Learning Flashcards
Classical conditioning
Pavlov 1897: an animal or organism can passively learn to show naturally occurring reflex actions
involves association of neutral stimulus to unconditioned response
Operant conditioning
Skinner 1948: a method of learning that uses rewards and punishment to modify behavior
Observational learning/social learning theory
Bandura 1977: suggests that social behavior is learned by observing and imitating the behavior of others
spontaneous recovery
The re-emergence of a previously extinguished conditioned response after a period of rest
Fear conditioning
Watson and Rayner 1920: An instilled phobia through the use of a loud noise to cause a fear response to a stimulus
stimulus generalization
when the organism responds, with the CR, to stimuli that are similar to the CS. This generally happens early in learning, before the organism has learnt to discriminate between stimuli
stimulus discrimination
is the ability to respond only to the CS, with the CR, and ignore stimuli that are similar to the CS
Operant conditioning
Skinner: organisms associate their own actions with consequences
- 3 phases
1. antecedent, a stimulus that occurs before the behavior (triggers behavior)
2. the behavior that occurs due to antecedent
3. the consequence to the behavior
The consequence is given after the behavior
Reinforcement
positive - involves adding a pleasant stimulus after the behavior has occurred to increase the likelihood of the response occurring in the future
negative - involves removal or avoidance of an unpleasant stimulus to increase the likelihood of the response occurring in the future
Punishment
positive - involves adding an unpleasant stimulus after the behavior has occurred to decrease the likelihood of the response occurring in the future
negative - involves the removal of a pleasant stimulus (something of value) to decrease the likelihood of the behavior occurring in the future
Stimulus generalization
When a response is made to other stimuli that is similar (but not necessarily identical) to the discriminative stimulus. Usually at decreased level
Stimulus discrimination
Involves the elicitation of a response only in the presence of a specific discriminative stimulus, and not in the presence of a similar stimuli
Social learning theory
-Bandura: Emphasizes the importance of the environment, or ‘social context’, in which learning occurs. He proposed that from the time we are born we are surrounded by other people displaying a huge variety of behaviors, all of which we are able to observe.
- draw a general conclusion of behaviors that are permissible
Vicarious conditioning
An individual watching a models behavior being either reinforced or punished causing them to behave in a way which aligns with what is observed
Vicarious reinforcement
Increases the likelihood of the observer behaving in a similar way to a model whose behavior is reinforced causing the observer to be conditioned for the behavior to be reinforced without directly getting a consequence