Lecture 5: Social Learning Flashcards
What is the main difference between social learning and instrumental/classical conditioning?
instrumental and classical involve learning from direct experience, rather than from the experience of others.
Define social learning
Acquiring the behaviour of others (models) through observation.
What are some characteristics of social learning
- Transmission of information from one to another.
- If it is not socially transmitted learning then it should appear randomly, but it was occurring in a specific pattern both chronologically and geographically.
What would be described if the birds learning to peck milk was instrumental learning? What does this mean when you look at how they actually learn it?
R –> pecking the lid. Rft –> accessing the milk. (Sd –> milkman gone)
Means they would probably be acquiring behaviour by social facilitation
What factors compare social facilitation to social learning?
1) Goal enhancement - getting access to some wanted goal might faciliate later trial and error learning
- being in a group of conspecifics increasing chance that reinforcer will be experienced. i.e. more likely to experience the US
2) stimulus enhancement - observe others and are often more likely to approach places that the others are.
- one of them has learnt by direct experience and the rest follow
3) Increased motivation to act - try more new things in the company of friends and parents.
- because e.g. more relaxed
4) Contagious behaviour - mimicking an already established behaviour
- eg. yawning
- no thinking or goal attached
What is an example of Observational learning? what is important to note?
Monkey see monkey do. If a lab-raised monkey, not afraid of snakes, sees its mate react with fear to a snake, then it will acquire fear
NB:
- fear is quite permanent
- could be an instinct
- doesn’t mean there is an understanding of why it is scared
What are the CS etc for the monkey thing?
see slide 10
How about generalisation with monkey fear?
- with aversive consequences works for snake but does not work for a flower (observational fear conditioning) however
with appetitive consequences flower vs snake is approx equal
What is a two-action test? give an example. What is important to note
Where there are two potential actions.
An example is the quail. when faced with either pecking or stepping, each bird mostly does what it witnessed.
NB: The quail might understand that it might need to copy an action to get a reward, or copy it without knowing about reward.
Describe Capp et al.’s experiment. What were the experimental groups?
Compared the learning of chimpanzees and young children. They were exposed to a cannister. Cannister could either break in half or lids come loose at the ends for food inside to be revealed.
Experimental Groups:
1) shown the action and the reward/reinforcement
2) see the action only don’t see the reward/reinforcement
3) just see cannister open with food inside. Don’t know how it happened
4) control group
What were the findings of Capp et., al’s experiments?
The chimpanzees only followed the same action they saw 20% of the time. But they do attempt to emulate. The children are better at solving the problem in the same way the performer does. Showing what is inside i.e. group 3 does not help children as much as it helps chimpanzees, instead they are more social and it is about what they see happen –> imitate.
What are the three types of Social (instrumental) learning?
Mimicry, emulation and imitation
Describe the three types of social (instrumental) learning. Give examples where applicable.
1) mimicry - copying without reference to a goal whatsoever.
2) emulation - understanding that there is a goal but not using the exact same method to achieve it.
- e.g. Chimps grab a rake after seeing a chimp using the rake to get food but don’t do the same motion with it
3) imitation - copying with reference to a goal after observing how the end goal is achieved.
- e.g. infants solving two-action tasks in exactly the same way the demonstrator did.
What type of learning does the Bobo Doll induce and why/how?
Modelling.
This is because it is not emulation (there is no goal). Also is not simply imitation as the subjects are innovative in their violent methods.
–> model general styles of behaviour
What cognitive aspects of social learning were suggested by this finding of modelling?
1) people actively watch others to gain knowledge about the types of things they do.
2) use that knowledge in situations where it’s useful
3) information is not always used immediately
