Psychology Chapter 6 Flashcards
1
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Learning
A
is any relatively durable change in behaviour or knowledge that is due to experience.
2
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Behavioural Theories
A
- attempt tor elate units of behaviour, called responses, to units of the environment, called stimuli (the plural of stimulus)
- focusing upon explaining the behaviour and predicting further behaviour (relating future stimuli to future responses)
- “earning is an adaptive process..”
3
Q
Evolutionary Theories
A
- would focus on the adaptive aspects of learning to survival
* organisms that were able to "learn" (i.e. determine relations among events)were able to survive in a changing environment * but learning still occurs even if the environment is not changing-- the organism "learns " that the environment has not changed (the bear and the stream)
4
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the Orienting Response-
A
our attention is drawn to novel stimulus
• Operant Conditioning – Focusing on the learning that occurs when we pair environmental stimuli with our own behaviour (“operant behaviour” – the organism learns by “operating” on the environment)
5
Q
Habituation
A
- learning not to respond to an unimportant even that occurs reportedly
* (whistle vs. Baby's cru) * ignoring unimportant stimuli is adaptive for survival
is essentially a form of Classical Conditioning – where the stimulus is not paired with any meaningful event, thus we learn to ignore it.
6
Q
Classical Conditioning
A
- Pavlov & his dogs (Jim and Dwight)
- Classical Conditioning involves learning about the conditions that predict that a significant even will occur
- also called “Pavlovian conditioning”
- wasn’t even a psychologist, he was doing his research on how we eat and react to food – dogs produce saliva (salivate) in participation for the food.
focuses on learning about events in our environment. Specifically, relations between events (i.e. so that we can predict future events).
7
Q
UN-condition Stimulus (UCS)
A
- stimulus that naturally elicits some response
* we didn’t need to be taught the meaning of it
8
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UN-conditioned Response (UCR)
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- a response that is naturally elicited by the stimulus
- dust in the eye–blink because eye is irritated .
- the salivary response is a natural reflex response.
- a response that is naturally elicited by the stimulus
Pavlov’s dogs- naturally salvage in the presence of food.
9
Q
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
A
- some stimulus that was previously neutral ( i.e. it did not automatically elicits the response ) –through reported pairings with the UCS – becomes a “cue” for the response (what was previously know as the UCR) -i.e. the CS now elicits the response,
- But this response is no longer referred to as the UCR
10
Q
Conditions Response (CR)
A
the response that was previously referred to as the UCR, when it is elicited by the CS, is now referred to as the CR (but it’s still the same response).
11
Q
Pavlov’s Discovery
A
- Originally studying the mechanisms underlying digestion (not psychology)
- Realized that the dogs had learned to anticipate the food based on environmental stimuli (the presence of the dish or the person doing the feeding)
12
Q
natural reflex action
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Without Prior Learning
UCS (food) naturally elicits UCR (salivation)
13
Q
a neutral stimulus
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The Bell
14
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Acquisition
A
– “the learning phase” – during which conditioning occurs – the organism learns that the CS is reliably paired with the UCS, and learns to exhibit the CR to the CS.
15
Q
Three factors affect the strength of the CR (“strength” = the ability of the CS to elicit the CR and/or can refer to the intensity of the CR )
A
– Timing of the CS & UCS (contiguity)
– Reliable pairings (contingency)
– Intensity of the UCS
16
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Extinction
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when the CS is repeatedly presented without being followed by the UCS
17
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• Spontaneous Recovery
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almost as if we have forgotten the extinction.
18
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• Timing
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the order and timing of the presentation of the CS & UCS
-optimal delay
19
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• Intensity
A
the intensity of the UCS that the CS is paired with will have an impact on the ability of the CS to elicit the CR.
– A weaker UCS will not produce a strong relation between the CS and the CR.
20
Q
• Discrimination
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being able to determine the CS and similar conditional stimuli (CSsimilar), and dissimilar conditional stimuli (CSdissimilar).
– The CS and CSsimilar will elicit the CR, but the CSdissimilar will not.
21
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• Generalization
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when a stimulus that is similar to the CS will also elicit the CR
22
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Blocking
A
- What happens when a second neutral stimulus (CSB) is presented together with a previously conditioned CS (CSA)?
- Blocking – The previously conditioned CSA will interfere with the organism’s ability to pair the new CSB with the UCS – hence the CSB will not elicit the CR.
23
Q
Types of CRs
A
- Excitatory Conditioned Response \
* Inhibitory Conditioned Response
24
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• Excitatory Conditioned Response
A
(what we have typically been discussing thus far) – The CS signals that the UCS is about to occur.
– Pavlov’s assistant walking into the room (the CS), prior to feeding the dogs (the UCS)
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• Inhibitory Conditioned Response
when the CS signals the absence of the UCS
– Imagine if Pavlov had a second lab assistant – who’s job it was to observe the dogs in between feedings – thus, when this assistant entered the lab, it would signal a period of “no food”
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Conditioned Emotional Responses
• Many stimuli are able to arouse emotional responses
• Phobias are probably an example of a conditioned emotional response
• Phobias are an unreasonable fear of specific objects or situations, learned through classical conditioning
– Either through direct experience, or through observation of the experience of another (seeing, hearing about, reading)
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The Development of Fears & Phobias
• Watson & Rayner (1920) – “Little Albert B”
– Demonstrated the establishment of a conditioned emotional response
• white rat alone - not afraid
• white rat paired with loud noise
• white rat alone - afraid
• rabbit alone - afraid
• fur coat alone -afraid
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27
Operant Conditioning Thorndike’s Law of Effect
– The consequences of a behaviour effect whether that behaviour will be repeated or not.
• Behaviour that leads to positive outcomes has a greater tendency of being repeated.
• Behaviour that leads to negative outcomes is less likely to be repeated.
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Operant Conditioning
| • Skinner
– Pioneering work on Operant Conditioning
– The Operant Chamber (the Skinner Box) & the Cumulative Recorder were immensely valuable to being able to study animal behaviour
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Operant ConditioningThe Three-Term-Contingency
The presence of the Discriminative (or Antecedent) Stimulus indicates that our RESPONSE will elicit a particular CONSEQUENCE.
The consequence could be positive or negative.
NOTE – the changed meaning of “response” (Previously, the organism’s reaction. Now, the organism’s behaviour, which leads to the consequences)
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Operant Conditiioning Types of Stimuli
* Appetitive Stimulus
| * Aversive Stimulus
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Operant Conditioning Aversive Stimulus –
any stimulus that is unpleasant or painful
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Operant Conditioning Appetitive Stimulus
any stimulus that is good or desirable
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Operant Condition- Primary Reinforcers
– a “natural” reinforcer (i.e. food, water, sex)
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Operant Conditioning- Secondary Reinforcers
a reinforcer that is not innately satisfying, but becomes a reinforcer through conditioning. Token reinforcers (i.e. money) are secondary reinforcers.
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Operant Conditioning - Reinforcement
increases the likelihood that a response will be repeated. Two types:
– Positive Reinforcement
– Negative Reinforcement
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– operant conditioning- Positive Reinforcement
a response is regularly and reliably followed by the onset of an appetitive stimulus
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– operant conditioning- Negative Reinforcement
a response is regularly and reliably followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus
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Operant conditioning- Punishment
decreases the likelihood that a response will be repeated
- positive punishment
- negative punishment
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Operant Conditioning - positive punishment”
a response is followed by the onset of an aversive stimulus (a punisher)
• Text calls this “positive punishment”
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Operant Conditioning- negative punishment
a response is followed by the removal of an appetitive stimulus
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Operant Conditioning - Extinction
– a decrease in the likelihood that a response will be repeated.
– The response had to have been previously reinforced.
• How is this a “type of reinforcement/punishment?”
– The reinforcement is no longer paired with the response, hence the frequency of the response decreases.
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• Operant Conditioning Generalization
giving the response to stimuli that are similar to the Discriminative (or Antecedent) Stimulus.
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• Operant Condition Discrimination
learning to distinguish between different types/forms of Discriminative Stimuli.
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Operant Conditioning - Shaping
reinforcing any response that successfully approximates the desired response
• Want a rat to press a lever?
– Reinforce any movement toward the lever,
– Then, only reinforce touching the lever,
– Then, only reinforce pressing the lever
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• Intermittent Reinforcement
einforcing some, but not all, of the responses.
– This leads the organism to expect the occasional unrewarded response – and hence the organism is more willing to keep repeating the response even when not reinforced
– The response is more resistant to extinction
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Operant Conditioning- Schedules of Reinforcement
* Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement
| * Interval Schedule of Reinforcement
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• Operant Conditioning- Ratio Schedule of Reinforcement
two types) – both based on keeping consistent a ratio between number of responses and the number of reinforcements
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• Operant Conditioning - Interval Schedule of Reinforcement
• Interval Schedule of Reinforcement – (two types) – both based on reinforcing the first response that occurs after a certain period of time has elapsed
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Schedules of Reinforcement -- • Fixed-Interval Schedule
– after a fixed amount of time has passed, the very next response is rewarded
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Schedules of Reinforcement -• Variable-Interval Schedule
after a variable amount of time (keeping constant a certain average amount of time), the very next response is rewarded
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The Conditioning of Complex Behaviours – Are we preprogrammed to be sensitive to aversive stimuli?
* Taste Aversion – do we have a biological predisposition to avoid/dislike foods that have previously been associated with nausea?
* Is it possible that we (and other animals – i.e. rats), have the “pre-wired” ability to more easily make associations between certain kinds of environmental stimuli?
• Conditioning of Flavour Aversions - Garcia & Koelling (1966)
– Tested the drinking behaviour of rats in cages
– DV – the amount of water they would drink (compared to normal)
– IV – four conditions
• Conditioning of Flavour Aversions - Garcia & Koelling (1966)
– Rats – taking a sip of water was paired with: either (1) a sugary taste, or (2) a buzzing noise with a flashing light
– These two “types of water” (i.e. “bright-noisy” water, and “tasty” water) were paired with two types of aversive stimuli (shock, or illness)
• Results: rats in group 1 and group 4 had reduced levels of drinking in a follow up test
• Proving that not just any CS can be paired with any UCS.
– Learning is facilitated when the CS and the UCS make sense together
– Rats were able to learn about associations between internal sensations (illness) and novel tastes
– The interval between the CS and the UCS can be quite long
52
Observational Learning
* Observational Learning (or modeling): learning that occurs without direct experience, solely through observing the actions of others.
* Albert Bandura – the famous “Bobo doll experiment”
• Learning through observation is not a simple matter of observation. It is an active judgmental and constructive process. Through observation, observers acquire symbolic representations of different ways of doing things, and these ideas serve as guides for their own behaviour.
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•Observational Learning -- Three factors that influence the effectiveness of a model
– Characteristics of the model ,– Attributes of the observer ,– Reward consequences associated with a behaviour
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•Observational Learning-– Characteristics of the model
we are more likely to be influenced by someone who we believe is similar to ourselves
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•Observational Learning- – Attributes of the observer
people who are low in self-esteem, highly dependent, or highly motivated are more likely to follow a model
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•Observational Learning - – Reward consequences associated with a behaviour
people are more likely to emulate a model if they believe that such actions will lead to positive results.
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• Processes of Observational Learning
– Attentional processes
– Retentional processes
– Motor Production processes
– Motivational processes
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• Processes of Observational Learning-– Attentional processes
actually paying attention to the model and the activity being performed
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• Processes of Observational Learning- – Retentional processes
after observing, we must retain the memory of the behaviour (a symbolic representation of the behaviour)
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• Processes of Observational Learning- – Motor Production processes
in order to imitate, we must translate the symbolic representation into an action or set of actions
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• Processes of Observational Learning - – Motivational processes
Acquisition (what a person has learned and can do) versus Performance (what a person actually does)
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Operant Conditioning - Fixed-Ratio Schedule
a reinforcement is scheduled to occur after a certain number of responses (i.e. a food pellet is delivered after every 5th press of the lever)
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Operant Conditioning - Variable-Ratio Schedule
a reinforcement is scheduled to occur an average amount of times. The occurrence of the reinforcement is variable (but the reinforcement occurs after a certain average number of responses)
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Observational learning - External reinforcment
* In Observational Learning, the learning occurs without any necessary External reinforcement of the learning (not dependent on reinforcement).
* However, reinforcement can facilitate the learning process – the individual’s anticipation of reward or punishment influences how they behave.
There are 4 types: 1. Extrinsic reinforcement 2. Intrinsic reinforcement 3. Vicarious reinforcement 4. Self-reinforcement
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1. Extrinsic reinforcement
external) usually arbitrary or socially arranged rather than a natural outcome of the behaviour
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2. Intrinsic reinforcement
naturally related to the behaviour (i.e. some behaviours produce a natural physiological effect), or our emotional response to the behaviour.
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3. Vicarious reinforcement
– when we learn appropriate behaviour from the successes or mistakes of others
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4. Self-reinforcement
– we can regulate our own behaviour by setting our own standards for conduct and responding to those in self-rewarding or self-punishing ways
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Bandura’s Original Observational Learning Studies
• Transmission of Aggression Through Imitation of Aggressive Models (1961)
• 72 Nursery School children
• Two adult “models” (later done with television models)
• Three conditions:
– control,
– aggressive models,
– non-aggressive models
* In order to clearly demonstrate observational learning, the models performed sufficiently novel patterns of aggressive behaviour (i.e. striking doll with mallet, sitting on doll, tossing it in the air) and verbal aggression (i.e. “sock him” or “hit him down”).
* Participants’ behaviour toward the model was observed – specific aggressive acts were noted.
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• Results: (average aggression scores)
• Imitative physical aggression
– Male model
• Female participants = 7.2
• Male participants = 25.8
– Female model
• Female participants = 5.5
• Male participants = 12.4
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* Bandura’s work on Observational Learning forms the basis of his Social Learning Theory (that we learn social behavior by observing, imitating and being rewarded/punished for our behaviour)
* Current research focuses on creating pro-social models for creating collective action for social change (i.e. creating “soap operas” in developing countries that include themes of safe sex as a way of modeling healthy sexual behaviour and thereby preventing the spread of disease)
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The Effects of Stress on Learning
• Stress has an impact on our ability to recall learned information
– Example: veterans with PTSD were unable to recall information learned earlier
• Stress has an effect on our ability to focus our attention (a necessary step in learning)
– Using a modified Stroop test, where people are presented with threatening or neutral words in various colours, subjects are asked to name the colour of the words
– People suffering from PTSD responded slower to words that were threat-related – indicating that their attention was focused on threat related cues instead of on the task.
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Evaluative conditioning
refers to changes in the liking of stimulus that result from a pairing that stimulus with other positive or negative stimuli.
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higher-order condition
in which a conditioned stimulus functions as if it were an unconditioned stimulus.
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cumulative recorder
creates a graphic record of responding an reinforcement in a skinner box as function of time.
