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Learning Flashcards

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1
Q

What are reflexes?

A

motor / neural reactions to a specific stimulus

  • simpler than instincts
  • involve activity of specific body parts
  • involve primitive centers of CNS

eg human babies are born with the sucking reflex

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2
Q

What are instincts?

A

behaviours triggered by a broader range of events (eg age, change of seasons)

  • more complex
  • involve movement of the organism as a whole (eg migration, sexual activity)
  • involve higher brain centers
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3
Q

What are instincts and reflexes? how is it connected to behaviour?

A
  • they are innate behaviours that organisms are born with
  • help organisms adapt to their environment
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4
Q

What is learning?

A

= a relatively permanent change in behaviour or knowledge that results from experience

  • helps an organisms adapt to their environment but learned behaviours involve change and experience
  • involves acquiring skills/knowledge through experience
  • involves conscious and unconscious processes
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5
Q

What is associative learning?

A

= when an organism makes connections between stimuli or events that occur together in the environment

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6
Q

What is classical conditioning?

A

Ivan pavlov researched the digestive system of dogs -> unexpectedly led to his discovery of the learning process now known as classical conditioning

= process by which we learn to associate stimuli and, consequently, to anticipate events.

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7
Q

What was Pavlov’s experiment with classical conditioning?

A
  • dogs salivated not only at the taste of food, but also at the footsteps of the lab assistant
  • he realised that organisms have 2 types of responses to its environment:
    – unconditioned (unlearned)
    – conditioned ( learned)

-> dogs were conditioned to associate the sound of the bell with food. When dogs heard the bell they anticipated food and began to salivate

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8
Q

What is the unconditioned stimulus and response before conditioning?

A
  • Unconditioned stimulus: stimulus that elicits a reflexive response (food)
  • unconditioned response: a natural unlearned reaction to a stimulus (salivation)
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9
Q

What is the neutral stimulus during conditioning?

A

neutral stimulus : stimulus that does not naturally elicit a response (ringing the bell does not cause salivation by itself prior to conditioning)

The neutral and unconditioned stimulus are paired repeatedly

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10
Q

What is the conditioned stimulus and response after conditioning?

A
  • conditiones stimulus: stimulus that elicits a response after repeatedly being paired with an unconditioned stimulus
  • conditioned response: the behaviour caused by the conditioned stimulus

Bell (cond. stimulus) - Salivation (cond. response)

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11
Q

What is higher-order conditioning?

A

= an established conditioned stimulus is paired with a neutral stimulus (second-order stimulus), so that eventually the new stimulus also elicits the conditioned response, without the initial conditioned stimulus being presented

eg:
1. the cat is conditioned to salivate when it hears the electric can opener
2. squeaky cabinet door (second order stimulus) is paired with the can opener (cond. stimulus)
3. cat salivates (cond. response) when it hears the squeaky cabinet door (cond. stimulus)

-> the cat learns to associate the cabinet door with the electric can opener and therefore with food

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12
Q

What is acquisition?

A

= the initial period of learning when an organism learns to connect a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus

  • usually this requires there to be a very short time interval between the NS and the UCS and for the pairing to repeated multiple times.
  • sometimes conditioning can occur when the interval is up to several hours and the pairing occurs only once
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13
Q

What is extinction?

A

=decrease in the conditioned response when the UCS is no longer presented with the CS

  • if food stops being presented with the sound of the bell then eventually the dog will stop responding to the bell
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14
Q

What is spontaneous recovery?

A

= the return of a previously extinguished conditioned response following a rest period

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15
Q

What does the curve of acquisition, extinction and spontaneous recovery show?

A

the rising curve at the beginning shows the conditioned response quickly getting stronger through the repeated pairing of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus (acquisition)

Then the curve decreases, which shows how the conditioned response weakens when only the conditioned stimulus is presented (extinction)

After a break or pause from conditioning, the conditioned response reappears (spontaneous recovery)

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16
Q

What is stimulus discrimination?

A

= when an organism learns to respond differently to various stimuli that are similar

  • a dog can discriminate between the specific bell sound that signals food and a similar bell sound that does not signal food
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17
Q

What is stimulus generalization?

A

= when an organism demonstrates the conditioned response to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus

  • if someone learns to dislike a specific spider, they will usually then dislike all spiders

-

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18
Q

What is habituation?

A

= learning not to respond to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly without change

  • a stimulus is repeated, we learn not to focus our attention on it
  • Classical conditioning can also lead to habituation
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19
Q

Why do organisms need to be able to distinguish between different stimuli?

A

to respond appropriately

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20
Q

What were John B Watson’s key points about classical conditioning

A

he used the principles of classical conditioning in the study of human emotion

  • believed that all behaviour could be studied as a stimulus-response reaction
  • believed the principles of classical conditioning could be used to condition human emotions
  • conducted a famous study with “little albert”
21
Q

What was the little albert study?

A
  • Watson exposed albert to certain stimuli and conditioned to fear them
  1. presented with neutral stimuli (rabbit, dog, cotton wool)
  2. watson then paired these with a loud sound everytime albert touched the stimulus that caused him to feel fear
  3. after repeated pairings, little albert became fearful of the stimulus alone

Although initially conditioned to fear specific stimuli, they were all furry and therefore through stimuli generalization, Albert came to fear all furry things

(no evidence that the fear was long-lasting or not)

22
Q

What is operant conditioning?

A
  • theory by BF Skinner
  • organisms learn to associate a behaviour and its consequences (reinforcement or punishment)
  • based on the law of effect
  • pleasant consequence / desired result -> behaviour is more likely to occur again
  • unpleasant consequence / undesired result -> behaviour is less likely to occur again

eg when we go to work (behaviour), we get paid ( pleasant consequence) so we continue to show up to work

  • skinner conducted experiments to determine how learning occurs through operant conditioning
23
Q

Terminology in operant conditioning:
- positive
- negative
- reinforcement
- punishment

A
  • positive: to add sth
  • negative: to take sth away
  • reinforcement: increasing behaviour
  • punishment: decreasing behaviour
24
Q

What are the differences between classical and operant conditioning?

A
  • classical:
    – UCS is paired with NS -> NS eventually becomes the CS, which brings about the CR
    – the stimulus occurs immediately before the response
  • operant:
    – targed behaviour is followed by reinforcement/punishment to either strengthen or weaken it, so that the learner is more likely to exhibit the desired behaviour in the future
    – stimulus (reinforc. / punishm) occurrs soon after the response
25
Q

What is the skinner box?

A
  • to study operant conditioning
  • skinner placed animals inside an operant conditioning chamber containing a lever that when pressed causes food to be dispensed as a reward
26
Q

What are the different types of reinforcements?

A
  • positive reinforcement: sth is added to increase the likelihood of a behaviour
    – good grades, payment, praise
  • negative reinforcement: sth is removed to increase the likelihood of a behaviour
    – beeping sound that will only go away when the seatbelt is put on
27
Q

What is positive or negative punishment?

A
  • positive punishment: sth is added to decrease the likelihood of a behaviour
    – scolding a student for texting in class
  • negative punishment: sth is removed to decrease the likelihood of a behaviour
    – taking away a fav toy when child misbehaves
28
Q

What is shaping?

A
  • a tool used in operant conditioning
  • instead of rewarding only the target behaviour, we reward successive approximations of a target behaviour

– behaviours are broken down into many small achievable steps
– useful when teaching a complex chain of events
– commonly used by animal trainers

  1. reinforce any response that resembles the desired behaviour
  2. then reinforce the response that more closely resembles the desired behaviour
  3. then begin to reinforce the response that even more closely resembles the desired behaviour
  4. continue until only the desired behaviour is reinforced
29
Q

what are reinforcers?

A

rewards to reinforce behaviour can come in many forms
- stickers, praise, money, etc

– primary reinforcers
– secondary reinforcers

30
Q

What are primary reinforcers?

A

= those that have innate reinforcing qualitites
- food, water, sleep, pleasure

the value of these reinforcers do not need to be learned

31
Q

What are secondary reinforcers?

A

those that have no inherent value
Their value is learnt and become reinforcing when linked with a primary reinforcer

  • praise, a secondary reinforcer linked with affection (primary reinforcer)
  • money is only reinforcing when it can be used to buy other things
  • tokens are a secondary reinforcer that can be exchanged for other things (used in prisons, schools, mental institutions, etc)
32
Q

What is continuous reinforcement?

A

when an organism receives a reinforcer each time it displays a behaviour

  • quickest way to teach a behaviour
  • timing is important -> treat must be presented immediately after the order is performed for the dog to associate the target behaviour with the consequence
33
Q

What is partial reinforcement?

A

the organism does not get reinforced everytime they display the desired behaviour (reinforced intermittently)
- there are several types of partial reinforcement schedules

34
Q

What are the partial reinforcement scales?

A
  • fixed vs variable
  • interval vs ratio
35
Q

What are the fixed vs variable partial reinforcement scales?

A
  • fixed : the number of responses between reinforcements or the amount of time between reinforcements is set and unchanging
  • variable: the number of responses between reinforcements or the amount of time between reinforcements varies or changes
36
Q

What are the interval vs ratio partial reinforcement scales?

A
  • interval: the schedule based on the time between reinforcements
  • ratio: the schedule is based on the number of responses between reinforcement
37
Q

What is fixed interval?

A

reinforcement is delivered at predictable time intervals

-> medication intake at set times

38
Q

What is variable interval?

A

reinforcement is delivered at unpredictable time intervals
-> checking facebook

39
Q

What is fixed ratio?

A

reinforcement is delivered after a predictable number of responses
-> workers being paid for what they sell

40
Q

What is variable ratio?

A

reinforcement is delivered after an unpredictable number of responses
-> gambling

41
Q

What is the variable ratio schedule?

A

unpredictable and yields high and steady response rates, with little if any pause after reinforcements
eg gambling

42
Q

What is the fixed ratio schedule?

A

predictable and produces a high response rate, with a short pause after reinforcement
eg eyeglass saleswoman

43
Q

What is the variable interval schedule?

A

unpredictable and produces a high moderate, steady response rate
eg restaurant manager

44
Q

What is the fixed interval schedule?

A

yields a scallop-shaped response pattern, reflecting a significant pause after reinforcement
eg surgery patient

45
Q

What is a cognitive map?

A

mental picture of the layout of an environment

46
Q

What is latent learning?

A

learning that occurs but is not observable in behaviour until there is a reason to demonstrate it

-> children learn the route to school from parents driving them, but is only demonstrated when the child drives themselve

47
Q

What is the social learning theory?

A

bandura believed that observational learning involved more than just imitation and that internal mental states must be involved

  1. attention - focus on the behaviour
  2. retention - remember what you observed
  3. reproduction - be able to perform the behaviour
  4. motivation - must want to copy the behaviour
48
Q

What is vicarious reinforcement/punishment in the social learning theory?

A
  • vicarious reinforcement: process where the observer sees the model rewarded, making the observer more likely to imitate the model’s behaviour
  • vicarious punishment: process where the observer sees the model punishes, making the observer less likely to imitate the model’s behaviour
49
Q
A

Psychology (4 decks)

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