Learning Flashcards
Reflexes
- A motor or neural reaction to a specific stimulus in the environment
- Involve the activity of specific body parts and systems
- Involve more primitive centers of the central nervous system
Instincts
- Innate behaviors that are triggered by a broader range of events, such as aging and the change of seasons
- More complex patterns of behavior, involve movement of the organism as a whole, and involve higher brain centers
Learning
- Allows organism to adapt to its environment
- Learned behavior involve change and experience; relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge that results from experience
Associative Learning
- Occurs when an organism makes connection between stimuli or events that occur together in the environment
- Central to all three basic learning process; classical conditioning, operant conditioning and observational learning
Classical Conditional
•A process by which we learn to associate stimuli and consequently, to anticipate events
Ivan Pavlov
- Pavlov, an early behaviorist, in his famous classical conditioning experiment
- He performed extensive research on dogs – trained them to salivate in response to the sound of a bell
Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)
•A stimulus that elicits a reflexive response in an organism
Unconditioned Response (UCR)
•An unlearned response that occurs naturally in reaction to the unconditioned stimulus
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
•A stimulus that elicits a response after repeatedly being paired with an unconditioned stimulus
Conditioned Response (CR)
•The learned response to the previously neutral stimulus
Tone or Neutral Stimulus (NS)
•A stimulus that does not naturally elicits a response
Acquisition
- The initial period of learning in classical conditioning
- When an organism learns to connect a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus
- During this phase, the NS begins to elicit the CR, and eventually the NS becomes a conditioned stimulus capable of eliciting the CR by itself
What is an important factor for conditioning to occur?
- Timing
* Typically, there should only be a brief interval between presentation of the CS and the UCS
Extinction
•Refers to the decrease in the CR when the UCS is no longer presented with the CS
Spontaneous Recovery
•The return of a previously extinguished CR following a rest period
Stimulus Discrimination
•When an organism learns to respond differently to various stimuli that are similar
Stimulus Generalization
•When an organism demonstrates the conditioned response to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus
John B. Watson
•Watson’s behaviorist theory focused not on the internal emotional and psychological conditions of people, but rather on their external and outward behaviors. He believed that a person’s physical responses provided the only insight into internal actions.
Reflexive Fear
•Associate a particular stimuli with an emotional fear, causing the individual be afraid of the stimuli, hence, avoiding it.
Operant Conditioning
•The target behavior is followed by reinforcement or punishment to either strengthen or weaken it, so that learner is more likely to exhibit the desired behavior in the future
B.F Skinner
•Believed that behavior is motivated by the consequences we received for the behavior. His idea of learning is the result of consequences is based on the law of effect, which was first proposed by psychologist, Edward Thorndike
Law Of Effect
•According to law of effect, behaviors that are followed by consequences that are satisfying to the organism are more likely to be repeated, and behaviors that are followed by unpleasant consequences are less likely to be repeated
Positive Reinforcement
•Something is added to increase the likelihood of a behavior
Negative Reinforcement
•Something is removed to increase the likelihood of a behavior
Positive Punishment
•Something is added to decrease the likelihood of a behavior
Negative Punishment
•Something is removed to decease the likelihood of behavior
Shaping
- In shaping, we reward successive approximations of a target behavior
- Needed because it is extremely unlikely that an organism will display anything but the simplest of behavior spontaneously
Specific steps used in the process of shaping
- Reinforce any response that resembles the desired behavior
- Reinforce the response that closely resembles the desired behavior most. You will no longer reinforce the previously reinforced response
- Next, begin to reinforce the response that even more closely resemble the desired behavior
- Continue to reinforce closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior
- Finally, only reinforce the desired behavior
Primary Reinforcers
- Reinforcers that have innate reinforcing qualities
- Not learned
- Organisms do not lose their drive for these things
Secondary Reinforcers
•Has no inherent value and only has reinforcing qualities when linked with a primary reinforcer
Schedule of Reinforcement
•Acts as a rule, stating which instances of a behavior will be reinforced
Continuous Reinforcement Schedule
- The desired behavior is reinforced each and every time it occurs
- Used during the first stage of learning in order to create a strong association between the behavior and the response
Partial Reinforcement Schedule
- The person or animal does not get reinforced every time they perform the desired behavior
- Several types – described as either fixed or variable, and as either interval or ratio
Fixed interval
•Reinforcement is delivered at predictable time intervals
Example: after 5, 10, 15, and 20 minutes
•Moderate response rate with significant pauses after reinforcement
Variable Interval
•Reinforcement is delivered at unpredictable time intervals
Example: after 5, 7, 10, and 20 minutes
•Moderate yet steady response rate
Fixed Ratio
•Reinforcement is delivered after predictable number of responses
Example: after 2, 4, 6, 8 responses
•High response rate with pauses after reinforcement
Variable Ratio
•Reinforcement is delivered after an unpredictable number of responses
Example: after 1, 4, 5, and 9
•High and steady response rate
Edward C. Tolman
•A behaviorist who believed that learning is acquired through purposeful behavior, which is demonstrated by running rats through mazes
Latent Learning
•Learning that occurs but is not observable until there is a reason to do it
Observational Learning
- We learn by watching other and then imitating, or modeling, what they do or say
- This imitative learning involves a specific type of neuron, called mirror neuron
Models
•Individuals who performing the imitated behavior are called models
Albert Bandura
- According to him, pure behaviorism could not explain why learning can take place in the absence of external reinforcement; felt that observational learning involves much more than imitation
- Proposed a brand of behaviorism called social learning theory, which took cognitive processes into account
What are the 3 kind of models Bandura identified?
- A live model demonstrates a behavior in a person
- A verbal instructional model does not perform the behavior, but instead, explains or describes the behavior
- A symbolic model can be fictional characters of real people who demonstrated behaviors in books, movies, games, etc.
What are the specific steps Bandura described for learning to be successful?
- Attention – be focused on what the model is doing
- Retention – remember what you have observed
- Reproduction – be able to perform the behavior you observed and committed to memory
- Motivation
Vicarious Reinforcement
•When you notice that the model was reinforced for her behavior, you will be more motivated to copy her
Vicarious Punishment
•When you notice that model was being punished, you will be less likely to copy her
Prosocial (+ve) Effects
•Models can be used to encourage socially acceptable behavior
Antisocial (-ve) Effects
•Refers to actions that violate social norms in ways that reflect disregard for others or that reflect the violation of others’ rights
Overt Destructive Pattern
•Individuals display open aggressive and open confrontational behavior
Overt Non-destructive Pattern
•Dominated by openly offensive but non-confrontational behavior such as lying
Covert Destructive Pattern
•Secretive destructing behaviors such as violating other people’s behavior, breaking and entering or setting fires
Cover Non-destructive Pattern
•Secretly commits non-destructive behavior such as truancy
