lecture 6- learning Flashcards
learning
change in thought or behavior due to experience, study or practice
brain plasticity
- brain changes while learning
- neurons change how they connect and how they interact with each other
habituation
responses to the same stimulus decreases over time
aplysia example
a sea slug that has gills that are sensitive to stimuli retracts every time it sees a certain stimuli. scientist repeatedly show this stimulus and over time the slug does not retract its gill because it becomes used to that stimulus
- shows how brain plasticity is important (neurons changes to become habituated to certain stimuli)
classical conditioning
learning process where two stimuli are repeatedly paired: an automatic conditioned response is paired with a specific stimulus
- form of unconscious learning
pavlov’s experiment
every-time he gave a dog food, he played a sound. the dogs salivated when he got food. so over time when he played sound but didn’t give food, the dog still salivated
unconditioned stimulus (US)
produces a reflexive/automatic response
- ex: dog food
unconditioned response
natural/automatic reaction
- ex: saliva
conditioned stimulus
originally neutral stimulus (CS)
- ex: sound or metronome
conditioned response (CR)
a natural reaction that occurs due to the CS
- ex: saliva
little albert example
john watson would give a baby a white rat to play with and play a loud sound at the same time. The baby became scared of this rat along with other small animals.
- originally he was not scared of the rat but because he then associated it with a loud noise he was scared.
stages of classical conditioning
- Acquisition
- extinction
- spontaneous recovery
Acquisition
- initial learning phase
- depends on frequency and timing
effect of frequency in conditioning
- frequency refers to how often the CS is paired with the US
- pairing more often, increases strength of condition
effect of timing on conditioning
- timing refers to the of time between the CS and the US
- longer duration between the two stiumulus is less effective
- ringing a bell ten minutes after feeding the dog will not be as effective