Learning In Psychology Flashcards
What is learning?
Any permanent change that occurs in behavior as a result of experience.
Learning is viewed as..
A process, than a collection of factual and procedural knowledge.
Relatively permanent
Refers to any changes in behavior due to experiences.
If an individual does not have the ability to remember what events have happened…
They have not learnt anything.
Define learning through experience or practice
Painful or noxious experiences are not forgotten easily, they tend to last for a lifetime. This means that we change our behavior to avoid the consequences that we have experienced before. On a positive side, we reinforce behavior when the consequences are pleasurable, which we have discovered through experience.
It is impossible that all changes can be accomplished through learning. Some changes can take place through ___________.
Maturation
Under what concept is this: any kind of change that takes place in a person’s behavior is learning.
Changes Leading to Learning
Spatial representations and relations were acquired, computed, and exploited.
Metaphor of “map control rooms”
S-R theories became attached to the analogy of…
Telephone switchboards
What is the analogy of telephone switchboards?
Stimulus inputs were connected to new response outputs through learning.
Cognitive theorists referred to reorganization of “electrical brain fields” and “neurophysiological traces systems related habit formation to establishment of neural “receptor-effector” connections.
Neurophysiological Basis of Learning: Brain Fields or Receptor-Effector Connections
Some scientists think that when we form habits, it changes the way our brain’s electricity works and leaves a kind of trace. Others believe it’s more about creating a direct link between what we sense and how we react.
Neurophysiological Basis of Learning: Brain Fields or Receptor-Effector Connections (simple definition)
Why did Spence basically said that those ideas of neurophysiological basis of learning don’t really matter much when we’re trying to understand how learning works?
Imagining how the brain works without connecting it to experimentas and results don’t help us learn much about hiw learning happens. Those brain theories were based more on personal reflection than on actual brain studies.
According to Guthrie, Thorndike, and Hull, learning is about..
Forming S-R (stimulus-response) Associations, linking stimuli to physical reactions like muscle movements and gland activity.
Hull’s view about S-R association is based on
His ideas about brain function, not because not his mathematical definition of habit.
According to Spence in the S-S and S-R association, most learning involves:
Forming connections between stimuli and responses.
This is when cognitve theorists believed that learning is forming connections between sensory experiences ir reorganizing them.
Stimulus-Stimulus (S-S) or Situmulus-Response (S-R) Associations
The distinction that acknowledges a significant difference in focus between cognitive and S-R theorists.
Contents Vs. Conditions of Learning
In Contents Vs. Conditions of Learning, what did Spence note on cognitive theorists?
- They tend to emphasize on “intrinsic” properties of their constructs
- Concentrated on the content of learning
- Relies too much on introspection to make inferences about contents of learning.
In Contents Vs. Conditions of Learning, what did Spence note on S-R theorists?
- concerned with the empirical relations among experimental variables that determine their constructs.
- focused on the conditions under which learning occurred.
Investigators from the cognitive tradition tended to examine the effects of variables that influenced the receipt of stimuli (e.g., orienting and attention) and perceptual
organization.
Stimulus Variables: Intrinsic Vs. Extrinsic
What did Spence argued in Organism as Active or Passive Processor of Information
Spence argued that cognitive theorists misunderstood the S-R (Stimulus-Response) theory, which does consider the organism’s active role in learning, especially in how attention and reinforcement influence learning processes.
Summary of Organism as Active or Passive Processor of Information
This discussion is about whether organisms are just passive recipients of information, reacting to every stimulus around them, or if they actively process information by choosing and organizing it before forming associations.
Types of learning
- Classical conditioning
- Operant conditioning
- Observational learning
A Russian physiologist who achieved the goal of mental activity
Ivan Pavlov
Year when Ivan Pavlov won a nobel prize for his study in digestive systems of his dogs.
1904
Classical conditioning involves
Involves forming an association between two stimuli resulting in a learned response
Classical conditioning is defined as
Learning to make a reflex response to a stimulus other than the original one and also to the natural stimulus that normally produces it.
Basic phases of classical conditioning
Phase 1: Before conditioning
Phase 2: During conditioning
Phase 3: After conditioning
Phase 1: Before Conditioning
Process requires a naturally occuring (unconditioned) stimulus that will automatically ellicit a (unconditioned) response.
Phase 1
Unconditioned stimulus=Unconditioned response
Introduced: neutral stimulus
Phase 2: During Conditioning
Previously neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with the unconditioned stimulus.
Phase 2
Neutral stimulus + Unconditioned stimulus = Neutral stimulus becomes Conditioned stimulus
Phase 3: After Conditioning
Once the association has been made between the UCS and the CS, presenting the conditioned stimulus alone will come to evoke a response even without the unconditioned stimulus. The resulting response is known as the conditioned response (CR).
Phase 3
Conditioned stimulus triggers Conditioned response
Identify conditioned stimulus and unconditioned response:
The bell rang and the dog immediately salivated.
Conditioned stimulus: bell
Unconditioned response: salivated, salivation
Identify unconditioned stimulus and conditioned response:
The owner put the food down and rang the bell, which made the dog come over and salivate.
Unconditioned stimulus: food
Conditoned response: dog coming over and salivate
Who conducted the Little Albert Experiment, and when?
John B. Watson and Rosaile Rayner, 1920
What experiment is the classic example of Conditoned Emotional Response?
Little Albert Experiment
Six Principles of Classical Conditioning
- Acquisition
- Stimulus Generalization
- Stimulus Discrimination
- Extinction
- Spontaneous Recovery
- Higher-Order Conditioning
Acquisition
Pairing the unconditioned stimulus with the conditioned stimulus together.
Stimulus Generalization
To respond to a stimulus that is merely similar to the original conditioned stimulus.
Stimulus Discrimination
An organism reacts to one stimulus and not to other.
Extinction
Response will get weaker if the conditined stimulus is presented over and over without the unconditioned stimulus.
Spontaneous Recovery
Recurrence of a learned response immediately following apparent conditioning. Occurence of a response of conditioned response which had already been extinguished.
Higher-Order Conditioning
It occurs when a strong conditioned stimulus is paired number of times with a neutral stimulus. The strong CS can actually play the part of a UCS, and the previously neutral stimulus becomes the second conditioned stimulus.
Application of Classical Conditioning: Phobias
Fear that persists even when no realistic danger exist.
Application of Classical Conditioning: Systematic Dysensitization
Overcoming fear and develop positive feelings towards the feared object.
Developed in 1924 by Mary Clover Jones
Application of Classical Conditioning: Systematic Desensitization
Application of Classical Conditioning: Biological Preparedness
People and animals are naturally inclined to form asscociations between certain stimuli and responses.
Operant Conditioning
Referred as instrumental conditioning, method of learning thay employs rewards and punishments for behavior.
Operant Conditioning was first described by:
B.F. Skinner
Which psychologist was Skinner’s theory heavily influenced by?
Edward Thorndike
Two different types of behaviors
Respondent behaviors and Operant behaviors
Respondent behaviors: __________________ ; Operant behaviors: ____________________.
Occur automatically and reflexively; Under conscious control.
Components of Operant Conditioning
Reinforcement: Positive and Negative
Punishment: Positive and Negative
Reinforcement
Any event that strengthens or increases the the behavior it follows.
Compare positive and negative reinforcement.
Positive: behavior or response is strengthened by addition of praise or direct reward.
Negative: removes undesirable events or outcomes after display to behavior.
Compare postive and negative punishment.
Postive: punishment by application
Negative: punishment by removal
Continous involvment
Delivering a reinforcement everytime a response occurs.
Fixed-ratio schedules
Responses are inforced only after a specifix number of responses have occured.
Fixed-interval schedules
Reinforcement occurs only after a certain intervak of time has elapsed.
Variable-ratio schedules
Involves reinforcing behavior after a varied number of responses.
Variable-interval schedules
Involves delivering reinforcement after a varibale amount of time has elapsed.
A learner watches and replicates the behavior of the model.
Observational learning.
Observational learning theory
Theory that behavior can be learned through observation of others.
Observational Learning Theory is also called as
Social Learning Theory.
Who created the observational learning theory
Behaviorist Albert Bandura
What experiment is social learning theory based on?
Television viewing experiment
Before anything can be learned from a model, the model must be attended to.
Attention
Retention
Observers must not only recognize the observed behavior but also remember it at some later time.
Motor Reproduction Processes
One must have the necessary motor skills to be capable of producing an act.
Reinforcement and Motivation
Reinforcement- creates expectation that they will be reinforced if they act like pthers who have been reinforced.
Motivation- provide motive in utilizing what has been learned.
