Learning Theory Flashcards
What is behavior?
Classical ~vs~ Opperant
Classical
- Association between the two stimuli due to an involuntary (reflexive) response to the first stimulus.
- Passive learning (good vs bad).
Opperant
- Animals learn that the performance of a voluntary (nonreflexive) response to the situation will be followed by a reinforcing (or punishing) consequence.
- Active learning (most animal training).
Classical Conditioning Baics
(aka Associative Learning)
- Pavolovian Conditioning
- The simplest mechanism whereby an organism learns about relations between stimuli.
- Involves automatic, species typical responses.
Classical Conditioning
How does it work?
- Food (US) = Salivation (UR)
- Bell (NS) + Food (US) = Salivation (UR)
- Dog learns that bell = food
- Bell (CS) = Salivation (CR)
us: unconditioned stimulus
ur: unconditioned respone
ns: neutral stimulus
cs: conditioned stimulus
cr: conditioned response
Classical Conditioning
What happend with Mauka?
- Did not sit at door when requested.
- Owner yells at pup & forces to sit.
- yelling = fear, automatic response
- Pup learns:
- doorway + yelling = fear
- Doorway = Fear
Classical Conditioning
Other Examples
- Responses to treat jars.
- Can openers.
- Coming to the vet and getting shots.
- vet = pain
What are the basics of operant, or instrumental conditioning?
- Instrumental conditioning aka trial and error.
- Particular response results in outcome.
Examples:
- jumping for attention.
- barking for food at table.
What is a skinner box?
- Rats placed within the box had to learn to push a lever to get a food reward.
- operant or instrumental conditioning.
What is a thorndike puzzle box?
- Cat had to learn:
- to push a lever, pull on a wire loop, lift a latch, or push aside door to escape.
- Cats were rewarded:
- by food, which was placed outside the box.
- by escaping the tight confines of the box.
Operant or instrumental conditioning.
What are the four categories of operant conditioning?
In operant conditioning, reinforcement does what?
Increases behavior.
In operant conditioning, punishment does what?
Decreases behavior.
In operant conditioning, what is reinforcement and what does it do?
- It is anything that increases the likelihood that a behavior will occur again.
- It increases the chance that behavior will occur again.
- positive vs negative
- primary vs secondary
- EX: if you call your dog and give her a treat when she comes to you.
In operant conditioning, what are postitive reinforcers?
- Addition of something to increase probability of behavior occuring.
- Timing
- Must be reinforcing.
In operant conditioning, what are some examples of positive reinforcers?
- food
- attention
- play
In operant conditioning, how do positive reinforcers work in the first days of life?
- How to stay warm.
- Where to find milk.
In operant conditioning, what are negative reinforcers?
- removal of something aversive to increase the probability of a behavior occuring.
- NOT the same as punishment.
What are some examples of negative reinforcers?
- Escape from pain or restraint.
- ear pinch
- head halter
With the ear pinch, hold on with minimum pain. When the dog releases, he then allows the pressure to be removed.
What are primary reinforcers?
- Naturally or biologically reinforcing.
- Examples:
- food
- water
- sex
What are secondary reinforcers?
- Something intially meaningless paired with a primary reinforcer.
- Examples:
- verbal praise
- clicker
- can opener
What are the two types of reinforcment schedules?
- Continuous
- Intermittent
What is continuous reinforcement?
- Reinforce each response.
- Necessary for shaping.
- Use for learning then switch to intermittent.
What is intermittent reinforcement?
- Reward after
- certain number of responses.
- certain length of time.
- More resistant to extinction.
- Extinction
- removal of reinforcement causes behavior to cease.
- extinction burst.
- ex: barking at table.
What are some examples of intermittent reinforcement?
- Dog getting into trash.
- Slot machines.
What are the rules of reinforcement?
- Must be reinforcing.
- Must occur within 3 seconds of behavior.
- Must be continuous initially.
- When to switch from continuous to intermittent rate of reinforcemtn:
- Once animal knows request
- performs 9 out of 10 times.
- Once animal knows request
What are some things to keep in mind with reinforcement?
- Intermittent
- Keep animal interested.
- If lose interest, find something to reward to get them back in the game.
What is extinction?
- Extinction: when no reward follows response.
- most difficult if it has been reinforced intermittently.
- Examples:
- barking at table for food (operant)
- ignore barking (no reward)
- barking will stop (extinction), but may get worse before it gets better (extinction burst).
What is shaping?
- Set specific criteria.
- know what you want.
- Shaping
- continuously reinforce gradually more challenging behavior.
- can’t expect to learn complex behavior right away.
- intermittent reinforcement to maintain.
What is punishement?
- Decrease behavior.
- Types of punishment:
- Positive
- Negative
Example: you call your dog and then yell at her and give her a leash correction because she took too long.
What is positive punishment?
- The addition of something aversive.
- Examples:
- interactive
- remote
Example: dog raids the garbage can. You hit her with the newspaper while she is doing it. (NOT RECOMMENDED)
What is interactive (+) punishment?
- Direct yelling from person.
- Examples:
- yelling
- hitting
- choke chians
Is interactive (+) punishment recommened?
- Rarely recommended.
- Can produce fear.
- Can produce aggression.
What is remote (+) punishment?
- Person not directly associated with punishment.
- Examples:
- bark activated citronella collar.
- sticky tape.
What is negative punishment?
- Removal of something rewarding.
- Examples:
- time out
- walk away
- turn back
- leave park
How is negative punishment used?
- Timing is important.
- Use bridge stimulus if >3 seconds.
- intermediate marker to bridge time until primary punisher.
- Low frequency sound.
Always pick a neutral area that the animal knows is a place they go when they are bad.
Using a kazoo is a bridge tool. Should start these efforts in the home.
Punishment DOES NOT EQUAL?
Negative reinforcement.
Punishment: Decreases behavior.
Negative reinforcement: by removing something aversive you increase the likelihood that the behavior will occur.
What are the rules of reinforcement?
- Must be reinforcing.
- Must occur within 3 seconds.
- Must be continious intitially.
What are the rules of punishment?
- Must occur EVERY time.
- Must occur within 3 SECONDS.
- Must be a punishment to the animal.
- stops behavior after <3 pairings.
- remote punishers work the best.
- Provide opportunity to perform correct behavior!!
- Stage misbehavior.
- Don’t gradually increase punishment (habituation).
- Dependent on behavior, not punisher.
Let what the behavior does tell you what the punisher must be.
Always give the animal a choice opposing the negative behavior.
Start at a level that is going to stop the behavior and not allow it to continue.
How does good communicaiton factor in?
- Need good timing.
- reward or punish withing a few seconds.
- if timing is off:
- with positive reinforcement, animal just learns slower.
- with positive punishment, animal learns you’re unpredictable and scary.
What is habituation?
- Decrease in responsiveness resulting from repeated stimulation.
-
No adverse consequences
- stimulus
- owner
- Used to reduce anxiety-invoking stimuli (seperation anxiety or noise).
- Animal subjected to stimulus with no pain or injury.
- Young animals habituate more easily.
- Acitve process:
- lose if you don’t continually expose.
- dishabituation.
What are some techniques of habituation?
- Flooding: full force stimulus without the animal being able to flee.
- Controlled Exposure: little worried then calms back down.
- Desensitization: stay so far below the threshold that you never see the behavior you are treating. If you see the behavior you are doing something wrong.
What is flooding?
A habituation technique where:
- Full strength exposure continuously.
- Usually unintentional.
- Cannot let animal escape.
- Continue until animal relaxes.
- Unethical as a treatment option?
- Not suitable for extreme fears or phobias.
- Follow-up with counterconditioning to make happy in situation instead of neutral.
What is systematic desensitization?
- Gradual exposure to a provocative stimulus to minimize a response.
- Used to change emotional reactions.
- replaces aversive emotional response with neutral emotional response.
How is systematic desensitizaion used?
- Identify stimulus.
- Test stimulus.
- Establish gradient.
- intensity
- distance
- Gradually increase stimulus.
- Do not force animal to experience stimulus.
- Avoid full stimulus.
Change them from not wanting to see it to really wanting to see the object that makes them nervous.
Start outside of the animals threshold.
What is counterconditioning?
- Supplements desensitization.
- Replaces aversive emotional response with postivie emotional response.
- response is behaviorally and physiologically incompatible with another response.
- relaxed instead of fearful.
How do systematic desensitizaion and counterconditioning work together?
- Evoke positive emotional response incompatible with the aversive state.
- give animal something that you know makes him happy (food, petting, toy).
Guidelines for DS/CC
- Safety
- Neutral Environment
- Establish a gradient.
- Short duration (3-5 minutes).
- High frequency.
- End on a good note!
Conclusions to learning theory:
- Communicaiton
- Read the animals body language.
- Make sure your body language is appropriate.
- Learning occurs with every interaction.
- Starts when they’re born.
- Ends when they die.
- All animlas can learn.
- Don’t blame the animal.
- Find their motivation.
- If not learning, figure out what you are really reinforcing.
- Use learning theory to find another way.
