Lecture 26 - Observational learning Flashcards
What is observational learning?
Observational learning occurs when an organism’s responding is influenced by the observation of others’ behaviour (models).
By watching another organism do some behaviour, it changes the probability/likelihood that we will do that behaviour
Anecdotal evidence of observational learning
There is a variety of anecdotal evidence that social learning and mimicry takes place in a variety of species.
English titmouse (bird)
Make holes in tinfoil to get the cream off the top of the milk
Other animals learnt the behaviour
It seems unlikely that all these birds are learning the behaviour uniquely by a matter of trial and error. Instead, what seems to be happening is some social transmission of the behaviour in that way
Parrots mimicry of speech
“Monkey see, monkey do”.
Idea that other primates in particular monkeys or other apes also behave as a product of social transmission
Children
Tendency to try and imitate behaviours that they see older siblings, friends or even adults do.
It is why you do not leave dangerous things down with children because they will pick them up and try imitate the behaviour that they see adults doing
Evolutionary rationale of evolutionary behaviour
There is a good evolutionary rationale to why animals might be programmed to do these sorts of things. It is a very good mechanism for acquiring adaptive behaviours and it is a lot quicker to learn by copying the behaviour of other organisms than it is by having to learn everything by trial and error by yourself
As a mechanism for acquiring adaptive behaviours, it compares favorably with other learning mechanisms.
Speed of acquisition quicker than trial and error learning.
Generally advantageous, or at least harmless, to copy others than be innovative.
It is likely that it is a fairly safe behaviour because if it is not, the ones that did perform it would be dead
But is there evidence that animals show observational learning rather than “blind imitation” or “local enhancement”?
Palameta, B. & Lefebvre, L. (1985). Animal Behavior, 33, 892-896.
A demonstrator bird trained to pierce red-half of a piece of paper to obtain food.
Enclose and have a glass window in the middle
Previously trained the demonstrated bird that when it is released inside the enclosure, it wanders across there in the floor is a piece of tissue paper and the bird is trained that if it picks through the red tissue paper, it will find some food underneath it.
Procedure Experiment 1
Each group has 5 subjects. 10 trials of 10 minutes.
4 groups trying to control for the different possibilities
Group NM (no model). Never observed the demonstrator. Group BI (blind imitation). Observed demonstrator pierce paper, but no seed available. Will the pigeon just blinding imitate the demonstrator irrespective of the consequences?
Group LE (local enhancement). Observed demonstrator obtain seed, but paper pierced in advance. Group OL (observational learning). Observed demonstrator pierce paper and eat seed. If it is up the top of the graph then it means that it has not been found
Group NM (No Model)
Control group never find the food
Their free-ranging, spontaneous behaviour is not good enough for them to learn to peck through the tissue paper and find the food
It is not something that is just wired into it
Group BI (Blind Imitation)
Triangles
The bird just running across and pecking through the tissue paper for no apparent reason and this by itself is not enough but one of them did right towards the end of the 10th season
But clearly it is not a very powerful drive
Group LE (Local Enhancement)
These are the ones that saw the other pigeon go across to the tissue paper that was already torn up, find food
Get some evidence of it in that particular condition, but nothing as dramatic as group OL
Group OL (Observational Learning)
Learn the behaviour pretty reliably in this particular context
So from all of this we can see that there is some evidence of some sort of social transmission of the behaviour
Procedure Experiment 2
Two groups, Deferred Observational Learning (DOL) and Deferred Local Enhancement (DLE), trained as before, but now tested in the model’s absence.
Demonstrator bird pecks through tissue paper and gets food, but the watching bird does not have any paper there and the floor is actually covered over so it cannot perform the behaviour at the same time. Once it has watched the demonstration, you take the birds out, then you put the tissue paper in and you put the bird in and see what it remembers from what the other bird did and whether it will do it now. That behaviour is called delayed imitation and it is a much harder test of whether the behaviour has been socially transmitted
Get nothing for the local enhancement but for the observational learning condition, you still get a reliable amount even though you have made it more difficult
Cook, & Mineka, S. (1987). Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 98, 448-459.
People speculate whether certain fears like the fear of mice are more socially transmitted than experimentally acquired
Can elicit a fear response in the presence of a stimulus e.g. by yelling and screaming in the presence of a mouse that the other individual may not be afraid of
Tried to train fear of snakes in monkeys by observation.
Look to see whether it could be any stimulus at all or whether some were more salient/effective than others
Procedure
She has a group of monkeys that have been raised in captivity, and they have never had any first hand exposure to snakes (they are inexperienced in terms of snakes)
She took a money that wasn’t raised in captivity and videotaped this monkey doing a fear response to a boa constrictor and then she had other videos of the same monkey with artificial flowers put down and there was no fear response caused by the flowers
Videotape a monkey displaying fear to boa constrictor, and no-fear to artificial flowers. Edit the tapes. Edit the tapes to show that they were chilled with the boa constrictor and scared of the articifical flowers and then also showed the objects with the normal response
Group 1. Monkeys see a monkey fear artificial flowers, but show no fear to a toy snake
Group 2. Monkeys see a monkey fear a toy snake, but show no fear to artificial flowers
Then test both groups. Monkeys must reach past a real snake, a toy snake, or artificial flowers to get food.
Neutral/control response shows that the monkeys are quite quick to get the food
Watching the video of the snake fear did transmit some fear, they were more cautious having seen that video but it had to be something sensible to elect the fear response. If it was the toy flowers at the fear response that wasn’t socially transmitted so there seems to be biological predispositions concerning what sort of stimuli will have the fear transmitted in this sort of way
Fear of snakes learnt by observation, but also biological constraints - no fear of flowers learnt.
Bandura et al. (1963, 1965) - aggression and “Bobo”.
Children who had observed the aggressive modelling adopted much of it and even invented new ways for attacking the doll
Children who had not observed the adult were less aggressive and never hit the bobo doll in the novel ways that were nodded
Children who had been exposed to aggressive modelling showed an increased attraction to guns, even though the adult model never used them.
Implications for modelling aggression (e.g., TV).
Desensitises viewers to human cruelty and changes attitudes towards violence
Televised modelling is becoming an influential vehicle for political and social change
Graph
Consequences determine the imitative responses slightly
there is not much of a difference between reward or no consequences but you do get a dip if the model is in some way admonished or punished for those particular behaviours
Gender different more a result of the time rather than the experiment itself (was more acceptable for boys to be more aggressive when playing than girls)
Bandura et al. (1967)
children’s fear of dogs. Showing boy playing fearlessly with dog helped reduce fear.
Bandura’s 4 key processes for the process of observational learning to be observed
These are Bandura’s 4 key processes for the process of observational learning to be observed
Attention
Modelling can only occur when the observers attention is drawn to the particular behaviour that is to be modelled later on
It is an active process that requires some sort of attention, it has to be able to be remembered
Retention
Requires the you can actually remember all the steps to a behaviour that you are watching
Production
The person has to actually be able to perform the actions that we are observing
There are constraints on what could be learned by observational learning just in terms of the person’s ability to reproduce it
Motivation
If the behaviour looks silly or unecessary or a waste of time, people won’t blindly imitate that behaviour
Using modelling effectively - model selection could be really important in terms of whether the behaviour is modelled
Selecting models
1. Model’s similarity to the observer. More likely to imitate someone who shares attributes, talents, or deficiencies with themselves
2. Model’s competence. People who accomplish things of functional value are most likely to be good models (but not too competent).
3. Observer’s previous experience with model. Past failures/success at imitating model.
More likely to model people when you have had a good successful experience modelling them before
The past failures or successes you have had modelling someone make it more or less likely that you willl model their behaviours in the future
4. Model’s prestige. “High-ranked”, “group leaders”, are more likely to be modelled.
More likely to be getting positive reward for those particular positions so are more likely to be influenced by these people as you want to reap the same benefits
5. Multiple models. Several models typically exert more influence than a single one.
Applied issue of model selection
Teaching self-protection to children using television techniques (Poche et al., 1988).
Problem
Child abduction - 10% to 17% of abductions use physical force - others enticement.
Not restricted to strangers but don’t want indiscriminate fear of unfamiliar persons.
Subjects
Boys and girls, 5-7 years old.
Training 4 groups
1. No-training control
2. Standard program (60 min)
Described two rules:
1.) “No, I have to go ask mum/dad/teacher”
2.) Run quickly direction mum/dad/teacher
Discuss typical abduction situations and ask questions.
- Videotape only (25 min)
Several scenes male adults enticing children
Child actors demonstrated the 2 rules.
Videotape interactive and guided attention. - Videotape + behavioural rehearsal (45 min)
Videotape as above, then each child rehearses rules until correct.
Test
“New PE teacher” takes child outdoors.
Forgets something, leaving child.
“Abductor” approaches, chats, then entices
Results
Video and Behavioural rehearsal was the most effective
At the end all of the kids got the best treatment
Follow-up
Does learning generalize to new situation?
Nine of the children who performed correctly were later treated with a follow-up, one month later. Situation near home, not at school.
All performed the same behaviours except one, who just ran away. (Running away is the one we want)
