Learning

Question 1

What is learning

Answer 1

Learning is the acquisition of knowledge or skills through experience, practice, study or being taught.

Learning also refers to any relatively enduring change in either our potential to preform behaviour or our knowledge that results from experience.

Question 2

Classical conditioning

Answer 2

Classical conditioning has been shown to be the most fundamental way that all animal learn most new responses, emotions and attitudes.

Question 3

Pavlovs dogs

Answer 3

-Before conditioning, the dogs heard the bell and had no response.

Before conditioning, the dogs saw the food and salivated

During conditioning the bell was paired with the appearance of food and the dog salivated.

After conditioning, the dog heard the bell and salivated.

Question 4

What was the neutral stimulus in pavlov’s dogs

Answer 4

the bell

Question 5

What was the unconditioned stimulus in pavlov’s dogs

Answer 5

The food

Question 6

What was the unconditioned response in pavlov’s dogs

Answer 6

salivating over food

Question 7

What became the conditioned stimulus in pavlov’s dogs

Answer 7

the bell

Question 8

What became the conditioned response in pavlov’s dogs?

Answer 8

Salivating over the bell.

Question 9

Acquistion

Answer 9

refers to the first stages of learning when a response is established. It refers to the period of time when the stimulus comes to evoke the conditioned response.

Question 10

Stimulus contiguity

Answer 10

stimuli are contiguous if they occur together. In order to have effective classical conditioning, the unconditioned stimulus (food) and the conditioned stimulus (Bell) happen closely in time. They should be no more than 0.5 seconds apart.

Question 11

Contingency

Answer 11

the predictability of the occurrence of one stimulus from the presence of another (Thunder follows lightening). This is effected by the amount of times the CS is paired with the UCS. As the number of pairing increases, the strength of the association increases.

Question 12

stimulus generalisation

Answer 12

Stimuli are generalised when they are similar to the originally conditioned stimulus

Question 13

Stimulus discrimination

Answer 13

occurs when an organism that has a learned response to a specific stimulus does not respond the same way to a new stimulus similar to the original. Extinction is not the same as unlearning.

Question 14

Extinction

Answer 14

the gradual weakening or suppression of a previously conditioned response.

Question 15

Spontaneous recovery

Answer 15

the reappearance of a previously extinct conditioned response after a period of non-exposure to the conditioned responses. Couples that see each other after a long time after a break up may experience feelings once more.

Question 16

Classical conditioning in everyday life

Answer 16

Classical conditioning can be seen in prejudice, phobias and advertisement.

Question 17

Evolution and classical conditioning

Answer 17

• Taste Aversion learning is the development of a dislike to a flavour or food that has been paired with an illness. This stops us getting sick again.

Question 18

Operant conditioning

Answer 18

Operant conditioning refers to learning that occurs in the context of experiencing or avoiding rewards and punishments. It is a type of learning in which behaviour is influenced by consequences.

The experiment you need to remember for this is Skinner’s box experiment. He put a mouse is a box, if it pressed on a bar, food would be delivered (Positive reinforcement).

Question 19

Reinforcement

Answer 19

• Any process that increases the frequency or likelihood of a targeted behaviour is called a reinforcement
• Reinforcement itself is a process in which a positive stimulus or rewards follows a desired behaviour.

Question 20

Postitive reinforcement

Answer 20

-Postitive reinforcement is when a stimulus is added to the situation

Question 21

Negative reinforcement

Answer 21

Negative reinforcement removes a stimulant.

Question 22

Primary reinforcers

Answer 22

Primary reinforcers consist of stimuli that satisfy basic motivational needs (Sleep, food, sex)

Question 23

Secondary reinforcers

Answer 23

Secondary reinforcers consist of stimuli that acquire their value through learning (Money).

Question 24

Punishment

Answer 24

A punishment is a stimulus or an event that decreases the likelihood of occurrences of the behaviour it follows.

Question 25

Positive punishment

Answer 25

the addition of a stimulus (Yelling at a dog)

Question 26

Negative punishment

Answer 26

taking away a stimulus (A parent taking away a phone)

Question 27

Learned helplessness

Answer 27

• Occurs when an animal is repeatedly subjected to an aversive stimulus that it cannot escape (If skinners box shocked the mouse at regular intervals)
• Eventually the animal will stop trying to avoid the stimulus and behave as if it is utterly helpless to change the situation. It will not try to escape.
• If given a way out, if the door if left open, the animal will still not try to escape, as its helplessness will prevent any action.

Question 28

Continuous reinforcement

Answer 28

every time a behaviour is preformed, a food pellet is given. When this reinforcement no longer happens, the behaviour will weaken.

Question 29

Fixed interval

Answer 29

provides reinforcement on a regular basis at equal time intervals (10 minutes, weekly, monthly). As long as the behaviour is preformed once, the subject will receive reinforcement. More of the behaviour will not increase reinforcement. Produce a clustering of responses around reward time.

Question 30

fixed ratio

Answer 30

depends on a regular number (or ratio) of responses being completed before earning a reward (Press the bar ten times to get a pellet). Higher rate of responding.

Question 31

Variable interval schedule

Answer 31

the reinforcement is unpredictable and varies. Fishing. Produce low but constant rates of responding.

Question 32

Variable ratio

Answer 32

response is reinforced after an unpredictable number of responses. Pokies. This is the principle behind gambling. Higher rates of responding

Question 33

Partial reinforcement

Answer 33

Some but not all correct responses are reinforced.

Question 34

Generalisation in operant conditioning

Answer 34

-Learning that a behaviour will be rewarded in one situation but not another. A rat does not receive food from the second lever, so they do not press it.

Question 35

Shaping

Answer 35

Technique of reinforcement used to teach new behaviours.

• Initially, people are reinforced for easy tasks and then increasingly need to perform more difficult tasks in order to receive reinforcement.
• Requires continuous reinforcement
• Systematically reinforced for displaying closer and closer approximations of a desired response.
• You start by reinforcing a tendency in the right direction – then you gradually require responses that are closer and closer to the target behaviour.
• Used to treat phobias (Image a spider, be in a room with a spider, stand close to a spider, hold a spider).
• Animal training

Question 36

What is the best way to promote fast learning

Answer 36

The best way to promote fast learning and high resistance to extinction is to begin reinforcing the desired behaviour on a continuous schedule until the behaviour is well established then shift to a partial (preferably variable) schedule that is gradually more demanding.

Question 37

Applications of operant conditioning

Answer 37

• Incentive symptoms such as customer loyalty programs
• Prejudice being positively reinforced
• Superstitions are developed through accidental reinforcement

Question 38

Classical conditioning vs operant conditioning

Answer 38

• The subject’s behaviour is determined by what precedes it
• Focuses on involuntary, automatic behaviours
• The subject’s behaviour is determined by what follows it
• Focuses on strengthening or weakening voluntary behaviours

Question 39

Observational learning

Answer 39

Observational learning is learning that occurs through the observing of other people’s behaviour.

Question 40

Observational learning and the bobo doll

Answer 40

The experiment for observational learning is the Bobo doll experiment. The experiment studied children’s behaviour after watching an adult model act aggressively towards aBobo doll, a toy that gets up by itself to a standing position when it is knocked down. They were split up into “aggressive role model”, “non-aggressive role model” and “control group”.

Question 41

attention

Answer 41

The more we idealise the model, the more we find the model to be similar, or if they are an authority figure, we will pay more attention to them.

Question 42

Retention

Answer 42

refers to how likely it is we will retain the information, the more likely this is the more likely a person will copy said behaviour.

Question 43

Reproduction

Answer 43

the ability to perform the task we observed. The more it is practiced, the better we get at it, the more likely we are to repeat it.

Question 44

Motivation

Answer 44

– Is it reinforced? Are people motivated to repeat behaviour?

Question 45

Imitation

Answer 45

recreating a motor behaviour or expression, often to accomplish a specific goal. For example, we imitate facial expressions.

Question 46

Psychological interventions for learning

Answer 46

behaviour modification
systematic desensitisation
aversion therapy

Question 47

Behaviour modification

Answer 47

Behaviour modification is an intervention based on the principles of operant conditioning, it replaces undesirable behaviours with more desirable ones through positive or negative reinforcement.

Question 48

Systematic desensitisation

Answer 48

Systematic desensitisation is an intervention based on the principles of classical conditioning. It is aimed at removing the fear response of a phobia and substitute a relaxation response to the conditional stimulus gradually using counter conditioning.

• The patient is taught deep muscle relaxation techniques and breathing exercises
• The patient creates a fear hierarchy starting at a stimulus the create the least anxiety and going up in stages.
• The patients then work their way up the fear hierarchy, practising their relaxation techniques as they go.

Question 49

Aversion therapy.

Answer 49

Aversion therapyis a form ofpsychologicaltreatment in which the patient is exposed to a stimulus while simultaneously being subjected to some form of discomfort.