Learning and Motivation Flashcards
what is learning?
An enduring change within an organism brought about by experience that makes a change in behaviour possible
What influences performance
Learning
Opportunity
Motivation
Sensory/motor capabilities
What is a reflex?
Reflexes are automatic and usually very fast
Learning is not required - innate
what are the components of a relfex?
eliciting stimuli and corresponding response
arm withdrawal
Touch an unpleasant stimulus, withdrawal
Involve very few neurons
Doesn’t even travel to brain: spinal cord
reflex arc
sensory nerves detect stimuli
motor nerves stimulate mucles
intensity must reach a certain threshold for a response to be elicited
What is an instinct?
behavioural sequence made up of units which are largely genetically determined and, as such, are typical of all members of a species
what is maturation?
changes that take place in your body and in your behaviour that are developmental
Why is walking something that is not ‘learned’?
It is more so determined by the strength of the baby’s legs and structure. As they start developing they will try out their legs.
why fatigue doesn’t indicate learning
it is a transient state of discomfort and loss of efficiency as a normal reaction to emotional strain, physical exertion, boredom, or lack of rest - it is not stable
what is habituation?
Decreased responding produced by repeated stimulation
stimulus and response specific
what is habituation not?
fatigue or sensory adaptation
what is sensitisation?
Increased responding produced by repeated stimulation
why is habituation and sensitisation important?
help us sort out what stimuli to ignore and what to respond to, help us to organise and focus our behaviour in a world of meaningless stimuli
disorders in habituation
schizophrenic people lack capacity to habituate
clinical applications of habituation
Use habituation to form diagnostic tests to diagnose mental illness before obvious symptoms arise.
why should we use animals for experiments?
inexpensive
simpler conditions
easily controlled
wider scope
what is classical conditioning?
conditioning something to evoke the same response in the absence of the original stimulus - When a conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (US), it comes to elicit a conditioned response (CR)
appetitive conditioning
Eye-blink conditioning
Food preferences
Place preference
aversive conditioning
Conditioned fear
Anticipatory nausea
Little Albert experiment
Albert was conditioned to fear certain stimulus (large sound was made when interacting with stimulus) - feared things that were associated with the stimuli (generalisation)
What is second order conditioning?
introduce another stimulus that is not directly paired with the food - becomes second-order reinforcer
How does volume affect classical conditioning?
Strength of conditioned response increases after more trials - experience associations
How does intensity affect classical conditioning?
Intensity of CS: when intensity is higher, learning is faster (time)
Intensity of US: how tasty a food is, max amount of learning (amount)
How does contiguity affect classical conditioning?
Having a short time between CS and US allows for the association and understanding of the correct behaviour
what is ISI
Inter-stimulus interval
How does contingency affect classical conditioning?
What is the probability that the US follows the CS?
What is the probability that the US occurs anyway? - we need things to occur after certain events
Extinction
Reversing the learning process - repeated CS-alone presentations following acquisition resulting in a reduction in the CR
What is classical conditioning used for?
Advertising (associations)
Removing phobias
what is instrumental conditioning?
Trial by error learning - In the presence of a discriminative stimulus (Sd), a response (R) is followed by a reinforcer (Sr) or punisher (Sav).
Thorndike’s law of effect
What a human or animal does is strongly influenced by the immediate consequences of such behaviour in the past
What is good about the Skinner box?
Automated - measures effect of reinforcement on behaviour continuously Behaviour can be continued without interruption - unlike Thorndike where he had to remove the cat from box
Free operant procedure
- Rat placed in Skinner box
- Rat makes ‘right’ response
- Rat gets food
- Repeat from 2
Skinner’s Tripartite contingency
Antecedent the stimulus controlling behaviour - discriminative stimulus (Sd)
Behaviour what is the response being reinforced?
Consequence what is the immediate outcome of a behaviour - the reinforcing stimulus (Sr)
Difference between classical and instrumental?
classical: subject has to respond to control the outcome
instrumental: subject has no control over events, but response to them with some instinctive behaviour
Shaping
introduce new behaviours outside the behavioural repertoire
Principle of successive approximation
Reinforce behaviours that are closer and closer to a target behaviour
Gradually make the conditions of reinforcement more stringent, more precise
Primary reinforcers
Intrinsically valued
High Contiguity
Contingency
Secondary reinforcers
Acquire their reinforcing properties through experience e.g., “who’s a good boy/girl??”
avoidance
prevents a stimulus
escape
removes a stimulus
punishment
decreases a behaviour
reinforcement
increase behaviour
negative
absence of stimulus
positive
presence of stimulus
If you want an animal to establish conditioned learning quickly…
use fixed ratio
If you want to train a behaviour that is steady that is longer lasting, more sustainable…
use interval schedule
ratio
number of responses till reinforcer is present
interval
time until reinforcer is present
interval and ratio schedules can be either…
fixed or variable
The likelihood that a behaviours will increase or decrease is determined by…
The nature of the events that follow (appetitive/aversive)
Whether the behaviour produces terminates theses events
Stimulus control
Learning to discriminate which outcome is likely to lead to a reward
Why is generalisation good?
helps us interact with out environment
How do humans generalise
More generalisation from the meaning rather than the physical similarity of stimuli. Semantically related
generalisation
conditioned performance occurs in the presence of cues similar to original CS
discrimination
learning to differentiate between cues; e.g. two CS’s. Learning to respond only (or differently) when the presence of a sue signals that the response will be reinforce
Thorndike claimed that the likelihood of a response was due to 2 factors…
- Whether the response was followed by pleasant or unpleasant events.
- Whether cues that were present when the response was reinforced or punished are still present
successive discrimination
alternating presentation of eliciting stimuli
simultaneous discrimination
both S+ and S- are present e.g. a T-maze
learning by exemplar
To what extent can you generalise the knowledge of what fits into a category - chairs and tables
learning from punishment
short-lived
very specific, you have to punish every single ‘unwanted’ behaviour
Social learning
learning behaviour from watching others (models) - exponential growth of behaviour
goal enhancement
Getting access to some wanted goal might facilitate later trial and error learning
stimulus enhancement
Observe others and are often more likely to approach places that they are
Increased motivation to act…
Try more new things in the company of friends and parents
Contagious behaviour
Mimicking an already established behaviour, e.g. yawning/smiling
Mimicry
A copied action that is made without reference to a goal, or that may not be reinforced by some consequence - regardless of result
Emulation
There is understanding of the goal but the specific response required to obtain the goal may not be well understood
Imitation
Copied actions made with respect to the goal/consequence
modelling
Children will not only imitate an adult’s specific behaviour but also model general styles of behaviour (anger etc)
Observed modelling
reinforcement dependent
can occur through TV, not just in person.
social cognition theory
- Attention to the model,
- Incorporate the model’s actions into memory,
- Requires having the ability to reproduce the actions of the model,
- The motivation to reproduce the actions of the model. Was the model reinforced? Is the reinforcer currently desired?
Motivation
Why individuals initiate, choose, or persist in specific actions in specific circumstances - condition of behaviour, impels action
Fixed Action Pattern (FAP)
genetically determined stereotyped sequence of behaviour which is often triggered by highly specific stimuli
Sign stimuli
sign stimuli initiates FAP (full belly of female stickleback)
How can we tell if behaviour is instinctive?
- Biological basis
- Cross-species similarity
- Cross-cultural similarity
- Separated identical twin-studies
- Developmental studies
non-verbal communication
Facial expressions
Smiling
Acting coy/Flirting
problems with instinct only theories
- Circularity
- Proliferation
- Behavioural flexibility & Learning - don’t account for learning
problems with drive theroies
predicts a linear relationship between arousal & performance.
Drive reduction is not necessary for reinforcement (e.g., saccharin)
Ignores role for qualitative differences between reinforcers
Even when all drives are satisfied…
their is still motivation for stimulation
The survival of the fittest (Darwin):
- There are limited resources & there is competition for these resources,
- Individuals who are best suited to their environment will tend to survive,
- They will pass on their characteristics to their offspring (via genes).
discriminant stimulus
a cue that indicates whether a behaviour is likely to be reinforced or not
sd: will produce rein
sdelta: will not produce rein
acquisition
initial learning phase in classical conditioning
unconditioned stimulus
naturally occurring stimuli
unconditioned response
innate
conditioned stimulus
neutral stimuli
conditioned response
learnt
constraints successive approximation
relies on animals (sleep)
physical or reward limitations
time
how are humans usually rewarded
Money
Gifts
Positive social interactions
Praise
Why are conditioned reinforcers often used in humans to shape behaviour?
Money is associated with natural rewards
It is like motivation
avoidance behaviour is a form of…
instrumental conditioning
instinct is sensitive to motivational factors:
hormone levels for sexual behaviours
fatigue
Action Specific Energy (ASE)
Specific source of energy associated with a FAP
The level of which controls the intensity with which the FAP is performed
what is incentive value determined by?
liking (hedonic value)
biological need
current arousal state
preferred activity
humanist
reaction to behaviourist psychodynamic theory - emphasises unique qualities of humans (what makes humans the best they can be, how can we understand this behaviour)
Rogers
people want to become “fully functioning”
only one motive - innate tendency to fulfil one’s potential for growth
Maslow
people move towards “self-actualisation” - complete an image of your self (ceo etc)
humans are motivated to become fully functioning through…
maintenance
enhancement
reproduction
wealth
importance of self-concept
need for unconditional positive regard - consistent, leads to growth
conditional regard - anxiety, constantly trying to get praise
a fully functioning person has…
openness to experience
existential living
trust in one’s own organism
sense of freedom
creativity
hierarchy of needs
physiological - first
safety
love/belonging
esteem
self actualisation - last (more complex and human)
frustration of these needs…
generates pathology
criticism of humanistic psychology
- weak empirically
- hierarchy - can be safe but hungry
- who is self-actualised - circularity
- cultural concerns & elitism - primarily based on western ideals
Rorschach
a qualitative approach to probe your aspirations - ask to describe an ambiguous image and the description is analysed for themes
Thematic apperception tests
use ambiguous pictures of people and how they feel etc.
long-term human needs
achievement (nAch) - increase self-regard, surpass others, accomplish difficulties, organise, independent
do differences in nAch translate into long-term behaviour?
people who are executives tend to more strongly express nAch
what can we predict about nAch
career
positive feeling of success should increase the harder that task is
people high in nAch will attempt harder tasks
High nAch
much more conscious of failure and competition
weighing the expected utility of their choice
expectancy-value theories
consider a person’s expectancy pf actually obtaining the goal - no point attempting a really hard task if there will be no sense of satisfaction.
expected utility of an action =
value of the goal x probability of obtaining goal
nAch and Career choice
personal responsibility for solving problems
sets moderate goals
needs concrete rapid performance feedback
releasing stimuli
initiate FAP
Trigger stereotyped sequence of behaviours
supernormal stimuli
Are more effective than the normal stimulus for eliciting FAP - More intense version
drives…
energise and activate certain behaviours
ethology
the study of innate factors in behaviour - stressed the importance of observing behaviour in a natural setting
How to address a behaviour pattern
- What is the cause? The ‘mechanism’ question.
- How did it develop within the individual? The ‘ontogeny’ question.
- What is its survival (adaptive) value? The ‘function’ question.
- How did it evolve? The ‘phylogeny’ question.
List two sources of motivation
hunger and happiness
what is an example of genetic predisposition
Learning a language when young. Universal human skill that shows we have an innate predisposition to learn rules of grammar and syntax and apply them to describe the world and ourselves to others
what is an example of a regulatory drive?
Seeking warmth when sick, flexible demand that can be changed if other concerns arise (threats etc.)
what is an example of a universal motive?
gossiping, present in lots of cultures but is not biologically determined.
what is an instinctual response?
cuddling a baby and finding its large eyes, short limbs, big head very cute
