Learning Flashcards
What is classical conditioning?
A procedure during which an animal or person learns to associate a reflex response with a new stimulus.
Learning by association
What is the difference between unconditioned and conditioned?
Unconditioned is the term used to show that something is unlearned.
Conditioned means that something has been learned.
Explanation of classical conditioning
One of the earliest explanations of how animals and humans can learn was proposed by Pavlov. He noticed that when the dog he was studying heard the food bucket being brought, it started to salivate. He knew that salivation is a reflex response; it is an automation response that should usually occur when food is in the mouth. So Pavlov realised that the dogs had learn to salivate to a new event, the sound of the food buckets. This encouraged him to investigate whether dogs could learn to salivate to other events.
Pavlov set up a series of trails over the next few days. Each time the dog was fed, a bell was rang for a few seconds and the amount of saliva produced was measured. Then the bell was produced and no food was given. He discovered that the saliva produced on this trial was the same as when food was given.
What is extinction?
A conditioned response dies out
What is spontaneous recovery?
A conditioned response that has disappeared suddenly appears again.
Watson and Rayner
Aim: To see if the emotional response of fear could be conditioned in a human being.
Method: Albert was 11 months old. He seemed to like a white laboratory rat and had no fear of any white furry objects. In the conditioning trails the rat was shown to Albert and, as he reached for it, a metal bar was hit very hard with a hammer, behind Albert’s back. This was done several times.
Results: After seven times, when the rat was presented again, Albert screamed and tried to get away. He did this even though the bar was not hit by the hammer and there was no loud noise. Albert also screamed when he was shown a Santa Claus mask and a fur coat.
Conclusion: Watson and Rayner showed that fear response could be learnt and even very young children could learn in the way suggested by classical conditioning.
Evaluation of Watson and Rayner’s study
This was not a very ethical thing for the researchers to do to a small child.
This study only involved one child and maybe the researchers needed more evident that fear can be learnt in this way.
Practical applications of classical conditioning
Advertising agencies recognise that if they can get us to build up a favourable association between the advert and the product, then we might buy the product more often.
Advertising companies use famous people to promote products. They want the audience to associate the ‘attractive/nice’ person with the brand they are selling.
What is operant conditioning?
Learning due to the consequences of behaviour, through positive or negative reinforcement.
Law of effect
Operant conditioning is learning that takes place because of the consequences of behaviour. This type of learning was investigated by Thorndike during his studies of the problem-solving abilities of animals. Thorndike designed a puzzle box into which he would place a cat. The task for the cat inside the box was to escape. Inside the box there was a loop of string attached to a latch. When the string was pulled, the latch would lift and the door would open.
Thorndike showed that a cat that was placed in a puzzle box would learn to pull a string to escape from the box. When the cat was first placed in the box, he accidentally pulled the string and the latch would be lifted. This would happen each time the cat was placed in the box. However, after about 20 trials, Thorndike noticed that the cat began to escapre very quickly. He suggested that the cat had learnt to escape from the box by trial and error learning. It was the pleasant consequence (escape) that encouraged the cat to pull the string rather than produce any other behaviours.
Define law of effect
Behaviours that are followed by rewards are usually repeated, those that are punished are not usually repeated.
B F Skinner
Skinner introduced the idea of reinforcement to the Law of Effect. He said that all behaviour is learnt from the consequences of that behaviour. He called this operant conditioning because the animal or human produces a behaviour that is voluntary, so it ‘operates’ on the environment. The consequence of a particular behaviour produced by the animal or human will be to either increase or decrease the likelihood of the behaviour being repeated.
Much of Skinner’s work involved his famous Skinner Box. He would place a hungry rat in the box. The rat would produce a variety of actions such as sniffing, exploring and grooming. By accident it would press the lever and a pellet of food would immediately drop into the food tray. Every time the lever was pressed the behaviour of ‘lever pressing’ was positively reinforced by a food pallet.
Positive and negative reinforcement have the same effect, to increase the likelihood that a particular behaviour will be repeated. Sometimes there would be an electric shock through the floor of the Skinner box. When the rat pressed the lever the shock would switch off. This is an example of negative reinforcement.
Behaviour shaping
Changing behaviour in small steps
In this procedure the task is broken down into small steps. For a pigeon playing ping pong, these steps might include moving towards a ball, touching a ball with its beak, hitting the ball, then hitting the ball towards another pigeon.
What is a phobia?
A persistent and irrational fear of an object, activity or situation. The typical symptoms are intense feelings or fear and anxiety to avoid the object, activity or situation.
Flooding
A treatment of phobias that involves the immediate exposure of the person to the feared object, activity or event, until there is no fear response.
