Lecture 7 - Perceptual and Statistical Learning

Question 1

associative learning

Answer 1

both classical and operant conditioning (what goes with what?)

Question 2

Both classical and operant conditioning require

Answer 2

the detection and prediction of contingencies (the presence of one thing relies on the presence of another) in the environment

Question 3

For classical conditioning, the conditioned stimulus (CS) predicts the

Answer 3

unconditioned stimulus (US).

Question 4

In operant conditioning, the operant behavioral response (R) predicts

Answer 4

the outcome (O).

Question 5

In both cases, the association will become weaker (extinction) if

Answer 5

the prediction is less informative.

Question 6

Paired-associate learning

Answer 6

is a testing procedure developed by Mary Whiton Calkins (1894).

• You repeatedly present pairs of items (usually
words or letter patterns) and allow the subject to build an ‘association’ between them.
- see how many repetions necessary to make the association

• Behaviorists later adopted a S –> R –> O model
in an attempt to explain this.

EX: trying to learn “rabbit” and “el conejo”

• Behaviorists say:
“rabbit” (S) –> “el conejo” (R) –> “good job!” (O)

Question 7

paired-associate learning doesn’t quite fit the
behaviorist model (difficult to explain this kind of learning).

Answer 7

1) The learned association is bidirectional.
o Rabbit –> el conejo AND el conejo –> rabbit.
- you can trigger the other response even if it hasn’t been reinforced

2) People use top-down information to facilitate the paired associations (Atkinson, 1975).
- people can use some kind of visual element (imagery) to combine and embody the two words: come up with an image that links the two
- problem for behaviorists because they argue it’s only the enforcer

“rabbit” and “el conejo” (rabbit wearing an ice cream cone)

Question 8

Classical and operant conditioning provided some great experimental techniques, but had serious theoretical flaws:

Answer 8

• Couldn’t readily explain individual or species differences in learning.
• Ignored top-down influences on learning.
• Contingencies can sometimes be bidirectional.
• In general, had difficulty dealing with computational complexity (hard to constrain learning outside of the laboratory).

However, there does seem to be something important
about how we TRACK REGULARITIES in the environment.

Question 9

tracking regularities

Answer 9

we are good at seeing what goes with what

Question 10

How accurate are we at detecting contingencies?

experiment by Smedslund (1963)

Answer 10

• nurses were asked to sort through 100 patient cards to see if a particular symptom predicted
the presence of a specific disease (outcome).

• Although the symptom is present more often overall, it has no real
predictive value for the presence of the disease (not contingent).

• 85% of the nurses determined that when the symptom was present,
the disease was more likely. This is an illusory correlation.

shows that humans have a tendency to find causal links and if they’re not there we impose them.

we’re constantly looking for association and we find them (whether they’re real or not)

Question 11

Much of our learning is driven by

Answer 11

detecting regularities in the
environment following repeated exposures/experiences (non-associative).
- the perceptual system just looks for regularities (id and distinguish things in the environment)

Question 12

perceptual learning

Answer 12

we become better able to distinguish similar stimuli with experience.

• Chicken sexers are able to distinguish sexes at 1 day of age. Many can’t verbalize how this is done.
• This learning may be due to (1) mere exposure or (2) discrimination training.

Question 13

In mere exposure learning (Gibson & Gibson, 1955)

Answer 13

there is no explicit training during the presentation of stimuli.
- learning to make visual discrimination just by seeing things a lot

• Participants were shown a series of cards and indicated when they
matched a target (circular scribble). No feedback was given.

• Participants were initially good at identifying the target, but mistakenly identified the similar items.

• With repeated exposures, they were able to distinguish the target
from very similar distracters.

Question 14

With discrimination training

Answer 14

feedback is provided to

improve accuracy. This may combine perceptual learning with operant conditioning.

Question 15

Fiorentini & Berardi (1981)

discrimination training

Answer 15

• trained participants to match complex visual images rotated by 1 degree.
• After initial training, they rotated the images 90 degrees…

By changing the orientation of the images (but not the
features of the image), performance dropped back to chance.

 * This is an example of learning specificity. 
* initial learning might interfere (when the stimuli are very similar)

Question 16

learning specificity in perceptual learning

Answer 16

The training or ability does not easily generalize once the stimuli change in a
significant way.

you’re learning to make just that one discrimination

Question 17

perceptual priming

Answer 17

you are more likely to recognize (and
faster to process) a stimulus that has been seen previously.

• If you saw “Motor Supply?” on the first slide before lecture, you
would have been primed to use those words to complete the word stems.

• This can be done without conscious recall and is an example of latent learning. The priming had an effect, even though you may not have been aware of it and it didn’t have an immediate behavioral impact.

• This also implies a learning-performance distinction. Your internal system is changed as a result of experience (i.e.
you’ve learned something), but that doesn’t necessarily result in a difference in behavior (learning and behavior can be separated).

Question 18

latent learning

Answer 18

priming had an effect, even though you may not have been aware of it and it didn’t have an immediate behavioral impact.

learning done without any sort of awareness and no conscious recall

Question 19

learning-performance distinction

Answer 19

Your internal system is changed as a result of experience (i.e.
you’ve learned something), but that doesn’t necessarily result in a difference in behavior (learning and behavior can be separated).

Question 20

behaviorists: learning is performance

but for priming studies

Answer 20

we can have latent learning (some change was made)

Question 21

Nonhuman animals also show effects
of perceptual priming.

• Bond & Kamil (1999)

Answer 21

demonstrated
that blue jays were more accurate to detect a ‘moth’ if they had been primed with the image before.

• This kind of non-associative learning
seems ubiquitous.

Question 22

the perceptual system is always looking for things

Answer 22

contingencies or patterns

even if we’re not aware of it

Question 23

statistical learning experiment on CogLab

Answer 23

In our visual experiment with statistical learning, you watched a continuous
stream of shapes. The stream contained four triplets of three shapes that
always occurred in the same order.
You were then tested with pairs of triplets and asked which one seemed
more familiar. There were three types of test stimuli.

• Always (A): Three shapes in the right order (e.g. ABC).
• Impossible (I): Three shapes that never appeared in order (e.g. ADG).
• Possible (P): Could appear by chance (e.g. BCG).

Question 24

Our group data (n=173) indicates that you were sensitive to

the patterns:

Answer 24

• There will be individual variation, but the pattern is the same as the global data.
• You may not have been aware of the patterns. This would be an example of latent learning.

you didn’t have to be actively making associations to produce contingencies through exposure

Question 25

Adults are very good at extracting structure from a stream of stimuli.

Saffran, Aslin & Newport (1996)

Answer 25

asked if 8-month old
infants could learn word boundaries based purely on
sequential statistics.

• Infants listened to two-minute streams of four three-syllable
nonsense “words”.
…bidakupadotigolabubidakutupiro…
…bidaku/padoti/golabu/bidaku/tupiro…

• The only cue was that the transitional probabilities within words (da followed bi 100% of the time) was greater than between
words (pa followed ku 33% of the time).

Would infants notice the difference between words (bidaku) and non-words (dotigo)?

  • Yes! Infants detected the difference between bidaku and dotigo (novel)

(as measured with preferential looking measures).

  * This demonstrates that infants (at 8 months!) can segment words based purely on statistical cues, and with very little exposure (2minutes!).
  * These are contingent probabilities, not simple frequencies.

Question 26

Paired-associate learnin

Answer 26

(1) demonstrates that contingencies between stimuli can be bidirectional.
(2) They can also be affected by top-down processing (without explicit reinforcement).

Question 27

Humans appear to be biased to see

Answer 27

illusory correlations where
none exist.

This means we track and learn regularities in the environment.

Question 28

Perceptual learning allows us to make

Answer 28

fine distinction between
stimuli.

This can be done through mere exposure or
discrimination training.

However, it seems to be specific to the items learned and does not generalize.

Question 29

Priming illustrates

Answer 29

how we are faster to process certain images if
we have had prior exposure

If there is a delay, this is a good example of latent learning and the learning-performance distinction.

Question 30

Statistical learning (a kind of perceptual learning)

Answer 30

demonstrates how we can learn visual and auditory contingencies from the
environment based purely on probabilities.