LEARNING Flashcards
Thorndike
- law of effect (precursor for operant conditioning)
- behavior revovles around reinforcement - do what rewards us and avoids what punishes us
Lewin
- theory of association (forerunner for behaviourism)
- we group things together based on the fact that they occur together in time and space e.g. associate things with rewards and cues
Pavlov
- classical/palovian conditioning
- teaching someone to respond to an NS (bell) by paring it with a US (food)
Watson
- school of behaviourism
- every behavior can be explained by stimulus-response chains (conditioning is key factor to this)
- only objective observable elements were important
Skinner
- experiment proved Thorndikes law of effect and Watson’s ideas of behaviourism
- Used a skinner box to show that animals are influenced by reinforcement
Operant Conditioning
- behaviour is influnced by reinforcement
Classical conditioning
- using an NS and an UC (food) to create a relationship between the two so that dogs salivate in the presence of either NS or UC
Neutral Stimulus (NS)
- stimulus that does not a response
e. g. bell
Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)
- produces a response on it’s own
e. g. food
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
- NS that has been paired with the UCS so that the CS will produce a response
Unconditioned Response (UCR)
- Naturally occuring response to the UCS (food)
Conditioned Response (CR)
- Conditioned response that the CS elicits after conditioning (salivating to bell)
- same a the unconditioned response
Stimulus Conditioning
- the UCS and the CS are presented at the same time
Higher order conditioning/Second order conditioning
- previous CS now acts as the UCS
e. g. a bell that elicits the CR is now paired with another NS (a light) so that the light will eventually become the CS and produce the CR
Forward conditioning (name 2 type)
Delayed conditioning: presentation of CS begins before the UCS and last until the UCS is presented
e.g. ring bell continuously until food is presented
Trace conditioning: the CS is presented a terminated before the UCS is presented
e.g. ring bell and stop ringing then present food
Backward conditioning
- present the UCS and then the CS
- is ineffective and encourages inhibitory conditioning and will be even harder to pair in the future
Operant conditioning is also called:
- instrumental conditioning
- rats repeated behaviors that won them rewards and gave up on behaviours that did not
Shaping
- rats are rewarded for behaviours that brought them closer and close to actually pressing the bar
- also called differential reinforcement of successive approximations
- eventually lead rats to desired behaviours where they are rewarded only for the behaviour
Differential reinforcement of successive approximations
- shaping
Primary reinforcement
- natural reinforcement without requirement of learning e.g. water and food
Secondary reinforcement
- learned reinforcer
e. g. money
Positive reinforcement
- type or reward or positive even t that increases the likelihood of a particular response
Negative reinforcement
- is NOT punishment; is reinforcement through the removal of a negative event
e. g. monkey learns to keep riding a bike so a blarring noise stops
Reinforcement/puishment; positive/negative
- reinforcement = increase behaviours
- punishement = decreases behaviours
- positive - adding something
- negative - removing something
Continuous reinforcement schedule
- correct response with some form of reinforcement
- QUICKEST learning
- most FRAGILE; rewards stop = behaviours stop
Partial reinforcement schedule (4 types)
1) Fixed ratio scheduale
2) Variable ratio shedule
3) Fixed interval scheduale
4) Variable interval scheduale
(ratio = amount)
(interval = time)
Fixed ratio scheduale
- reinforcement delivered after a conistent numer of responses
- VULNERABLE to exctinction
Variable ratio scheduale
- learning takes MOST time
- LEAST exctinction
- reinforcements are delivered on a random # of responses
- cannot be predicted e.g. slot machines
Fixed interval schedule
- rewards come after a fixed period of time
- argue that little motivation is encouraged e.g. rat can nap in between 5 mins
Variable interval schedule
- rewards are delivered after different time periods
- SECOND MOST effect
e. g. waiting for the bus
Token Economy
- artificial mini-economy motivated by secondary reinforces (e.g. tokens)
- desirable behaviours reinforced with tokens and cashed in for primary reinforcers e.g candy
Primary/instinctual drive
- most motivated by primary drive e.g. hunger or thirst
Secondary/acquired drive
- e.g. money; learned drive that motivates us
Exploratory drive
- motivated by trying something new or a new enviornment
Theories in which humans are motivated to maintain homestatsis
- fritz heider’s balance theory
- Charles Osgood
- Percy Tannenbaum’s congruity theory
- Leon Festinger’s cognitive dissonance theory
Homestatis
- what drives people is desired to balance feelings, ideas, and behviours
Drive reduction theory
- to balance homestasis
Clark Hull
- performance = drive x habit
- what has worked in the past to satisfy need
Edward Tolman
- performance = expectation x value
- AKA expectancy value theory
- people are motivated by goals that they think they might meet
- how important goals is
Victor Vroom
- applied theory of “performance = expectation x value” to organizations where people who are not incentivized are not motivated
Henry Murray and McClelland
- people are motivated by their need for achievement
- pursue success and avoid failure
- to feel successful
John Atikinson
- theory of motivation where people set realistic goals with low risks to feel successful
Neil Miller
- approach avoidance conflict
- goals have pros and cons; further to goal = see more pros
- closer to goals = see more cons
Hedonism
- people are motivated by what brings the most pleasure and least pain
The Premack principle
- motivated to do what they do not want to do by rewarding themselves afterwards with something they like e.g. desert after spinach
Arousal
- part of motivation and person must be adequately aroused to learn or perform
Donald Hebb
- medium amount of arousal is best for performance
- simple task = optimal level arousal is toward high end
- complex task = optimal level arousal is toward the low end
Yerkes-Dodson effect
- optimal level of arousal is never to extreme
- graph is an invereted U with lowest performance at low end
Stimulus
- event that an organism reacts to
- stimulus is 1st even in stimulus-response chain
Stimulus discrimination
- discriminate between different but similar stimulus e.g. phone and truck ringing are different
Stimulus generalization
- opposite of stimulus discrimination
- making same response to a group of stimuli
e. g. not all fire alarms sound the same but signal the same reaction
Undergeneralization
- failure to generalize a stimulus e.g. fire alarms sound different
Response learning
- learning where one links together chains of stimuli and responses
- e.g. one learns to leave a building after fire alarm
Perceptual or concept learning
- learning about something in general rather than specific stimulus-response chains
- e.g. learning history, rather than response
Tolman’s experiments
- animals forming cognitive maps of mazes rather than simple escape routes
- (related to perceptual/concept learning)
Aversive conditioning
- uses punishment to decrease the likelihood of a beavhiour
e. g. taking a throw-up drink with their drug
Avoidance conditioning
- teaches animal how to avoid something animal doesn’t want
Escape conditioning
- teaches animal to perform behavior to get away from a negative stimulus
Punishment
- promotes extinction of undesirable behaviours
- mixed reviews - not effective in long run because it carries too many negative effects
Automatic conditioning
- evokes response of autonmatic nervous system through training
State dependent learning
- what a person learns in one state is best recalled in that state
Extinction
- Reversal of conditioning; stop being a certain behaviour
- Withhold reinforcement or disassociating the behaviour from a particular cue
e. g. not giving candy to temper tamtrum
Spontaneous recovery
- reappearance of extinguished response even in absence of further conditioning
Latent learning
- takes place even without reinforcement and then learning is revealed at a later time
e. g. seeing chess move on TV then use them
Incidental learning
- Accidental learning
- unrelated items are group together during incidental learning
e. g. pets learn to dislike cars - Opposite of intentional learning
Superstituous behavior
- someone learns that a specific action causes an event, when in reality 2 events are unrelated
Chaining
- act of linking together a series of behavious that ultimately result in reinforcement
- e.g. alphabet - one behaviours triggers next
Habituation
- decrease responsiveness as a result of familiarity with stimulus
Sensitization
- increase sensitivity because of a strong stimulus
Overshadowing
- classical conditioning concept
- inability to infer a realtionship between stimulus and response due to presence of a more prominent stimulus
Autoshaping
- experiments where apparatus allows an animal to control its reinforcement through behaviours
- animal shaping its own behaviour
Social learning theory
- individuals learn through culture
Observational learning
- simple the act of learning something by watching
Modeling
- specific concept within social learning
- learning an behaving by imitating others e.g. Bobo doll
John Garcia
- animals are programmed through evolution to make certain connections
Prepardness
- some connections are easier to learn than others
Garcia effect
- strongest in children
- connection between naseau and food is made when it causes them to become sick
M. E. Olds
- eperiments which electrical stimulation of pleasure centers in brain were used as positive reinforcement of behaviour
- goes against drive-reduction theory
Continuous motor task
- easier to learn than discrete motor task
- one continuous motion that continues naturally
e. g. riding a bike
Discrete motor task
- divided into different parts that do not faciliate the recall of each other
e. g. setting up chessboard
Positive transfer
- previous learning that make it easier to learn another task later
Negative transfer
- previous learning that makes it more difficult to learn a new task
Age (how if affects learning)
- primed to learn between 3 -20
- constant from 20-50
- tapers off at 50
Learning curve
- described by Hermann Ebbinghaus
- rate of learning change over time = positive acceleration increases and then becomes a negative accelerated curve where learning decreases
Herman Ebbinghaus
- described the learning curve
Aptitude
- set of characteristics indicative of person’s ability to learn
Cooperative learning
- students working on project together
Scaffolding learning
- only provides assistance when concepts are beyond ability of student
- teacher aids with less to encourage student’s independence
Overjustification effect
- getting paid for something you enjoy leads to a reduction in enjoyment
LEARNING
- relatively permanent or stable change in behaviour a the result of experience
