval between response and reinforcement

Question 27

Shaping and Chaining

Answer 27

Also called method of successive approximations
In this, reward is given when they do something closer to desired behavior and then increase the bar for rewards, ultimately rewarding only when the behavior is performed correctly

Through pairing of sound such as whistle or command with primary reinforcer of food, and using the whistle animal trainers can avoid having to overfeed learners

Chaining

• teach elaborate tricks to animals by training to do one shaped behavior after another i.e. chaining them together
• Breland and Breland trained thousands of animals for circus and TV shows

Question 28

Biological constraints

Answer 28

Breland and Breland - Racoons - Instinctive drift

Instinctive drift suggests that 3 assumptions held by behaviorists (Skinner) are wrong
1. The animal comes to the laboratory a tabula rasa, or “blank slate,” and can,
therefore, be taught anything with the right conditioning.
2. Differences between species of animals are insignificant.
3. All responses are equally able to be conditioned to any stimulus.

Autoshaping - pigeon

Question 29

Conditioned reinforcers

Answer 29

• Primary reinforcers are those that satisfy basic drives like hunger, thirst, pleasure etc. e.g. Chocolate
• Secondary reinforcers, like money and praise acquire their reinforcing properties from being paired with primary reinforcers
• Secondary reinforcers acquire this ability through classical conditioning

Question 30

Comparison of CC and IC

Answer 30

The critical difference is in the contingency: in classical conditioning, the US occurs whether or not the CS elicits the CR; in operant conditioning, the reinforcing stimulus occurs if and only if the response has been emitted

1. In classical conditioning, the experimenter controls the occurrence of US, while in operant conditioning, the occurrence of the reinforcer is in the control of the organism that is learning
2. The technical terms used are different. What is called reinforcer in operant conditioning is called US in classical conditioning. A US has two functions - In the beginning, it elicits the response and also reinforces the response to be associated and elicited later by CS

Question 31

Escape and avoidance learning

Answer 31

• Organisms can learn to make a response to terminate an ongoing aversive event. This is called escape learning
  
  • e.g. Leaving a metal concert due to loud noise
• Often, escape learning is followed by avoidance learning - the organism learns to make a response to prevent an aversive event from even starting e.g. refusing when a friend asks to attend a metal concert

Shuttle box

Mechanism of avoidance learning
Avoidance learning is a bit of a puzzle. We know that a behavior is extinguished if it isn’t reinforced for a few trials. But, even though the organism escapes shock before it starts, the behavior of jumping away at the sight of light is not extinguished
- This is because the animal is reinforced by removal of conditioned fear i.e. removal of an aversive event ( Rescorla and Solomon)
- This stage involves instrumental conditioning

Question 32

Extinction in IC

Answer 32

Extinction means disappearance of a learned response due to removal of reinforcement

How long does it take for extinction?

1. Number of trials
2. Nature of conditioning
3. Features of reinforcement (Schedules, amount and quality of reinforcement, Effort

Question 33

Theories of extinction

Answer 33

1. Response inhibition theory

2. Competition frustration theory

Question 34

Discrimination and Generalization

Answer 34

The tendency to respond to a stimulus that is similar to original conditioned stimulus is called stimulus generalization
e.g. Getting scared by grinder sound as it is similar to dentist’s grill

As the similar sounds are not reinforced with food, the dogs stopped responding to them altogether and they learned to discriminate between them in a process called stimulus discrimination
-Generalization and discrimination are complementary processes. Generalization is due to similarity and discrimination is a response due to difference

Generalization - It doesn’t occur due to failure of discrimination. The dog recognizes that the sounds are different, but it still expects a similar result. It is adaptive as organisms rarely encounter exactly the same stimulus again

Discrimination only occurs when original CS is being paired with UCS or original response is being rewarded while the similar stimuli isn’t

Question 35

Cognitive learning

Answer 35

• After the invention of computers, interest in cognition, the mental processes that take place inside a person’s head while behaving began to dominate experimental psychology
• The Cognitive psychologists developed approaches that focus on cognitive processes that occur during learning rather than concentrating solely on S-R and S-S connections
• Therefore, in cognitive learning, there is a change in what the learner knows rather than what he does

Question 36

Cognitive perspective of CC and IC

Answer 36

CC

1. Information expectation theory
2. Blocking

IC

1. Response outcome relation and role of cognition
   - If there is an exam tomorrow and a student is studying while listening to music and gets good marks in the exam, they will recognize that studying is the reason for good marks and not music
   - reinforcement is not automatic. It occurs when we think the response is what caused the outcome

Question 37

Observation learning

Answer 37

It allows for learning without any direct change in behavior, which goes against strict behaviorism

Bandura agrees with principles of IC, but added 2 important ideas

1. Mediating processes occur between stimuli and responses
2. Behavior is learned from environment through the process of observation learning

4 mediational processes - Attention, Memory, Reproduction, Motivation

Question 38

Learned helplessness

Answer 38

Seligaman and Maier Experiment
Why did this happen? During conditioning the dogs learned that there was nothing they could do to escape the shock. So, they didn’t even try when conditions changed. They learned to be helpless. They believed they could not escape, so they didn’t even try

Effects

1. Reduced motivation
2. Cognitive deficit in the form of impaired ability to learn behaviors
3. Emotional changes - Frustration , changes in appetite and depressed affect

Question 39

Difference between IC and OL

Answer 39

In OL, similar to latent learning, we form cognitive representations; but we might perform them depending on the circumstances or we might not; thus distinguishing learning and performance

• In IC, learning is measured through performance
• According to OL, learning is dependent on Attention and Retention and performance is dependent on Reproduction and motivation
• Thus, like Skinner, Bandura also maintains reinforcement is a critical determinant of behavior. However, Bandura says that reinforcement influences performance rather than learning, per se

Question 40

Insight learning

Answer 40

Learning that happens when you gain a sudden insight(aha)

Kohler Sultan experiment

• Learning did not occur as a result of trial and error and reinforcement, but came about in sudden flashes of insight
• The sudden experience of insight creates an “aha” moment

Characteristics of insight learning

• In insight learning, a problem is posed, and a period follows during which no apparent progress is made, and then solution comes suddenly
• The transition form pre solution to solution is sudden and complete
• The solution gained by insight is retained for a considerable length of time and can be easily applied for other, similar situations i.e. a great deal of generalization

Insight learning vs other theories

• Insight learning suggests that we learn not only by conditioning, but also by cognitive processes that cannot be directly observed, contrary to behaviorism
• The process of insight learning is not observable

Question 41

Latent learning

Answer 41

Tolman rat experiment

• Tolman concluded that the rats learned the maze when they were roaming around during first 9 days and formed a ‘cognitive map’ of the maze, but didn’t demonstrate this because there was no incentive
• The mental map remained hidden or latent until the rats had a reason to demonstrate it. Tolman called it latent learning

These findings challenged behaviorist approach by proving that

- Learning can take place without reinforcement
- Learning can take place without any behavioral changes being immediately present, meaning learning can be completely cognitive and not instilled through behavioral modification alone
- And such learning can later influence behavior