Learning

Question 1

Define learning

Answer 1

The act of acquiring new or modifying existing knowledge, behaviours, skills, values or preferences

Question 2

What does Grivas (2013) state learning is?

Answer 2

A relatively permanent change in behaviour or mental state

Question 3

What are the six types of learning?

Answer 3

Non- Associative, Explicit/Declarative, Habituation, Sensitisation & Associative learning (classical and operant conditioning)

Question 4

What is Non-Associative Learning?

Answer 4

Learning that does not require associating stimuli together

Question 5

What is explicit/declarative learning? (semantic/episodic)

Answer 5

When we learn/remember new facts about the world or our experiences

Question 6

What is Habituation?

Answer 6

Repeated exposure to stimulus numbs the receptiveness to the stimulus

Question 7

What is Sensitisation?

Answer 7

Repeated exposure to stimulus, with attentiveness amplifying each time (response amplifies)

Question 8

What is Associative learning?

Answer 8

Forming an association between two stimuli or a behaviour and a stimuli is learned/conditioned (classical vs operant conditioning)

Question 9

Define unconditional stimuli

Answer 9

Stimuli that naturally elicits a response

Question 10

Define conditioned stimuli

Answer 10

Previously neutral stimuli that, following a process of conditioning now elicits a response

Question 11

Define unconditioned response

Answer 11

An unlearned (reflexive or natural) response to a stimulus

Question 12

Define conditioned response

Answer 12

A learned response to a stimulus

Question 13

Who first described Classical Conditioning?

Answer 13

Ivan Pavlov in the 1890s

Question 14

What does Classical Conditioning refer to?

Answer 14

A ‘type of learning that occurs through the repeated association of two or more different stimuli’.

Question 15

When is learning said to ‘only’ have occurred?
Hint: within Classical Conditioning

Answer 15

“When a particular stimulus consistently produces a response it did not previously elicit” - Grivas, 2013

Question 16

Discuss John B. Watson

Answer 16

1878, taught at John Hopkins University
Argued that fear, rage and love are basic emotions from which all other emotions arise by conditioning.
Conducted the Little Albert Experiment.
Fired from university for having affair with student

Question 17

Discuss the Little Albert Experiment

Answer 17

Initially, Little Albert was not scared of animals
He met a white rat, which he liked
Then, every time he reached for the rat, a pipe was hit loudly
Then, when only the rat was shown, Albert showed fear (Conditioned Emotional Response)
Then Albert was shown other white fluffy objects, and was scared (stimulus generalisation)

Question 18

What therapeutic benefits can arise from classical conditioning

Answer 18

Extinguishing phobias.
Typically, a conditional response eventually weakens and dies once the conditioned and unconditional stimuli are unpaired. In some cases though, the conditioned response persists in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus.

Question 19

Discuss Graduated Exposure

Answer 19

Gently exposing a subject to a conditioned stimulus until it no longer elicits the conditioned response

Question 20

Discuss Flooding

Answer 20

Rather than gradually exposing a subject to a conditioned stimulus, this method exposes the subject suddenly to the stimulus, and continues to consistently expose them until the response is extinguished. This method is quite traumatic and can result in adverse effects

Question 21

Discuss Aversion therapy

Answer 21

Seeks to block or discourage behaviours by associating (pairing) them with aversive stimuli (e.g. an electric shock every time you reach for a piece of cake)

Question 22

Discuss Thorndike and his cats’ experiment

Answer 22

In the 1900s, Edward Thorndike identified instrumental learning (an early version of operant conditioning) is learning by trying different behaviours, repeating or tweaking successes and not repeating failures until the desired outcome is achieved

Question 23

Discuss B.F. Skinner

Answer 23

Considered the father of Operant Conditioning, Skinner proposed the three-phase model of operant conditioning: antecedent (preceding events), response (the event) and consequence (events that follow the response)

Question 24

Define Operant Conditioning

Answer 24

A process in which behaviour is sensitive to, or is controlled by its real or perceived consequences. This type of behaviour is increased if followed by a reward, and weakened if followed by a punishment

Question 25

Define positive and negative reinforcement

Answer 25

Positive reinforcement: introducing something (could be something bad)
Negative reinforcement: Taking something away

Question 26

Define positive and negative punishment

Answer 26

Positive (adding something undesirable)
Negative (removing something good)

Question 27

Types of Reinforcement schedules

Answer 27

Continuous (target behaviour every time it is performed)
Partial: sometimes reinforce behaviour, sometimes not.

Question 28

Types of partial reinforcement schedules

Answer 28

Fixed ratio (fixed number of times behaviour is reinforced)
Fixed interval (fixed time behaviour is reinforced)
Variable ratio (reinforcement varies, like a slot machine)
Variable interval (random)

Question 29

What are primary and secondary reinforcers?

Answer 29

Primary: basic needs: food, water, shelter, sex
Secondary: seen as ways to get us to primary needs - money, status, a good job, etc

Question 30

Define shaping

Answer 30

Incrementally rewarding partial behaviour until the full behaviour is displayed

Question 31

Token economics

Answer 31

Items that have no intrinsic value, but we are conditioned to think that they do: money being a key example

Question 32

Define learned helplessness

Answer 32

An organism being exposed to adverse stimuli so often, that they ‘give up’ and stop trying to escape, even when they can leave

Question 33

Define two factor learning

Answer 33

Mowrer’s 1960 theory:
1. An organism associates stimuli in the environment with aversive stimuli, and this allows these stimuli to evoke fear (classical)
2. The avoidance response is reinforced with relief that comes from avoiding or escaping these fear/anxiety inducing stimuli (operant)

Question 34

What are the five phenomena found in both classical and operant conditioning?

Answer 34

Acquisition, Extinction, Spontaneous Recovery, Stimulus Generalisation and Stimulus Discrimination

Question 35

What is Acquisition in classical and operant conditioning?

Answer 35

Classical: a process by which an organism learns to associate a neutral stimuli with an unconditioned stimulus (Pavlov)
Operant: establishment of a response through reinforcement

Question 36

What is Extinction in classical and operant conditioning?

Answer 36

Classical: The gradual weakening of a conditioned response that occurs when the unconditioned stimulus is no longer presented
Operant: When a conditioned response is followed by consistent non-reinforcement

Question 37

What is spontaneous recovery in classical and operant conditioning?

Answer 37

Classical: the reappearance of a conditioned response to a conditioned stimulus following a rest period after the conditioned response appeared extinguished
Operant: when, following a period of rest and the apparent loss of the conditioned response, the organism shows the response again in the absence of any reinforcement

Question 38

What is stimulus generalisation in classical and operant conditioning?

Answer 38

Classical: when a stimulus that is similar but not identical to the conditioned stimulus elicits a similar (though not exactly the same) response to the conditioned response
Operant: when the correct response is made to a similar but not identical stimulus to the conditioned stimulus

Question 39

What is stimulus generalisation in relation to classical and operant conditioning?

Answer 39

Classical: when an organism responds to the conditioned stimulus only, not any other similar stimulus
Operant: when an organism makes the correct response to a stimulus and is reinforced but does not respond to any other stimuli, even if they are similar

Question 40

What is behaviourism?

Answer 40

A school of though that Pavlov, Watson, Raynor and Skinner created that insisted that learning could only occur as a result of external environmental stimuli and not because of internal thoughts and processes. Also the notion that humans are born as ‘blank slates’ and are 100% shaped by their experiences. This school of thought is widely out of fashion and relevance today.