Lecture 2: Intro to Learning; Ebbinghaus Flashcards
Learning, general
Learning is an area that belongs to psychology→ a change in behavior is learning
The science of how to change behavior is the science of learning
If you think that you were going to change behavior, you are an applied learning theorist
Almost everything we do is learned, even our ability to perceive things
o Our modes of perceiving are functions of past experience, from perceiving object to spatial relations, emotions, attitudes, expectations, sex
o Learning is the dominant feature – e.g. visual cliff; aboriginal tribe that cannot view three dimensions on a two-dimensional plane – – cannot perceive photographs
Learning begins at birth or possibly before, and continues until the disintegration of the organism
A knowledge of the characteristics of learning and the conditions which determine it is fundamental to understanding of physical development
Learning plays a role in everything, but everything is not learned
Harry Stack Sullivan: study of learning should be part of psychoanalysis
o but wasn’t able to fit it into theory, deemed research too difficult
o RO: “you can’t fault him. After all, he was only a physician”
Classical Conditioning, general
Pavlovian
Respondent conditioning
S-R conditioning
The behavior is evoked or elicited from the organism
The behavior is involuntary
Pavlov, Watson, Guthrie
Behavior Therapy
Classical Conditioning
Systematic Desensitization
Flooding
Implosive therapy
Assertiveness training (Salter)
Covert sensitization
Temple (Wolpe), Stony Brook, BC, Rutgers, Binghamton, Penn
When Behavior Therapy is attacked, it is almost always the classical conditioning approach
AABT Founders: Wolpe, Salter, Cautela, Eyesenck, Lazarus, Cyril Franks
Operant Conditioning, general
R-S conditioning
Instrumental
Future Frequency of behavior depends on stimuli that follow behavior
Behavior is emitted by the organism
Voluntary behavior
Thorndike, Hull-Spence, Skinner
Behavior Modification / Behavior Analysis
Operant Conditioning
You change the environment to change the organisms behavior
ABA
• RO: ACT has its roots in ABA: it as an approach to overcoming avoidance behavior
Contingency management
Shaping
Token economy
Skinner, Azrin, Lindsley, Salzinger, Lovaas
Kansas, West Virginia, Western Michigan, Southern Illinois, Virginia tech, Pacific, Drake
Classical Conditioning, Basic Components
Physiological responeses—CC deals with biological responses to certain stimuli
• US-UR: either innate or developed very early
In most of CC, responses are the same, they only differ in degree
CR=~UR: bell→ salivation
• chemical makeup of saliva is different in response to US and CS
o [ *bell is novel stimulus, not neutral stimulus]
Transmission from parents—fear generalization occurs in all organisms
• Response to one stimulus may also include aversion to other stimulus
o E.g. pedophilia: attraction to children & aversion to adult males/females
Therapeutic→ emotions are involuntary, i.e. one does not decide to become anxious/angry etc
o RO: Emotions are learned, but they are not decided upon
Reinforcement / consequences do not help much since responses are not decided upon
o Somewhat, e.g., accepting $1million to let a spider walk across face
Operant Conditioning
“3-term contingency” A-B-C
Antecedent-Behavior-Consequence
Response is emitted, depending on consequence, response is emitted again or not
Probability is function of stimuli that follow response→ R-S
Organism “voluntarily” emits Response
Behavior is Instrumental [operates on environment] in changing something
Vast majority of behavior is OC, because most of what we do is voluntary
Not criticized as much as CC
o RO: “Because it works!”
Hermann Ebbinghaus
German, interested in improving retention and memory
He assumed retention was a function of learning
Initially, dependent on strength of first learning
He was interested in classroom learning which relied on drills and rote memorization
The material would have to be uniform in difficulty and be similar in level of interest
His search for proper learning material led him to nonsense syllable as the working unit of learning
Goal was to minimize the meaning of the material to the subject, but using stimuli with which the subject had no prior history
Nonsense syllable→ CVC—consonant-vowel-consonant→ these are not words, they have no meaning
He would combine these non sense syllabus into lists of 8,10,12 arranged either in a series or in matched pairs
Used memory drums to test, spin drum to show e.g. RET, blank, ZOB, presents it after a certain amount of time no matter what you say, [trying to remember list]
Paired associate learning—also used drum • Learn that pairs go together: • RET • RET-BOZ • ZIZ • ZIZ-MAF
He used himself as his subject–results too biased to be meaningful, yet…
However his data were replicated by others under more controlled conditions
Even though his results could be questioned, his methods were adopted by many researchers
This approach became the standard for studying human learning in much of the first half of 1900’s: “verbal learning” or “human learning”
There was a Journal of Verbal Learning
Studies were easy to perform, therefore popular with grad students for theses/dissertations, as well as publish/perish professors
Many studies not particuarly meaningful
But a lof of solid findings as well as methodological approaches still employed today
E.g.:
o primacy and recency effect
o Different colors can make CVC more salient, would be learned in fewer trials than others
o Re-learning methodology [to study forgetting]
He had people learn the same list twice and measured the difference in number of trials to learn 2nd time and called it “savings”
• Interference with learning
o “retroactive inhibition”
• learn-read-test
• **learn-sleep-test performed better
• If 2 groups perform different activities before learning→ “proactive inhibition”
