PSYC1002 #2 Flashcards
From middle of sleep lecture just before the start of behaviour
1
Q
What does the suprachiasmatic nucleus control and do? How long does the human clock go for and how does the clock work?
Are sleep and wakefulness cycles affected by light?
A
Controls release of hormone melatonin from pineal gland
o Its activity acts as a clock and keeps track of the time of day tells body what time it is
o In humans, this clock goes for a total of 25 hours it is a bit slow but when light hits your face it resets
o Takes a few days for the clock to be reset properly easier to set your clock later than earlier so it’s easier to get over jetlag from a western country than from an eastern country
o Sleep and wakefulness cycles are not affected by lack of light
2
Q
What does melatonin do and signal? When do levels of melatonin in blood peak? What is the difference in melatonin between young adults and old people?
A
• Melatonin signals night time to whole body
o Levels of melatonin level in blood from 12pm-6pm are flat but peaks at 12am and then goes back down in the morning
o The rise in melatonin is a cue for the brain to be going to sleep
o Young adults release more melatonin during the evening than older people
3
Q
What does adenosine do when we’re awake
A
Builds up in brain
-Being awake for longer increases amount of adenosine
o Adenosine increases sleepiness (sleep pressure desire to go to sleep based on how long you’ve been awake) by inhibiting alertness centres (especially Ach in pons) and stimulating sleep centres (pre-optic area)
o Brain uses accumulation of adenosine level as an indicator of how long the person has been awake for
4
Q
How is adenosine produced?
A
by brain as by-product of activities
5
Q
How do you get rid of adenosine?
A
Through sleep
6
Q
What does caffeine do?
A
Blocks adenosine receptors
7
Q
What happens during an all-nighter
A
o An all-nighter means that melatonin levels go back down in the morning, but adenosine levels keep accumulating so feel less tired in the morning of an all-nighter but deadly tired the next night
8
Q
Where is the pre-optic area?
A
In the anterior hypothalamus
9
Q
What does destruction of the pre-optic area do?
A
Cause insomnia
10
Q
What does stimulation of the pre-optic area do?
A
Induce sleep
11
Q
What neurotransmitter do neurons in the pre-optic area contain and what does it do?
A
GABA- this neurostransmitter inhibits Ach, 5HT and NA arousal systems in brainstem so that you can go to sleep
12
Q
How do you measure activity when someone is asleep?
A
EEG
13
Q
What is the electrical activity in our brains when we’re awake?
A
• When we’re awake, the electrical activity in our brains is of high frequency but with small fluctuations
14
Q
How is sleep characterised, and how is it achieved?
A
• Sleep is characterised by slow rhythmic patterns of electrical activity in the brain (slow-wave sleep, the 4th cycle of sleep).
o Activity slows down but fluctuations in electrical activity get larger and slower
Neurons around cortex are being synchronised
Synchronisation of neurons is achieved by the thalamus
• Thalamus can coordinate unification of brain as it is bidirectionally connected to the cortex can communicate with the cortex and cortex can communicate to it
15
Q
What is Rapid Eye Movement sleep?
A
o At multiple times through the night, the brain waves become desynchronised, just like when we’re awake
o During these periods, the eyes dart back and forth
16
Q
What happens if woken during REM
A
o If woken during REM, typically report dreams- associated with visual dreams
More dreams during REM than other cycles
17
Q
What is REM caused by?
A
o REM sleep caused by neurons in Pons that contain acetylcholine and stimulate neurons in the thalamus, which project to the visual cortex
Using fMRI- during REM, various areas become very active: visual regions at back of brain, motor regions, and limbic system (especially amygdala and cingulate, the emotional parts (which is why our dreams are so emotional), even more active than when we’re awake)
Suppression of particular regions of frontal lobes (lateral prefrontal cortex; important for logic, reasoning and self control)- which is why you have no self-control in dreams and do things you normally wouldn’t do in dreams
18
Q
Can we move during REM sleep? Why/why not?
A
o During REM sleep, we are paralysed
Ach neurons in pons stimulate neurons in medulla, which ultimately inhibit motor neurons in the spinal cord (paralysis)
Destruction of these neurons in medulla causes animal to become very active during REM sleep (no longer paralysed)
Motor signals to your eyes only thing that isn’t paralysed during REM sleep
This is why sometimes paralysed for 30 seconds in morning- REM sleep has yet to be turned off
19
Q
Describe typical sleep cycle
A
- First few hours of sleep is deep slow wave sleep
* After 40min-1h, REM sleep may have a cycle- REM occurs more frequently in the morning
20
Q
Does REM increase during the night and life span?
What does alcohol do to REM sleep?
A
- Amount of REM increases during the night, but decreases across life span (The foetus has a lot of REM: 50% for newborns, decreasing to 20% in adults.)
- Alcohol reduces REM sleep (including in utero)
21
Q
Why is a reward useful?
A
o Motivation to engage in a particular behaviour o Animals (including humans) will act in order to receive some reward
22
Q
What did Olds and Milner do?
A
o Electrical self-stimulation of the brain
Olds and Milner accidently implanted an electrode into the medial forebrain bundle ( a bundle of noradrenaline and dopamine fibres travelling from brainstem to forebrain)
Their rat kept returning to place where it had received electrical brain stimulation
O and M went on to show that rats with electrode in mfb would readily learn to perform many acts in order to receive electrical stimulation
If allowed, rats would do nothing else but press bar
• Would prefer to starve or even tolerate shocks through floor in order to continue self-stimulating
• The simulation has become an addiction
23
Q
What axons are involved in rewarding effect? What drugs influence it and how?
A
• Dopamine axons in mfb make greatest contribution to rewarding effect of electrical stimulation
o Effects greatly reduced by destruction of dopamine fibres
o Many addictive drugs (e.g. amphetamines, cocaine) directly boost release of dopamine in mfb
o Other drugs (eg heroin) indirectly increase dopamine release
Rats will work (e.g. bar press) in order to receive injections of amphetamines or opiates into nucleus accumbens
o VTA- full of opium receptors which heroin and morphine directly influence
o Food and sex operate on this structure of the brain
24
Q
Are the right and left hemispheres responsible for their respective sides or opposite sides?
A
Opposite sides- right hemisphere receives from left side of body whilst left hemisphere receives from right side of body
25
What does lateralised mean?
One side of brain is doing most of the work for something
26
Are the 2 hemispheres lateralised?
Yes
27
What evidence is there for lateralisation?
o Most of us have a hand-preference, indicating superiority of one hemisphere for manual control
Brain determines handiness -> for those with a right hand preference, left hemisphere does a better job for the fine control of the hand
Hand preference not specific to humans but hand preference split, while humans prefer to be right handed
o Of all cognitive or behavioural functions, language is the most lateralised
For most of us, the left hemisphere controls speech and is better at comprehension
In more than 95% of people who are right handed and 70% of left handed people, left hemisphere is better at controlling speech and comprehension
The evidence for this:
• Stroke (blocked blood brain vessel which causes surrounding tissue to die due to lack of essentials) in left (but not right) brain often causes aphasia (problems with production and comprehension of speech
• Brain imaging: left hemisphere is more active when person speaks or listens to speech
• Dichotic listening task- people understand a word faster if presented to right ear
28
Where is Broca's area?
Lower posterior region of left frontal lobe
29
What does damage to Broca's area do?
o Damage to Broca’s area causes difficulties speaking (expressive aphasia or non-fluent aphasia) but generally can understand speech
They can, however, articulate
o Broca’s aphasia is not just motor problem, because often those affected can sing
o There are problems with writing but not drawing
o Deaf signers with damage to Broca’s area can lose the ability to sign
o People with damage to Broca’s area know they have been affected and what they can’t do that they previously could
30
Where is Wernicke's area?
Posterior region of left temporal lobe
31
What does damage to Wernicke's area cause?
o Damage to Wernicke’s area causes problems with comprehension of speech (“receptive aphasia”)
o Produces fluent but meaningless speech (“fluent aphasia”)
Content of the speech is the problem -> patterns of speech perfect but content makes no sense (gibberish)
o Cannot read
o Not aware they have a problem -> don’t know what they’re missing that they could do before
32
Why do some people have callosotomy? (surgery to cut the corpus callosum)
• But some patients with intractable epilepsy had surgery to cut the corpus callosum (callosotomy)
o Split brain patients
o Epilepsy- electrical storm neuron activity spreads and takes over the brain
By cutting the corpus collosum, it can’t go to both hemispheres and it is contained in one hemisphere
Limits how long the attack lasts for as it can’t go back and forth hemispheres
33
Who extensively studied split brain patients?
Roger Sperry
34
What can split brain patients generally do?
* Split brain patients can still walk, talk, suffer little or no impairments of intelligence of emotion
* But some did report some disquieting difference between what left and right hands did (a woman’s left and right hand kept taking different clothes from each other -> each hemisphere had a different idea to what she should wear)
35
What two experiments did Sperry perform and what did he find?
o Sperry found that patient could name an object put in his/her right hand, but not object put in left hand
Sperry put a curtain over patients’ hands
Sperry would place object in each hand
If he put the object in the right hand, the person could recognise what it was
• This is because information from the right hand goes to the left hemisphere, that is lateralised for language, and therefore could express what was in the hand
• However, information from left hand goes to right hemisphere, which cannot speak: knew what was in the hand but couldn’t say it, so the left hemisphere had to guess wildly
• One of the patients had a comb placed in her left hand -> right hemisphere grew frustrated with lack of communication and brushed the thumb against the comb to make a sound to inform the left brain of what it is
o Experiment was done with vision-
A spot was focused on the screen
A different word was flashed on the left and right side of the screen
Patient could name word on right but not on the left
However, if 2 words flashed on screen and patients were asked to find the objects corresponding to the words, the left hand selects the object matching the left word, and the right hand selects objects matching the right word
• Hence, demonstrates that right hand knows -> just cannot communicate through language
36
What can the right hemisphere do?
• Right brain can comprehend simple language (but less so than left brain), but cannot produce speech
• The right brain contributes more than left to adding and interpreting emotional content in speech (sarcasm)
o Understands emotional content of language
o People with right brain damage had trouble understanding sarcasm
• Right brain better at producing and interpreting emotion in general
o Left side of the face produces more emotion than right side of the face
37
Who is Henry Molaison and what happened to him?
o H.M had a bike accident, smashed his head and got a concussion. His brain damage led him to contract epilepsy, that got worse as he aged
The scar tissue probably facilitated the development of the epilepsy
Epilepsy gets worse with age as brain starts to shift pathways to make it easier for epilepsy to attack
o Received brain surgery to treat at intractable epilepsy at 26 years old
o The surgeon removed hippocampus on both sides (+ the amygdalae and some of the surrounding cortex)
The surgeon decided the hippocampus was the likely cause of the epilepsy (area around the hippocampus temporal lobe is a very common starting point forseizures)
o The surgery worked as treatment for epilepsy, but rendered HM unable to learn and remember new information (dense amnesia)
38
Who is Brenda Milner and what did she do?
o Brenda Milner studied HM for many years
o HM’s older memories, acquired before the lesion, were spared
o Brenda Milner gave HM a mirror drawing task
Bit of paper on the table, which is blocked from view by an upstanding piece of paper -> the subject can only see their hands and the paper through a mirror
Hard to do at first but after a while gets easy
Despite not remembering having done the task, HM got better and better at it -> he learned how to do it
39
What does damage to the hippocampus do?
• Now shown in many patients that damage to the hippocampus causes severe anterograde amnesia (can remember old stuff but can’t learn anything new)
• Deficit only in creating new long-term memories, as patients with hippocampal damage can retain new information in short-term memory hippocampus is not where the memories are stored, the hippocampus acts as a transit
• Deficit specific to declarative learning and memory
o Patients show normal procedural learning, even though they can’t recall having done the task before
40
What is Wernicke-Korsakoff's syndrome?
-Amnesia is not only due to brain damage but also diseases
41
What is Wernicke-Korsakoff's syndrome caused by?
• Severe deficiency in vitamin B1 (thiamine) in chronic alcoholics (alcohol interferes with B1 absorption) triggers Wernicke Encephalopathy (confusion and disordered gait and eye movements)
o Can trigger panic in the brain: the brain has episode because part of the brain is dying
• Untreated, WE leads to Korsakoff’s psychosis, characterised by profound anterograde amnesia and some retrograde amnesia (which would result in confabulation)
o This means can lead to being unable to form new memories and the loss of some memories that occurred in the past
o This leads to confabulation: making things up to get a complete image (not lying intentionally)
• Amnesia due to irreversible damage to mammillary bodies (which are part of the hypothalamus) and part of the thalamus.
42
What is Alzheimer's disease and what is it caused by?
• Progressive degenerative disease is characterised by:
o Loss of newly learned information, followed by loss of distant memories, factual knowledge and finally procedural skills
o Widespread neuro degeneration in brain
The brain shrinks, and sulci and ventricles enlarge
o Seems to target areas of temporal lobe around hippocampus, where the degeneration seems to start, and it then becomes spread out
o The cortex thins: the brain tissue deteriorates
o Abnormal neural tissue present in brain, especially prevalent in cortex and hippocampus
Senile plaques neurons are dying
Neuro-fibrillary tangles protein overproduction chokes neurons to death
43
What is the automatic/ implicit process theory of behavior?
- Low effort
- High capacity
- Rapid
- Default
- Associative
- Contextualised
- Nonverbal
- Evolutionarily old
- Modular
- No need of working memory
- Parallel
44
What is the controlled/explicit process theory of behaviour?
- High effort
- Low capacity
- Slower
- Inhibitory
- Rule-based
- Abstract
- Verbalisable
- Evolutionary modern
- Fluid
- Limited by working memory
- Serial
45
What is causality?
We see causal sequences but the sequences are all we actually perceive
46
What are categories of understanding?
As we experience sensory inputs, we must bring with us certain concepts, such as causality, by which we interpret and organize the inputs from the sensory world
47
What did Kant theorise?
- There are concepts in our minds that sensory input does not account for
- Causality-
- Causality is supplied by the observer
- Categories of understanding
- Not derived from experience
- We know, without being taught, that there are right and wrong actions, and we know that we ought to do the one and avid the other.
48
What are reflexes?
- Automatic and usually very fast: learning is not required
49
What are some examples of reflexes?
- Airpuff -> eye blink
- Food -> salivation
- Knee tap -> knee jerk
- Babinski reflex: touch a baby’s cheek -> head turn
- Startle reflex
50
What is the reflex arc?
- Reflex switches itself on
- Feedback system built into response
- Sensory afferents fire at different rates depending on the intensity of the stimulus
- If this rate exceeds a threshold, a response is elicited
- Activating a response pulls the arm away from the stimulus
- Pulling the arm away reduces the stimulation of primary afferents
- Reducing the input signal reduces stimulation of afferents
- A reduction in efferent stimulation reduces response strength
51
Are reflexes self-governing or not?
They are self-governing
52
What is an instinct, as defined by Darwin?
- Action which enables us to perform without knowing for what purpose
- Born with it
- Doesn’t require learning
53
What is Darwin's theory of evolution?
• Animals had to have the structural and behavioural characteristics required to survive and to breed within their habitats
• Those that lacked these requirements left no descendants
• And living animals today are the descendants of those that possessed these requirements
• There are three key ideas to his theory of evolutio
• Variability:
o Within a species, animals vary one from another
• Heritability:
o Animals pass on their inherited characteristics to their offspring
• Selection:
o Variation means that some members of the species are better adapted than others to the ecology in which they live
• Those that are well adapted are more likely to have offspring, to which they will pass on their characteristics
• Those that are poorly adapted will have fewer offspring, and so their characteristics will diminish over successive generations
• This is known as selection pressure by the environment in which species lives
54
What is the system involved in shifting thresholds in the mind, and what is the relationship between emotions and pain sensitivity?
• Sensory (afferent) nerves detect stimuli as per normal
• Projection from brain inhibits transmission
• Motor (efferent) nerves stimulate muscles as per normal
• Emotions affect pain sensitivity:
o Aggression and fear would reduce pain sensitivity
o The placebo effect can reduce or heighten pain sensitivity
55
What is the difference between behaviorist and contemporary views on behaviour?
Behaviourism-
Theories of behaviour need only refer to changes in ability of stimuli to elicit responses
Contemporary views-
Behaviour can also be modulated by cognitive processes and emotions
56
How did James define instincts?
instincts are a complex unlearned response to a characteristic stimulus, which may also be complex
57
Are instincts stereotyped or not stereotyped?
Stereotyped
58
What are instincts also called?
Fixed Action Patterns
59
Are instincts dependent or independent of immediate external control?
Independent of immediate external control
60
What happens once a fixed action pattern is triggered?
Once triggered, a FAP continues to completion regardless of changes in the environment
61
What is a fixed action pattern triggered by?
Releasing stimulus
62
What are fixed action patterns associated with?
Associated with a specific source of energy and require an appropriate motivational state
63
Can fixed action patterns occur spontaneously?
Yes
| when motivational state is high enough, a FAP can occur in the absence of any releasing stimulus
64
Can fixed action patterns be easily modified by learning?
No
65
What is the difference in muscular terms between fixed action patterns and reflexes
Fixed action patterns require multiple action groups whilst reflexes only require one
66
What is action specific energy?
the specific source of energy associated with a FAP, the level of which controls the intensity with which the FAP is performed or its sensitivity to the occurrence of releasing stimuli.
67
What is supernormal stimulus?
Stimulus that triggers a FAP more than an actual real life stimulus. E.g. red fire truck to real male stickleback
68
What is Freud's psychoanalytic theory?
- Tripartite model of the mind
- - The Id, the Ego, the Super Ego
- The life and death drives
- -Libido or Eros
- --Survival, hunger, thirst
- -Thanatos
- --Reducing tension
- Unconscious motivation- we are powerfully affected by thoughts, wishes and memories of which we have no conscious awareness
69
Who was Anna O?
Patient-
o Showed that the hysteria symptoms were actually associated with life events and the emotions that went with these events even though the patient could not remember the events
o The symptoms were relieved when the events were remembered and the emotions expressed
o Suggested that symptoms were caused by the energies of pent-up unconscious emotions, and would go away when the emotions were released
70
What is free association and Freud's interpretation of it?
• Free association-
o Procedure that requires patient to talk freely, without censorship or attempt to direct the flow of thought
o By letting thoughts follow one another freely, a patient could show the therapist what associative bonds there were, and just what was linked with what in the patient’s mind
• Freud- Neurotic symptoms, dreams, slips of the tongue, and the like are disguised or symbolic expressions of wishes
o Wishes highly threatening to the patient and too threatening even to be allowed into consciousness
o Occurs when unacceptable impulses threaten to overwhelm the ego’s defences and explode into consciousness or action
71
What is unconscious conflict?
unconscious wishes are pushing to be expressed, but at the same time, another part of the patient’s mind is resisting any such expression
72
What happens to infantile urges?
• The persistence of infantile urges into adult thought and action-
o If urges are inhibited, they won’t just go away
o If denied direct expression, they will seek expression is some other way
o Hence the expression of the urge in symbolic form
73
What are sex and aggression affected by? Are they homeostatic motives? Does the role of learning affect them?
* Sex and aggression are affected by internal and external factors that interact
* Sex and aggression are not homeostatic motives
* The role of learning affects sex and aggression, especially in humans
74
Who were Lorenz and Tinbergen?
Ethologists
75
What did Lorenz do with imprinting?
• Just after they’ve hatched, when they see something, they think it’s their mother
• Imprinting happens after a day or 2 of hatching
• Instincts come about at particular biological phases
-Experimented this with geese
76
What are conditions of the fixed action pattern?
• The fixed action pattern
o The behaviour is stereotyped and constant in form
o It be characteristic of the species
o It appears in animals which have been raised in isolation from others
o It develops fully-formed in animals which have been prevented from practicing it
o It is made regardless of the consequence
o Once triggered, the entire sequence of behaviour has to be finished
• For example, the shape of an egg-shaped object triggers the goose mother to brood on it even if it clearly isn’t an egg triggered by the shape of the object, will complete all appropriate behaviours
77
What is the agression fixed action pattern of stickleback fish in spring?
o If a red-underbelly male approaches, the stickleback male will attack
o The attack begins with a threat display, an action pattern consisting of head-down posture and spread fins
o Releasing stimulus/Sign stimuli- the intruder’s red underbelly
Even very crude models, if introduced near the male, will be threatened if their undersides are red
78
What is the sex fixed action pattern of male stickleback fish in spring?
o If a female fish comes along, then the fish is courted
o Action pattern- a zigzag dance
o Releasing stimulus/Sign stimuli- the swollen underbelly of the female fish heavy with eggs
Crude models with swollen undersides will be courted while good models without swollen undersides won’t be
1. The male has a red-belly
2. The male builds the nest
3. If female has extended belly full of eggs, it bites the female down to the nest
4. The male then leads the female to his nest
5. If she follows, he points to the next entrance with his nose
6. If she swims into the nest, he nuzzles her posterior, causing her to release her clutch of eggs
7. He then swims in after her, depositing sperm to fertilise the eggs
8. The male takes over the job of caring for the developing eggs
9. If the female is not interested once shown the nest, she will swim away `
o Every stage of the sequence is an action pattern (instinctive pattern of response) evoked by releasing stimuli
79
Are sex/aggression responses in male stickleback fish stimulus bound?
Yes
80
What are the two phases to sexual/agressive behaviour in ,male stickleback fish?
o During the first, arbitrary learned responses can expand the sexual or aggressive repertoire
o One the mate or rival is at hand, behaviour funnels down into inflexible, stimulus-bound instinctive reactions
81
Who mainly studied the stickleback fish?
Tinbergen
82
What is Lorenz and Tinbergen's ethological model of instincts?
They have a hydraulic view of instincts
1. Specific to breeding season
2. Initiated by sign (or key or releasing) stimuli
3. Filtered by an innate releasing mechanism
4. This activates action specific energy or a central pattern generator (modern idea)
- Released by biological state but requires sign stimulus to trigger
5. Results in a characteristic behaviour called the fixed action pattern
6. The FAP can set up the conditions for the next sign stimulus, so the next behaviour in the sequence is triggered
7. And so on
83
What are supernormal stimuli, and what is an example of this in the current media?
* Supernormal stimuli-a stimulus that elicits a response stronger than the stimulus for which it evolved, even if it is artificial
* This is used in cartoons, where animals are made cute based on the proportions of the human baby (large head, no neck…) which we are innate to care for.
84
What are the three motivational states?
- Arbitrary
- Learned
- Goal directed response
85
What does innate mean?
o Innate- behaviour, or some influence on behaviour, that is not acquired through specific learning experiences
o Just because something is innate doesn’t mean it’s fixed e.g. aggression in male stickleback fish due to red underbelly releasing stimulus doesn’t mean other conflicting factors can’t enhance/ inhibit aggression
o This behaviour can be m
odified by learning
86
How can we tell if behavior is instinctive?
- Biological basis
- Cross-species similarity
- Cross-cultural similarity
- Separated identical twin-studies
- Developmental studies
87
What did Ekman and Friesen do?
o Photographed 6 people with different emotions and took them to different cultures around the world to see if people recognised these emotions, and henceforth if the recognition of emotions was instinctive
88
What did Eibl-Eibesfeldt find in human expressions?
o Had a side-viewing camera to capture human facial expressions
o Eyebrow flash recognition between people use eyebrows for communication
o Facial expressions:
Innate around the world
Blind people smile like everyone else even though they’ve never seen a smile before instinctive
o Acting coy:
Extremely feminine behaviour
Involves:
• A direct look
• A smile
• Face being hidden
• Another direct look
o Women become more flirtatious near ovulation
89
What is Pinker's view on instincts?
• The language instinct, 1996:
o Linguistics as a way to study innate abilities of people
o Language is a spontaneously created behaviour in all people, but it’s very variable
Universal basis Born with mechanisms to learn languages
Languages are spontaneously generated around the world
In different villages, home-made sign language is different
o An instinct is an urge and competence
o It is an ability to behave in a certain way coupled with a tendency to behave that way at appropriate times
90
How do instincts affect human behaviour?
```
• The behaviour is purely instinctive
• The behaviour is a modified instinct
o New eliciting stimulus
o Modified response to the same stimulus
• A predisposition to behave
• A predisposition to acquire certain behaviours
• Phase sensitive learning
• Little or no role in the behaviour at all
```
91
What is the role between learning and sex in rats and monkeys? What is the gradient of this learning usefulness in animals?
o As we go to more complex animals, there is progressive emancipation from hormonal control, and other factors become more important such as learning
o Mate normally on first opportunity -> sexual experience is not necessary in animals, but it helps (as can be seen when sexually naïve rats are castrated vs when experienced rats are castrated)
o However, when we look at primates, learning may change from a luxury to a necessity -> lab grown monkeys by Harlow wanted to mate but were unable to make the right sexual movements to do so (couldn’t figure out how to fit it in)
o Hormones, together with the stimuli from the female, promoted sexual arousal and directed it toward the female
o But this was expressed ineffectively because the monkeys lacked specific skills at lower levels of the Tinbergen hierarchy
92
Who was the Wild Boy (Victor) and what happened to explore the relationship between learning and sex?
o Wild boy wandered out of the woods at about 12 years old
o Had no speech and no one knows where he came from
o Itard worked with him and named him Victor, and tried to teach him how to speak
o When Victor was 17, he hit puberty- touched women and seemed to want to do something, but didn’t know how to do it, and would push away the woman and go to another when he saw his uncomfortable feelings wouldn’t go away
93
Who was Genie and what did she contribute in the exploration of the relationship between learning and sex?
o Genie confined to her bedroom, with a harness made by her father, to a baby’s potty seat
o Didn’t hear speech, and when she tried to make noise, she was beaten so she ended up making nodes
o Found at 14 and escaped with her mother, and hospitalised for malnutrition
o Father killed himself before he could get justice
o Curtiss tried to teach Genie how to speech, and saw her puberty
o During puberty, Genie had a crush on Mr B her bus driver
o Expressed, in fragmented English, that she wanted Mr B to touch her. This could be because:
Her adolescent body chemistry triggered her desire for that kind of touching
It targeted these desires on a specific person, from who she wanted the touching
o Wish was targeted on male even though she knew Susan Curtiss better
• In both cases, there was evidence of vague sexual desires and evidence that they were directed toward a member of the opposite sex
• Hence, certain hormonal conditions can produce untaught urges and orientations, but these hormones can be overcome by learning and culture
94
What is the relationship between cultural norms and sex?
• Differences in societies suggests that the frequency of sexual arousal or interest varies greatly with culture and circumstances
• Sexual attractiveness and who can be considered a possible sexual partner largely varies in different cultures.
• If sexual arousal is a response to a set of sexual stimuli, then frequency of arousal will depend on what is defined by the actor as a sexual stimulus, and how many such situations there are
• Hormones may provide a necessary underpinning for potential sexual arousal but actual arousal depends on what situations we encounter, and how we have learned to interpret them
• Once a sexual situation arises, culture selects those responses that are permissible and effective as ways of attaining the goal of sexual contact
• Human sexual behaviour is goal-directed and largely taught
• Culture defines permissible mating situations
• Only certain mating positions are permissible in a culture, and some may even be outlawed
• Even the goal is not fixed- orgasm can be the goal, but the partner’s sexual pleasure is also an important goal (some people pretend to have orgasms so their partner thinks they have pleased them)
• There may be untaught influences that promote diffuse sexual arousal at the top of the hierarchy, but the expression of that arousal is a matter of goal-directed learned responses, not stimulus-bound ones
• A particular culture acts as a filter-
o Only some potential inputs, which could be effective in promoting sexual arousal, become actual ones
o Only some expressions of sexual arousal are allowed in a culture; others might be seen as forbidden
• Culture teaches us how to ask for a date, make a sexual advance..
• There is however the problem of internalisation- the do’s and don’t’s of a society become internalized as our own values, preferences and customs: we share the rules heterosexuals in a culture that despises homosexuality might find homosexuality, henceforth, disgusting
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How did Pavlov study the reflex of organisation of secretion, and what did he notice from that study?
• Studied the reflex of organisation of secretion
o Used dogs would put a spigot in salivary glands
o When dogs ate the food, salivation comes down the tube, which hit the metal plate and collected in a volumetric flask
o He did the same thing with digestive juices.
• However, after a few trials, he noticed the dogs salivated when they were in front of the room, before the food came
• He called these psychic secretions
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How did Pavlov study classical conditioning?
• He investigated these with his dogs:
o Pavlov rang a bell and then gave a dog some food
o Started pairing different stimuli with food
o Started by pairing the food with a precedent sound of a bell
o After repeating this pairing multiple times, the dog eventually treated the bell as a signal for food, and began salivating in anticipation of the treat
o Associated stimulus with biological response conditioning
• Unconditioned stimulus- the dog food
• Unconditioned response- dog saliva
• Conditioned stimulus- the bell
• Conditioned response- dog saliva
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What is Classical/Pavlovian conditioning-
The procedure in which an initially neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus, or CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (or US). The result is that the conditioned stimulus begins to elicit a conditioned response (CR). Classical conditioning is nowadays considered important as both a behavioural phenomenon and as a method to study simple associative learning
-Does not necessarily elicit a simply, unitary reflex: can elicit a whole system of responses
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How does classical conditioning work exactly?
o The US unconditionally provokes a UR
o Initially, the CS does not provoke a response
o But repeated pairings of the CS with the US allows the CS to form an association with the US
Region of the brain which encoded CS becomes associated with unconditioned stimulus part of the brain
o The CS becomes associated with the US and now provokes a response
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What is the unconditioned stimulus?
In classical conditioning, the stimulus that elicits the response before conditioning occurs.
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What is the unconditioned response?
In classical conditioning, an innate response that is elicited by a stimulus before (or in the absence of) conditioning
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What is the conditioned stimulus?
An initially neutral stimulus that elicits a conditioned response after it has been associated with an unconditioned stimulus
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What is the conditioned response?
The response that is elicited by the conditioned stimulus after classical conditioning has taken place
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What is secondary conditioning?
The CS can act as a US if paired with a new stimulus
| o Once a CS has acquired a conditioned response, it can also act as if it is a US itself
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Is the conditioned response the same as the unconditioned response?
Not always
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Can you be classically conditioned by an image? How is this used?
Can be classically conditioned by an image
- This is because sensations that frequently occur together become associated
- This is used in branding and experiental marketing
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What was Smith and Engel's 1968 study?
Smith and Engel produced two catalogues:
• One described a car, and only talked about the car’s features and had only the car on the front cover
• The other described a car, but a girl talked about the car’s features in an attractive manner and had a picture of her caressing the car
They distributed these two catalogues out to each male at the motor show
After some time, surveyed men on which car they’d buy
The results were that they were more likely to buy the one with the blonde girl on the cover, but when asked why, either didn’t know or gave vague excuses
• Maybe they didn’t know why (were implicitly influenced) or it would be considered socially unacceptable to disclose the real reason (explicit influence)
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What is taste aversion conditioning?
a flavour associated with a negative consequence
o E.g. drinking too much tequila and getting sick
• The fact that flavours are often associated with so many consequences of eating is important for animals that are frequently exposed to new foods
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What is fear conditioning?
A type of classical or Pavlovian conditioning in which the conditioned stimulus (SC) is associated with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US). As a consequence of learning, the CS comes to evoke fears.
o When cues are associates with panic or other emotional trauma
o E.g. arachnophobia and panic disorders
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What are conditioned compensatory responses?
In classical conditioning, a conditioned response that opposes, rather than is the same as, the unconditioned response. It functions to reduce the strength of the unconditioned response. Often seen in conditioning when drugs are used as unconditioned stimuli
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What can classical cues do to operant behaviour, and what is an example of this?
• Classical cues motivate ongoing operant behaviour
o In the presence of food-associated cues, a rat will work harder for food
o In the presence of negative cues, a rat, or human, will work harder to avoid those situations that might lead to trauma
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What is blocking?
The finding that no conditioning occurs to a stimulus if it is combined with a previously conditioned stimulus during conditioning trials. Suggests that information, surprise value, or prediction error is important in conditioning
FOR CLARIFICATION-
o For example, an animal first learns to associate a CS (stimulus A) with a US
o If a second stimulus, stimulus B, is presented alongside stimulus A, such that the two stimuli are paired with the US together, because the animal has already learned the association between stimulus A and food, animal doesn’t learn association between stimulus B and food
o Hence, the earlier conditioning of A blocks the conditioning of B when B is added to A as A already predicts the US, so there’s no need for B
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What is prediction error?
When the outcome of a conditioning trial is different from that which is predicted by the conditioned stimuli that are present on the trial. Prediction error is necessary to create Pavlovian conditioning. As learning occurs over repeated conditioning trials, the conditioned stimulus increasingly predicts the unconditioned stimulus, and prediction error declines. Conditioning works to correct or reduce prediction error
CLARIFICATION:
o To learn something through classical conditioning, there must be prediction error
o With the example of the stimulus A and stimulus B, because stimulus A always leads to the reward of food, there’s no prediction error that the addition of stimulus B helps to correct
o If researcher suddenly requires that stimulus A and stimulus B both occur in order to receive the food, the stimulus A alone will produce a prediction error that the animal has to learn
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When is classical conditioning strongest?
o The CS and US are intense or salient
o If CS and US are relatively new the organism and hasn’t been frequently exposed to them before.
o If the organism’s biology has prepared it to associate a particular CS and US
E.g. a food that makes people ill will be recognised by its unique flavour
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What is preparedness?
The idea that an organism’s evolutionary history can make it easy to learn a particular association.
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What is extinction?
Decrease in the strength of a learned behaviour that occurs when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus in classical conditioning, or when the behaviour is no longer reinforced (in instrumental conditioning). The term describes both the procedure (the US or reinforcer is no longer presented) as well as the result of the procedure (the learned response declines). Behaviours that have been reduced in strength through extinction are said to be extinguished.
o extinction is new learning- a second competing memory is made that the US did not occur. This inhibits the original learning and reduces the response. Spontaneous recovery is the weakening of this inhibition over time This explains why extinction is not forever --> the original CS-US association is not lost
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What is the difference between acquisition and extinction?
Acquisition-
Repeated presentations of the CS with the US result in an increase in the CR
Extinction-
Repeated CS alone presentations following acquisition resulting in a reduction in the CR
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Why is extinction important?
o Basis for many therapies that clinical psychologists use to eliminate maladaptive and unwanted behaviors
o Conducting extinction therapies in contexts where patients might be vulnerable to relapsing might be a good strategy for enhancing the therapy’s success
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What is spontaneous recovery?
Recovery of an extinguished conditioned response that occurs with the passage of time after extinction. Can occur after extinction in either classical or instrumental conditioning
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What is the renewal effect?
Recovery of an extinguished response that occurs when the context is changed after extinction. Especially strong when the change of context involves return to the context in which conditioning originally occurred. Can occur after extinction in either classical or instrumental conditioning
- Suggests that extinction inhibits rather than erases learned behaviour, and this inhibition is mainly expressed in the context in which it is learned
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How can extinction fail/the conditioned response relapse after extinction?
-Summary
```
After the passage of time
• Spontaneous recovery
With a change in context
• Renewal effect
With exposure to the US
• Reinstatement
CRS can be rapidly relearned
• Rapid reacquisition effect
```
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What does Darwin's theory of evolution imply?
o Implies that the mechanisms controlling behaviour in a species must evolve hand in hand with the anatomical structure of that species
The anatomical structures would be useless if he controlling systems in the respective brains did not program the appropriate movements, and couple them to appropriate stimuli
o Implies continuity between humankind and other animals
Descartes argues that humankind’s ability to reason made our species fundamentally different from others
But if human species is a product of evolution like any other, this separation can no longer be maintained
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What was Thorndike's experiment, what was his result, and what motivated him?
• Had interest in animal intelligence and insight
• Dissatisfied with popular descriptions and lack of rigour
o Felt that data was biased towards showing the intelligence of animals, but that there were no records of animal stupidity
• Thorndike’s experiment:
o Constructed an escape box for a cat
o The cat is locked in the puzzle box
o The cat pushes the lever which opens the hatch, making the right response
o Cat goes out of cage and eats kipper (fish)
• Showed that in animals, as in humans, behaviour is affected by its consequences
o The time taken to solve the problem becomes smaller everytime
• Animals are not fixed bundles of instincts, but their behaviour could be modified by rewards or punishments
• Experiment is a discrete trial procedure:
o Single trial procedures
o Measured objective dependent variables such as time or errors
• However, if solved through a cognitive process, once there is a solution to the problem, the problem should be able to be solved everytime
• This was not what was shown instead, solved through trial and error
o Thorndike argued that you can have seemingly intelligent behaviour through a dumb process
o Observed progressive improvement over many trials, not ‘sudden insight’
• Concluded the law of effect
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What is the law of effect?
o What a human or animal does is strongly influenced by the immediate consequences of such behaviour in the past
o If a response is followed by a reward, then that response is strengthened and likely to be repeated
o If followed by punishment, the response is weakened and less likely to be repeated
o Strengthening and weakening is a learning process and a motivational process.
o Effect of action determines probability of action
o The law of effect is called the reinforcement principle
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What was a limitation to Thorndike's method?
• A limitation with Thorndike’s method was the discrete trial
o When subject can respond is constrained
o One response and/or one reinforcer per trial
o Handling stress
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What are the advantages of Skinner's box?
o Can measure the effects of reinforcement on behaviour continuously
o Can change variables to observe their behaviour while the animal is still in the box
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What is discriminative stimulus?
Discriminative stimulus-stimulus controlling the operant response
• Can be associated directly with the response or the reinforcer
• It sets the occasion for the operant response
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What was Skinner's free operant procedure and what did he find?
• Free operant procedure:
o Rat placed in Skinner Box
o Rat explores through trial and error
o Rat makes right response
o Rat gets food- acts as a reinforcer because it strengthens the rat’s desire to engage with the environment in this particular manner
o Repeat from step 2
• The way reinforcement is carried out is more important than the amount of reinforcement given
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What is the relationship between the reinforcer/punisher and learning?
The bigger the reinforcer or punisher, the stronger the learning
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Can instrumental behaviour be extinguished?
If an instrumental behaviour is no longer reinforced, it will also be extinguished
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What is operant conditioning?
Occurs when a behaviour is associated with the occurrence of a significant event
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The tendency to perform a particular action depends on both the reinforcers earned for it and the reinforcers earned for its alternatives. How did Skinner investigate this idea?
To investigate this idea, choice has been studied in the Skinner box by making two levers available for the rat , each of which has its own reinforcement or payoff rate
-Found the quantitative law of effect
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What is the quantitative law of effect?
A mathematical rule that states that effectiveness of a reinforcer at strengthening an operant response depends on the amount of reinforcement earned for all alternative behaviours. A reinforcer is less effective if there is a lot of reinforcement in the environment for other behaviours
• A given reinforcer will be less reinforcing if there are many alternative reinforcers in the environment
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What is an operant?
A behaviour that is controlled by its consequences.
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What are punishers?
A stimulus that decreases the strength of an operant behaviour when it is made a consequence of the behavior
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What are reinforcers?
Any consequence of a behaviour that strengthens the behaviour or increases the likelihood that it will be performed again
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What is tripartite contingency?
o Antecedent: The stimulus controlling behaviour;
The Discriminative stimuli (Sd)
o Behaviour: The response being reinforced
The operant- the precise aspect of the response that determined reinforcement
o Consequence: The immediate outcome of a behaviour (the reinforcing stimulus)
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What makes a good reinforcer?
• A good reinforcer is:
o Immediate (high contiguity)
The faster the reinforcer is given after the response, the better
Contiguity- close in time
o Contingent
Given if the response is made
Withheld if the response is not made
o Valuable
• The problem of contiguity for primary reinforcers (for example, primary reinforcer is not given as soon as behaviour has been displayed) is solved by secondary reinforcers
• A lot of reinforcers are intrinsically valued, however, this is not always the case:
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What are secondary reinforcers?
May not be objectively valuable, but can be subjectively valuable
Acquire their reinforcing properties through experience (e.g. classical conditioning)
Social reinforcement
Sensory and activity reinforcers
Tokens
• Do work in order to access future reward
• Tokens are independent of motivational state
• Good way of reinforcing behaviours due to their universality
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What is the reinforcer devaluation effect?
The finding that an animal will stop performing an instrumental response that once led to a reinforcer if the reinforcer is separately made aversive or undesirable
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What is an example (involving a rat) of the reinforcer devaluation effect?
o Rat is first trained to perform two instrumental actions (a lever on the left and a lever on the right) each paired with a different reinforcer (sweet sucrose solution and a food pellet)
o At the end of this training, rat tends to press both levers, alternating between the sucrose solution and the food pellet
o In a second phase, one of the reinforces (the sucrose) is then separately paired with illness
o This conditions a taste aversion to the sucrose
o In a final test, the rat is returned to the skinner box and allowed to press either lever freely
o No reinforcers are presented during this test, so behaviour during testing can only result from the rat’s memory of what it has learned earlier
o The rat chooses not to perform the response that once produced the reinforcer that it now has an aversion to
o The behavior is said to be goal-directed because it is influenced by the current value of its associated goal
o However, if a rat perform the instrumental actions frequently and repeatedly over a large amount of time, the action can become a habit
o In this case, even if sucrose makes the rat sick, the rat will continue pressing that lever
o After all the practise, the instrumental response is no longer sensitive to reinforcer devaluation
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What is a habit?
instrumental behaviour that occurs automatically in the presence of a stimulus and is no longer influenced by the animal’s knowledge of the value of the reinforcer. Insensitive to the reinforcer devaluation effect
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Instrumental learning vs Pavlovian conditioning
Categories:
-Does the subject have control over the events?
-Are the responses voluntary or involuntary?
-Are participants active or passive
-How do the animals behave?
-Are responses elicited or emitted?
Instrumental learning:
-The subject has to respond to change the circumstances
Voluntary responses
Active participants
Animal behaves as if It has learned to associate a behavior with a significant event
Response in the operant case is not elicited by any particular stimulus – operant responses are said to be emitted
Pavlovian conditioning
-The subject has no control over events, but responds to them
Involuntary responses
Passive participant
Animal behaves as if it has learned to associate a stimulus with a significant event
Response in the classical situation is elicited by a stimulus that comes before it
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Can instrumental conditioning and classical conditioning be intertwined?
Yes
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What is shaping and how does it work?
• Principle of successive approximation
• Reinforce behaviours that are closer and closer to a target behaviour
• Gradually make the conditions of reinforcement more stringent, more precise
• Classical conditioning affects pre-existing behaviours and responses
• Shaping with instrumental conditioning can generate entirely novel behaviours
o Bar pressing in rats
o Dog opening door
• Involves trial and error for the participant (hypothesis testing for behaviours)
• Shaping occurs all the time
o Many situations in modern life where progressively worse behaviour is reinforced
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What is escape learning and what is the reward?
* Getting out of an unpleasant situation
* Learn how to escape, and this becomes more rapid over time
* Termination of unpleasant affairs is the reward
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What is avoidance learning, is it hard to change and what is its impact?
• If there is a reliable warning signal for the aversive situation, learn to avoid the situation entirely
• Avoidance learning is very hard to change as there is no real reinforcer
o The response is successful if nothing happens
o What is being reinforced is the reduction of fear
• Can often result in a reduction in behavioural choices and impact lifestyle
o Anxiety
o Obsessive behaviour
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What happens when the consequence is appetitive and R produces consequence?
Positive reinforcement: R increases
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What happens when the consequence is aversive and R produces consequence?
Positive punishment:
| R decreases
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What happens when the consequence is appetitive and R terminates consequence?
```
Negative punishment (omission/ taking away something valuable):
R decreases
```
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What happens when the consequence is aversive and R terminates the consequence?
Negative reinforcement (escape/avoid): R increases
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What are the two types of reinforcement?
• Reinforcement – Increases behaviour
o Positive- add appetitive stimulus following correct behaviour (giving a treat when the dog sits)
o Negative
Escape- remove noxious stimuli following correct behaviour (turning off an alarm clock by pressing the snooze button)
Active avoidance- Behavior avoids noxious stimulus (studying to avoid getting a bad grade)
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What are the two types of punishment?
o Positive- Add noxious stimuli following behaviour (spanking a child for cursing)
o Negative- Remove appetitive stimulus following behaviour (telling the child to go to his room for cursing)
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What are the two types of reinforcement schedules and what is their difference?
* Fixed know when you’re going to get it
* Variable Know on average when you’re going to get it but not sure
Variable rate/ratio produces a more continuous effort while fixed results in bursts of work
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Is variable reinforcement better than fixed?
Yes
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What happens when ratio (responses) is fixed?
Reinforcer occurs every N responses (e.g. piecemeal work)
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What happens when ratio (responses) is variable?
Reinforcer occurs on average every N responses (e.g. sales)
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What hapens when interval (time period) is fixed?
Reinforcer available after N sec/min (e.g. hourly paid jobs)
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What happens when interval (time period) is variable?
Reinforcer available on average after N sec/min (e.g. catching a wave)
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Who conducted a study on the partial reinforcements in extinction effect (PREE) and what was it/found?
* Lewis and Duncan, 1956
* Partial reinforcement in extinction effect (PREE)
* Differently programmed slot machines (those with 100% chance of winning to 0% chance of winning) were given to participants. Halfway in the experiment, the slot machines were programmed to never give a payoff and the time taken for people to give up depending on the slot machine they had before was measured.
* The less reliably a response is reinforced, the more persistent it is during extinction
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What is instrumental conditioning?
o In the presence of a discriminative stimulus (Sd) a response (R) is followed by a reinforcer (Sr) or a punisher (Sav)
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What is the generalization gradient?
• The generalisation gradient- The greater the difference between testing and training cues, the worse the performance becomes
o Generalisation is highest for physically similar stimuli
o Decreases as the stimuli share less and less in common
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What was the Watson and Little Albert test?
on and Little Albert-
• Watson and Rayner (1920) set out to test generalisation of learned fear in an infant “Albert B”
o Albert had a normal response to animals such as rabbits, dogs, rats…
Was not scared
These responses were measured as a baseline
o Over the next bit, they put a rat in front of little Albert and repeatedly stood behind little Albert and scared him with a loud clang
o After a while, he learned to associate the rat with fear
o Although these were never put in front of him, he also became scared of the dogs and rabbits, as well as fur coats
o His fear transferred to other furry things
• US- Loud clanging noise
• UR- Fear/shock
• CS- white rat
• CR-Fear elicited by the rat
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What was the Rachman and Hodgson study?
* Tried to induce fetishes into men
* Men sat down in the lab, asked to study images of boots (fur and high heels) in front of them, and then showed them some porn and asked them to rate it
* After a couple trials, the men began to associate the boots with the porn
* A device placed on their penis measured that they were getting an erection just looking at the boots
* However, if boots contained features of the original boots (such as high heels or fur trimmings), even if they weren’t the exact boots conditioned, they’d still elicit a response. However, shoes such as school shoes wouldn’t elicit the response.
* They also went through extinction, and had a spontaneous recovery after 1 week
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What did Razran do?
* Razran (1939) paired words with lemon juice in students salivation conditioned response
* Words were style, urn, freeze and surfed
* He trained these conditioned stimuli, and then tested responses to two lists: one list with synonyms of the original words, the other with homophones
* There were more conditioned responses to items on the first list; more generalization from the meaning rather than the physical similarity of stimuli
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What is stimulus control?
Instrumental behaviours are controlled by stimuli with which they are associated
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When is instrumental behaviour controlled by situational cues?
• Instrumental behaviour only becomes controlled by situational cues if and only if these cues signal whether the response is going to be reinforced or not
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What is an example of cultural transmission?
• Monkeys- one group given blue bitter, pink sweet, the other blue sweet, pink bitter
• In wild, made readily available and both were made sweet
• Found that in general, the monkeys preferred eating from the trough they were trained on, even if now there was no difference
o Not valid when there was competition
• Chimps have behaviourally different cultures relating to geographical locations in Africa
o E.g. chimps opening nuts with sticks vs rocks
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What is social learning and what is an example in nature?
• Social learning-
o When behaviour changes as a direct result of observing the behaviour of others
Instrumental learning
o Acquiring the behaviours of others through observation
Classical conditioning
o Acquiring new/ altered behaviours through observation of others’ actions and their consequences
o For example:
English blue tit learns to open milk bottles and steal cream
Birds seemed to learn this response by observing others
Eventually had to change the lids
• Trial and error or were the birds teaching each other how to do it?
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What is social facilitation?
o Socially directed trial and error-
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What is social facilitation a thing?
Goal enhancement
• Getting access to some wanted goal might facilitate later trial and error learning
o E.g. access to cream which is not usually readily available
Stimulus enhancement
• Observe others and are often more likely approach places that they are
o E.g. the milk bottles
• If one animal pays attention to something, others will pay attention to it too
• Other birds rip off the lids and expose milk
• Make it easy to learn that milk
Increase motivation to act
• Try more new things in the company of friends and parents
o Safety in numbers
o Children will stay with parents and explore only when safe
o Allows for trial and error
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What was Cook's and Mineka's study?
• Monkey raised in laboratory
o Normally not afraid of snakes
• If a wild monkey is shown the snake, it is terrified of it (observer)
• The experimenters filmed the wild reared monkey being terrified of the snake, and being relaxed in front of the wooden block -performer
• Experimenters showed this footage to the lab raised monkey
• Observer (lab raised monkey) will acquire fear of snakes
• Tried this with different models of snakes (real snake, toy snakes,…)
• Compared what happened with the snake to try to condition the same thing with a toy flower
o Showed wild reared monkey a flower and spliced two videos so that wild reared monkey showed fear to the flower
o Spliced video so that monkey looked relaxed to the snake
o Found that, when they showed these videos to the monkeys, the snake was associated with the fear response even if the performer had looked relaxed
o When flower was associated with fear, observer monkey did not associate the flower with fear
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What does the Cook and Mineka study show?
• Shows that emotional reactions can be conditioned
o Panic in the crowd
o Fashion
• Also suggested a biological preparedness to learn some things but not others
o Survival advantage to acquire certain types of fears quickly
o Biased
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What is mimicry?
• Mimicry- copying without reference to a goal
1. Mimicry is a copied action that is made without reference to a goal, or that may not be reinforced by some consequence
2. Replicating the action regardless of result
Children mimicking parents
Orang-utans washing socks
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What is emulation?
• Emulation- understanding there is a goal but not using the same method to gain access to the goal
1. There is understanding of the goal but the specific response required to obtain the goal may not be well understood
2. E.g. tool use in chimpanzees
3. Teaching and correcting
4. Younger chimps learn from what olders are doing
What to do and why to do it
Trial and error aspect- practice
Older chimp corrects behaviour of younger chimp
• Idea of intent
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What is imitation?
• Imitation- copying with reference to a goal
1. Copied actions made with respect to the goal/consequence
2. A replication of the same response(s) made by the ‘performer’
Infants solving two-action tasks in the same manner the demonstrator did
• Japanese Quail= has two solutions to the puzzle: pecking or stepping
• Observer behind a glass watches the quail solve the puzzle
• If observed the pecking one, will peck, if observed the stepping one, will step
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What is modelling?
• Modelling- children will not only imitate an adult’s specific behaviour but also model general styles of behaviour (aggressive vs gentle play)
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Describe Bandura, Ross and Ross' study
Set up a lab where they got a research assistant to do with a Bobo doll
• Holds a mallet, lifts it ups and throws it in the air, says abusive things to Bobo doll
• Woman in room behaving in passive way to Bobo toys
• Showed the videos to children
o One child (shown the abusive video) starts hitting the Bobo doll and treating it abusively
Not a gender thing- both boys and girls do this
o Starts to elaborate on what it’s seen
o Starts to pull out a gun and threatens the doll with the gun (not shown in original model)
o The control child (shown with the passive Bobo doll playing) just start playing with the doll normally and other things (without exactly imitating the woman)
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What does the Bandura, Ross, Ross experiment suggest about cognitive aspects of social learnng?
1. People actively watch other to gain knowledge about the types of things that they do
2. Use that knowledge in situations where it’s useful
3. Information is not always used immediately
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What was Bandura's 1965 experiment?
```
• Modeling is reinforcement dependent- modelling can occur through TB, not just in person
1. Bandura, 1965
Wanted to find out how reinforcement influences modelling
Model observed on TV, not in real life
• Three groups:
o Model rewarded for bad behaviour
Showed increased behaviour
o Model punished for bad behaviour
Showed decline in bad behaviour
Vicarious reinforcement- if children did not experience the reinforcement or punishment directly, but yet were still influenced by observing it when the adults did it
o No consequence
• Two tests:
o No incentive
o Positive incentive
```
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What is the social cognition theory?
1. Attention- Attention to the model
Only model people who are attractive/ important –social models
• For example, if woman who was either referred to as a substitute teacher or their new permanent teacher in front of kids and started doing a particular behaviour, kids only copied if she was referred to as their new permanent teacher
2. Retention- Incorporate the model’s actions into memory
Don’t have to display the behaviour straight-away
3. Initiation- Requires having the ability to reproduce the actions of the model
4. Motivation- The motivation to reproduce the actions of the model
Was the model reinforced?
Is the reinforcer currently desired?
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What is motivation?
• Why individuals initiate, choose, or persist in specific actions in specific circumstances
o A necessary condition of behaviour
o An energising effect on behaviour
Arouses behaviour
State that compels you to act on things
Without motivation, there is no behaviour
o A temporary state that can vary over time
Different from learning
• Motivation can be broken down into the following logical form:
o A person knows that doing an action leads to an outcome
o The person desires the outcome
Value of the outcome can change based on motivational state
o Therefore, the person does the action
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What is Hebb's analogy for motivation?
* An engine provides power and steering determines direction, which results in movement of the car
* Likewise motivation provides power and innate/learned determines direction, which results in behaviour of the individual
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What motivates behaviour?
- Elicited behaviour
- Drives
- Affective states
184
What is included in elicited behaviour?
o Instincts: Sign stimuli trigger behaviours
o Behaviourist view of learned behaviour
Reinforcement stamps in new responses to new situations
185
What is a drive and what does it do?
o Behaviours relevant to a basic biological need
Homeostatic drives such as hunger or thirst
• Drive states motivate action to restore homeostasis using both punishments and rewards
Non-homeostatic drives such as sex
o Drive states generate behaviours that result in specific benefits for the body
o Different drive states have different triggers
Respond to both internal and external cues
o Different drive states also result in different cognitive and emotional states
o As drive states intensify, they direct attention towards elements, activities and forms of consumption that satisfy the biological needs associated with the drive
o Drive states also collapse time-perspective towards the present (they make us impatent)
This form of attention-narrowing is particular pronounced for the outcomes and behaviors directly related to the biological function being served by the drive state at issue, they can make people impatient in other domains
o Intense drive states tend to narrow one’s focus inwardly and to undermine altruism
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What are affective states?
o Possess valence ( are positive or negative) and serve to motivate approach or avoidance behaviours
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Are fixed action patterns motivated by the consideration of an end goal?
No, instead they are elicited by a combination of environmental and biological circumstances
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What is Loren and Tinbergen's hydraulic view of insticts?
o Biological state A provides an energy to act
o Sign stimulus relevant to A releases the energy to act
o Fixed action pattern results
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What is the specific drive theory and what does it argue?
• Based around a specific biological need
• They motivate behaviours that are not as inflexible as instincts
• But still focused around satisfying a need
• Specific drive theories argue that:
o The drive sensitizes the individual to stimuli important to satisfy/reduce the drive
o They then motivate the individual to behave in a way to satisfy/reduce the drive
o E.g psychoanalytic theories
Freud- born with set of drives
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What are problems with the specific drive theory?
• Problems with instincts and specific drive theories:
o Circularity
Circular logic to justify drives
Evidence for justification of observation is observation itself
o Proliferation
We’d have to make instincts and drives for everything
We need to have a criteria and evidence
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What is Hull's general drive theory>
o There is a need for A
o All primary sources of need generate a tension, which makes the drive uncomfortable
o This energises random behaviours
o A behaviour that reduces drive will be reinforced and be associated with the situation (Sd)
If done enough, it becomes a habit
o Behaviour strength= habit x drive
o Drives can be internal or external
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What is an advantage of the general theory of drives?
o Animals learn how to reduce drive, so no need to infer specific drives for each biological need
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What is a disadvantage of the drive theory?
- Doesn't explain how preferences form for qualitative differences in rewards
- Drive frustration can still be reinforcing
- Reinforcement is not necessary for learning to occur (Tolman's rat study)
- Doesn't explain goal-motivated behaviour
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What is the belief-desire model of motivation?
• Decision is based on the relative value of the outcomes
• A rational, cognitive goal directed task
o Indicates that you know what the consequences of your actions will be
o Select the task that will maximise your reward
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What is a Crespi's reward contrast effects experiment?
o Groups were given 1,16 or 256 pellets of food, and running speed through the maze was measured
o On trial 20 all groups were switched to 16 pellets
o Running speed was once again measured
o Found that rats who had started with a lesser reward than 16 started running faster and those with more reward than 16 started running slower
• This experiment suggested that the value of rewards is subjective and based on expectancy
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Are all behaviours motivated to satisfy an immediate biological need?
No
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What was Harlow's experiment?
• Harlow and maternal deprivation
o Set up wire metal cage with milk bottle on it
This is the homeostatic drive being reduced
o Set up a cloth over a warm watterbottle
o Allowed orphan monkey baby to choose the mother
o Went to wire mother when hungry but largely stayed with cloth mother
The cloth mother was preferred
o Non-homeostatic needs were chosen over homeostatic needs
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Is sex a homeostatic or non-homeostatic drive?
Non-homeostatic
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How is sex explained in terms of motivation?
• Sex drive becomes sensible if we think about genetic success as a distal motivator
• The survival of the fittest (Darwin)
o There are limited resources and there is competition for these resources
o There are heritable variations between individuals
o Individuals who are best suited to their environment will tend to survive
o They will pass on their characteristics to their offspring (via genes)
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What is the psychobiological theory?
o The distal motivation to increase fitness is used to explain a lot of human behaviour:
Aggression and caution
Maternal care and jealouy
o Psychobiological drives are deterministic
The behaviour isn’t pulled by some possible future event
It is driven by events that occurred in the past:
• You have a sex-drive because having a sex-drive helped your parents to successfully reproduce, and you inherited this trait from them
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What is the just-so hypothesis?
o A tendency to explain (and justify) current inequalities by claiming they are the ‘natural order’ of things
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What is Nietzsche's view on mastery, competency and power?
o People strive in order to gain and maintain control over things, need for achievement and self-determination
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Who were two humanists and what did they believe people strive for?
o Rogers: people strive to become fully-functioning
| o Maslow: people more towards self-actualisation
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What is Maslow's hierarchy of needs?
From bottom to top of the pyramid:
- Survival
- Safety
- Love/Belonging
- Esteem
- Self actualisation
THE NEEDS EMERGE IN ORDER
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What can a disruption of Maslow's hierarchy of needs generate, and is there evidence for this hierarchy?
* Frustration of these needs generates pathology
| * However, this hierarchy’s order has no evidence- someone could be starving but still have friends
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What are some critiscisms of humanistic psychology?
o Weak empirically
o The hierarchy
Order of the hierarchy has never been proven know the needs exist but the order is made up
o Who is self-actualised?
Circularity
People proving themselves right by only studying select cases of what they think is self- actualised
o Cultural concerns and elitism
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What did Murray do?
• Murray pioneered the use of projective tests to study people’s needs and goals
o Rorscach or thematic apperception tests
Rorscach- ink blot asked to describe what it is
Thematic apperception tests- What is the person thinking in the picture? What is happening before and after?
• People are asked to describe an ambiguous image, and their descriptions are analysed for themes
• It is assumed that a person’s preoccupations, needs, drives and goals will be projected into their interpretations
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What are long term human needs?
- Achievement
- Acquisition of power
- Acquisition of other's approval and respect
- Acquisition of other's love and support
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What is the difference between extrinsic and intrinsic motivation?
External rewards such as money vs intrinsic rewards such as pride in succeeding or shame in failing
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What did McClelland do?
• Went back through childhood stories in Europe and looked for common themes
• Found relationship between themes of achievement and industrial growth – children raised on these stories would become adults with high need for achievement
• People high in need for achievement will tend towards tasks that:
o Personal responsibility for solving problems
o Sets moderate goals
o Needs concrete rapid performance feedback
o This is perfect for sales and business, but not for science and teaching
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What did Atkinson and Litwin do?
* People throw ring and choose how far away they are
| * 3 m was commonly chosen as it is a tradeoff between reward of achieving it vs probability of achieving it
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What is the expected utility of an action?
Value of goal* probability of obtaining goal
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What is the relationship between probability of success and utility of success
o If the probability of success is high (Ps), then the utility of success (Us) is low
Us= 1-Ps
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What does expected utility of an action depend on?
o The expected utility of an action depends on how likely it is that the action will succeed:
EU= Us* Ps
EU= (1-Ps)*Ps
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When faced with a task, what do people do to get maximal achievement?
• The harder the task, the better the achievement
| o But people go for moderately difficult because they know they can get something back from it
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What is state happiness vs trait happiness
State- pleasure of the moment
| Trait- subjective well being across lifetime
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What did Aristotle think caused happiness?
Hedonia (pleasure)
• Momentous state of happiness
Eudaimonia (a life well-lived)
• Moral happiness
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What is the modern view of what causes happiness and what are examples?
Happiness is determined by stable internal factors
• Strong genetic contribution to happiness
o Identical twins are more similar in happiness than fraternal twins, even those raised in different families
Happiness is determined by our external circumstances
• Pleasant things happen just as often to happy people as unhappy people
• And unpleasant things happen to happy people just as often
o It’s how they respond and interpret events that changes happiness levels
• Older people have fewer happy events because they’re less active but get more pleasure from each one
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What is the set point theory of happiness?
o Our disposition determines our happiness
o Happiness is largely a stable, internal trait
Long-term adult happiness is stable around a set-point depending on genetic factors and personality traits molded early in life
Large external events tend to cause large temporary changes in happiness, but small if any permanent ones
Our moods adjust quickly to our life circumstances and come back to the personal set-point
Think of it like homeostasis
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Who disagrees with the set-point theory of happiness?
• Economists disagree with the set-point theory:
o Classic economic theory argues that individuals are motivated to maximise their utility
Utility= satisfaction
o Mill and Bentham
Greatest happiness principle/pleasure principle
• Bentham
o People want to maximise pleasure and minimize pain
o Thus, happiness should be amenable to change if their conditions are set so that people can maximise their utility
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Contrast the Brickman, Coates, Janoff and Bulman study to the Lindqvist, Ostling and Cesarini study
o Brickman, Coates, Janoff-Bulman- 1978
Suggests that lottery winners are momentarily happier but return to normal
Low sample size of 22 people
o Lindqvist Ostling Cesarini-2018
Shows that lottery winners remain more satisfied across their lives on several scales compared to their peers
Tracked people who won large amounts of money at the lottery and looked at their records
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Are richer people happier?
• Richer people are, on average, happier but it appears to satiate
o Limit to what money can do satiates at a certain income level
o Contradicted by the Easterlin paradox which found no trend in happiness and real income per capita in the US
o Poor relationship between income and happiness across countries
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Why is there a poor relationship between income and happiness across countries?
o This could be due to comparison between peers:
Perception of well-being
• Don’t ask how well you’re doing but how well you’re doing in comparison to your peers
Depends on expectation of income
• People are more sensitive to perceived losses than gains
Inequality tends to breed unhappiness
• Unless there is trust in society’s institutions
o Deaths of despair- Large amounts of income inequality have effects on health
o Mental illness is more common in more unequal societies
Suicide
Obesity
Alcohol
o Other animals are also susceptible to income inequality
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What did Seligman think about happiness?
o Seligman
o Using modern psychological research methods to study authentic happiness
o Happiness comes from a life of meaning and engagement, not just satisfaction
Pleasure/Enjoyment
• How people experience the pleasant things in life
Engagement
• The beneficial effect of immersing in a primary activity
Meaning/affiliation
• The pleasure of belonging or contributing to a group or cause
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What is evidence against the set point theory of happiness?
o Heady, Muffels and Wagne
Analysed data from the German Socio-Economic panel and found that individuals’ well-being can change considerably in their lives
• Against set-point theory
