Lecture 3 - Learning Flashcards
types of behaviour
reflexes, instincts and learning
reflexes
inevitable involuntary respondes controlled by the spinal cord
instincts
inborn behaviours and fixed actions patterns that do not depend on experience
learning
relatively permanent change in behaviour due to experience
three types of learning
associative, non-associative and observational
associative learning
formation of associations or connections among stimuli and behaviours
classical condition (from associative learning) and more involuntary
type of learning where associations are formed between two simuli that occur sequentially (fear of needles)
operant conditioning (from associative learning)
type of learning in which associations are formed between behaviours and their outcomes (motivational stickers) (a voluntary behaviour)
nonassociative learning
learning that involves changes in the magnitude of responses to stimuli
habituation (from nonassociative learning)
a type of learning in which reactions to repeated stimuli that are unchanging and harmless decrease
sensitization
a type of learning that, following exposure to one strong stimulus, reaction to many stimuli increases
difference between sensory adaptation and habituation
habituation is more to do with learnign where as SA is a reduction in sensory receptors
observational learning
also known as social learning/modeling which occurs when one organisms learns by watching the actions of another organisms
Pavlov’s dog and classical conditioning
a type of unconscious/automatic learning (dog salivates to food but not metronome, but when put together and after only metronome dog does salivate)
unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
stimulus that elicits a response without prior experience
unconditioned response (UCR)
a response to an unconditioned stimulus that requires no previous experience
conditioned stimulus (CS)
an environmental event whose significance is learned through classical conditioning
conditioned response (CR)
a response learned through classical conditioning
how does learning occur?
through acquisition
acquisition
refers to the development of a conditioned response
what does acquisition require
temporal contiguity betweens the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus and contingency/correlation between conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus
extinction
reduction of a learned response that ocuurs when the unconditioned stimulus no longer follows the conditioned stimulus (not the same as forgetting)
inhibition
feature of classical conditioning in which conditioned stimulus predicts the nonoccurence of an unconditioned stimulus
generalisation
the tendency to respond in the same way to different but similar stimuli
discrimination
a learned ability to distinguish between stimuli
high-order conditioning
learning in which stimuli associated with a conditioned stimulus also elicit conditioned responses
latent inhibition
the slower learning that occurs when a conditioned stimulus is already familiar compared to when the CS is unfamiliar
Rescorla-Wagner model
- Rate of learning of a CS depends on how new or surpising the association between the CS and the UCS is
- Early in training, learning proceeds rapidly (association is new and surprising)
- Later in training, gains in conditioning strength level off (plateau)
Applying classical conditioning through four actions
overcoming fear, attitude and prejudice, addiction, and creativity
overcoming fear through
exposure therapy, counterconditioning (pairing conditioned stimulus to a stimulus eliciting an opposite response) and systematic disensitization
operant conditioning
association between a behaviour and its consequences
differences between classical CC and operant conditioning OC
CC based on association vbetween two simuli and OC occurs when behaviour is associated with its consequences. CC works best with involuntary behaviour and OC with voluntary behaviour
consequences of operant conditioning
positive reinforcement (increase frequence of associated behaviour by adding stimulus) or negative reinforcement (removal of stimulus to increase frequency of an associated behaviour)
Bandura and aggresion experiment
inflatable doll hit by adult, and shown to children, when they were annoyed they would also hit the doll
Bandura four components of modeling behaviour
attention, retainment, reproduction and motivation
