Learning + Memory Flashcards
Conditioning in Newborns example
Sugar water (UCS) activates sucking reflex [opens mouth/sucking] (UCR) and touch their forehead (NS)
Instrumental Conditioning
- aka operant conditioning
- learning relation between one’s own behavior and consequences
- usually involves (+) and (-) reinforcement
EX: rat hits lever + receives food
HUMAN EX: observed by 2mo = sensitivity to timing of contingency
How to test Instrumental Conditioning
- string attached to mobile and infant will learn association between their behavior and its impact/effect
Ferberization
Ignoring child when they cry so theyre not trained to associate crying + parent response
Implicit/Statistical Learning
infants are sensitive to statistically predictive patterns
- when pattern breaks, they will look longer (transitional probabilities)
Prepared Learning
- some evidence for biological predispositions that determine strength/ease of learning
EX: imprinting = baby chicks will look at the first thing that moves and stick w/ it for life + for comfort/safety - typically fixed (respond to certain stimuli) but flexible (perceptually)
- designed for specific purposes learning
- usually survival benefits
The Garcia effect
one time learning pain response of food (aversion) specifically when that food made you sick
Why are spiders so feared?
- been around forever
- you’re drawn to images (regular or scrambled) that look like spiders
- possibility of them harming you
- dev: children naturally search for snakes + spiders than neutral stimuli
Infants + Spiders
babies will respond more attentively to an image of a spider compared to scrambled image
= suggests we have “learned” to detect spiders over evolutionary history
- infants biased to match (-) emotional sounds to spiders +snakes
Matching sounds with pics study
hippo and snakes image with happy sound or scared voice = infants look longer at happy + hippo and then fearful + snake too (so they have bias)
