Test 1: Chapter 1, 2, 3(slides 1-24), 4 Flashcards
Experience
Contact with, participation in, or exposure to external (e.g. in the environment) or internal events to which the organism is sensitive. These events are stimuli.
Learning
All relatively permanent changes in the potential for behaviour that results from experience but are not due to fatigue, aging, maturation, drugs, injury, or disease.
Change in Behaviour
Actual or potentially observable changes following experience.
Misconceptions
Can interfere with learning
Some misconceptions includes:
Only 10% of the brain is used
Lef and Right Brain Hemispheres have distinct and clearly separate functions
The brain cannot change and no new neurons form after birth
Bubba(Grandmother) Psychology
an intuitive sort of folk psychology, implicit or naïve psychology. Not backed with science and more backed with belief.
Pen and Paper vs Typing?
Typing → Transcribing word to word more than taking in the key message due to being faster
Pen and Paper → Summarizing key messages do to being slower, easier to process the key ideas
Greek Philosophers on Learning
Plato –> Rationalism
Aristotle –> Empiricism
Socrates –> Dialectic Method
Plato Rationalism:
Is truth and knowledge found within us?
The belief that knowledge and truth can be discovered by self-reflection and tapping into internal knowledge and being introspective.
Aristotle Empiricism:
Or is it found outside of ourselves by using our senses?
The use of senses in combination to experience the world to look for truth and gather knowledge of the world outside.
Socrates Dialectic Method:
Discovering truth and knowledge through experience via conversations with others
Roman Philosophies on Learning
More focused on finding solutions to real problems
Roman Catholic Church:
Expectations from god and the values of the church
Knowledge via scripture; memorization and recitation that is already set in stone
Sharing questions among those restricted to learning via apprenticeship or trade
The Renaissance
Understanding the world incorporating art becoming a more interdisciplinary manner
Science:
Physics shadow in a painting
Colours
Copernicus
Questioning the world
Is the world the center of the universe?
Martin Luther
Questioning the religion
Rene Descartes
Revived Plato’s concept of innate knowledge
Ex: Body’s reflexive response to an extreme source of heat
Breaking down a reflex
Something happens in the environment → change happens internally → output
Connecting what is happening in the body internally/physiologically allows for change or learning to occur.
John Locke
Revived Aristotle’s concept of empiricism with the concept of a child’s mind being a blank tablet (Tabula rasa)
Our experiences define who we are as people, drawing on our blank canvas
Jean-Jacque Rousseau
Similar to Locke, let a child experience the world on their own for proper learning and development.
Wrote a novel where the hero learns about life through experiences in life, solidifies and enhances knowledge
Immanuel Kant
Refined Plato’s rationalist theory with his suggestion that priori knowledge was a knowledge that was present before experience
Edward L. Thorndike
Brought the scientific approach to the study of learning, the first modern psychologist
B.F Skinner
Looking at non-human animals to study learning and make educated guesses about what is happening in humans.
Reward/Punishment
Bringing the Scientific Method to Learning
Modern and experimental apparatus to assess learning in pigeons and rodents
Has to be relative to a species
Progressive Approximation: Not naturally done, trained to a particular response to a change in the environment ( ei reinforcement such as food, relief of electric shock )
Pushing a lever in rats
Pecking at a light in pigeons
Learning the rate of learning
Response Rate = nº or responses/time
Application to education system on children in lower grades or delinquents
Reduce delinquent behaviour
Jean Piaget
First to state that learning is a developmental cognitive process
The educational system must keep the developmental cognitive process in mind
3 y.o vs 5 y.o vs 10 y.o vs 15 y.o
Consider the ability to handle the information at each age
Consider the subject at hand to learn a concept given the age
(ie if memorization or practice is required)
Vygotsky
Include cultural context
Social-cultural cognition: The idea that all learning occurs in a cultural context and involves social interactions, which can influence learning
(ie western education normalizes questioning our teachers)
Zone of Proximal Development: Acknowledgment of which stage a learner is at (ie a novice vs an expert)
Social-cultural cognition:
The idea that all learning occurs in a cultural context and involves social interactions, which can influence learning
(ie western education normalizes questioning our teachers)
Zone of Proximal Development:
Acknowledgment of which stage a learner is at (ie a novice vs an expert)
Progressive Learning Theory:
Embraces Piaget’s ideas on child development, Vygotsky’a idea on social cognition and the construction of knowledge
Emphasis on both experience and thinking as well as reflection
Recognition of the role experience and reflection play in the development of ideas and skills
Appreciate reinforcement, cognitive intent, effort reasoning and practice play a role in the development
Acknowledge of developmental stages, and the encouragement via social interactions and the structures of the zone fo proximal development
John Dewey
Education should not be separate from life itself, child-centered, guided by a trained teacher in pedagogical (ie effective ways of learning a particular topic) and subject knowledge.
Maria Montessori
Task of a teacher is preparing an environment free of obstruction for free learning and explore and discover
The Learning Process:
Association
Drawing connections from the known to new information
Socio-cultural context
Dependent and influenced by what is valued and experienced at home/community/classroom environments
Individual Preferences
Ex: Laptop multitasking in classroom learning
Multitasking is a significant distraction to both the learner and peers nearby
Introspectionism:
Early Scientific Psych leaned into it
Reflect and describe learning the best of oneself
Too personal, no objective data
Introspectionism:
Early Scientific Psych leaned into it
Reflect and describe learning the best of oneself
Too personal, no objective data
Wilhelm Wundt
Structuralism:
Psychological Processes are the product of physiological actions in the brain
A different point of view from other points of history
Moving away from introspection
Breaking down into the separate components
Cue → Routine → Reward
James Mark Baldwin
Functionalism:
Purpose of specific behavior, the function of a thing and how might it assist learning
Ex: Habit formation
Understanding mental process via the goal/purpose of those processes
Cue→Routine→Reward
Early Psychophysics
People learn from each other
How do we detect it?
Sensation:
The process through which senses detect visual/auditory and other sensory stimuli and transmit them to the brain
Ex: Visual (Intensity of light), Auditory (Volume of sound) etc
Perception:
The process by which sensory information is actively organized and interpreted by the brain into a meaningful message
Absolute Threshold:
The difference between the limit of not being able to perceive a stimulus and the limit of being able to just barely to perceive it, is a point at which the stimulus will be detected 50% of the time. More approximate than absolute.
Difference Threshold:
The smallest increase/decrease in physical stimulus that is required to produce the ‘just noticeable difference” (JND) in a sensation that is detectable 50% of the time
Benchmark
Constant proportion of a stimulus → Mark Weber or Weber’s Law
Connected the the initial intensity of the stimulus
Ei: adding 0.5kg to a 1kg weight is noticeable
But adding a 0.5kg to a 50kg is not
Classical Conditioning
- Accidental discovery by Pavlov
Amount of saliva induced
Lab techs that regularly brought food to dogs
Dogs started to produce at the sight of lab techs instead of usually when food gets there
Anticipation of food
Physiological response
Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
No Training Required to react
Eg: food
Unconditioned Response (UR)
No learning/training required to occur
Eg: Salivation
When US is paired with another stimuli often enough, this other stimulus will eventually lead the response originally associated only with the US
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
Trained to associate/pair CR to US
Eg: Buzzer before food
Conditioned Response (CR)
Trained to respond to CS
Eg: Salivation to Buzzer
Classical conditioning takes advantage of natural reflexes
Innate biological responses
Reflex responses can be classically conditioned
Variation in Contiguity
Contiguity =/= Contingency
Pavlovian conditioned is based on contiguity
Events that occur together in time/space are associated
Contingency means one event is correlated with each other
Simultaneous Pairing
CS starts and ends exactly at the same time as US
Delayed Pairing
CS presented before US and continues during the presentation of US
Trace Pairing
CS starts and ends before US so that there is a very brief time lapse between the two
Backwards Pairing
US presented and removed before presentation of CS
Acquisition
Learning or “Acquisition” during Reinforced Trials (CS followed by US)
Amount of Saliva peaks
“Extinction”
“Extinction” of learned response during Unreinforced Trials (CS only)
No food given so amount of saliva drops
“Spontaneous Recovery”
during an interruption or break then Unreinforced Trials
History of learning causes an initial spike of saliva but quickly drops
Stimulus Generalization
Making the same/similar responses when presented with any of a number of related stimuli
A dog barks to any whistle
Stimulus Discrimination
Making different responses to related but distinctly different stimuli
A dog only barks to a specific whistle of a set frequency but not another
Higher Order Conditioning
Responses, stimuli, and reinforcers linked in complex ways
John Broadus Watson
Classical Conditioning
Includes physical reflexes but also emotional response
Reflexes can be brought by specific stimuli like fear
Transfer: making of similar responses for a variety of related stimuli
Albert Experiment:
Before Conditioning
Neutral Stimulus: White Rat → No Fear
Unconditioned Stimulus: Hammering Metal → Unconditioned Response: Fear
During Conditioning
Neutral Stim associated with US → UR: Fear
After Conditioning
White Rat (Conditioned Stim) → Conditioned Respons: Fear
White fuzzy animals proc the CR
Transfer:
making of similar responses for a variety of related stimuli
All phobias are most likely conditioned
Either a fear of an original stimulus or that they had been transferred to other stimuli as the person grew older
Palovian Treatment for Enuresis
Child Sleeps on a pad → Wets the bed → Circuit causes bell to ring (US) → Wakes up (UR)
In a short time, need to urinate (CS) becomes sufficient to awaken the child (CR)
Conditioned Taste Aversion in Coyotes
To control predation of agricultural animals
Sheep Meat (CS) sprinkled with bitter chemical (UCS) inducing stomach aches (UCR)
Coyotes which ate the meat avoided live sheep (CR)
Immune System
Injected Guinea Pigs with foreign agents (non-lethal)
Anti-bodies boosted immune system
Paired injections with lights
Light+Injections = better immunity
Just lights = better immunity
Cholera Injections: Animals with prior conditioning had better survival vs controls
Higher Learning
Watson: Responses that are selected and sequenced
More complex learning simply requires the conditioning of more stimulus-response sequences → lead to habits and habit loops
Appraisal of Watson’s Behaviourism
Critics contend Watson of
exaggerating the role of learning in determining behaviours
Underemphasized role of heredity
Did popularize the notion that environmental experiences are potent forces in shaping behaviour patters
Elaborated on the learning model (classical conditioning via emotion like fear) that explains some aspects of animal/human behaviours
Edwin Guthrie
Guthrie’s Law of One-Shot Learning:
Movement Produced Stimuli
Guthrie’s Law of One-Shot Learning:
When an organism does something on one occasion, it will tend to the exact same thing in repeated occasions
Strength of the ond between a stimulus and response is reached during the first pairing; neither strengthened or weakened by practice
Movement Produced Stimuli
Stimulus is not only one sensation, but a combination of numerous sensation
Response is not a single final act, but a sequence of actions
One stimulus is a combo of senses which can cause a sequence of different responses
Ex: sound of bells lead to a number of alerting responses
Ear canal, turn to look to direction of sound, turn body to sound etc
Guthrie labeled these stimuli (Movement Produced Stimuli or MPS)
Contiguity in MPS
Sequence between initial presentation of stimuli and occurrence of response is filled with a sequence of responses and the proprioceptive stimulation that results
Each response and corresponding stimuli are in contiguity and associated with each other
Entire sequence is learned because each individual MPS is present as the response occurs
Bring behaviour under control, necessary to arrange for a behaviour to occur in the presence of stimulus conditions that you control
Responses aren’t forgotten, only replaced with more recently leaned response
Habit breaking involves finding the cues that initate the habit and to practice another response to the same cues
Fatigue a system
Ex: Smoking a lot of cigarettes at a time to the point it feels gross
Threshold
Ex: slowly weening off a cigarette
Incompatible Stimuli
Ex: Smoke outside while its cold too cold where its not relaxing anymore
Edward Lee Thorndike
Tried to establish that animals learn through a gradual process of trial and error that leads to the “stamping in” of correct response
Do animals have humanlike capacities of thought and reason?
Based on the outcome of behaviours
Pleasurable or not
Puzzle Boxes and Animal Intelligence
First time a cat in a box, random movement eventually triggers level for escape
Escape → pleasurable response
Continued to put same animal in a box
Time to escape decreases as more trials occur
Connection formed between response and situation
This connection is learned or “stamped in”
Thorndike not interested in what cognitively is what happening like memory but on what is observable
Reinforcement or Contiguity
How does “stamping in occur”
Learning theories that look at the formation of connections or associations (conditioning theories) rely on both contiguity or reinforcement:
Reinforcement: Outcome or consequences of a particular behaviour → Thorndike
Contiguity: Association of two events → Pavlovian explanation
Law of Effect
If the positive outcome, engagement of that behaviour occurs more often and vice versa
Law of Readiness
Mainly with learner motivation
Readiness: related to the learner’s maturation and to previous learning and it has much to do with satisfaction or annoyance of an activity
Subsidiary Laws
Multiple Responses
In any given situation, organisms will respond in a variety of ways if the first response does not lead immediately to a more satisfying state of affairs
Like a cycle of trial and error
Attempt→Observe
Set or Attitude
Learning is partly a function of attitudes or a set of predispositions we have in terms of how we react to something
Prepotency of Elements
Learner might only react to the significant (prepotent) elements of a problem situation and be undistracted by irrelevant aspects of a situation
Response by Analogy
Using a previous experience and applying it to another situation
Associative Shifting
Pleasurable shift between one response to the behaviour itself
Ex: treat every time to shake paw but eventually, the behaviour is rewarding without the treat
1930 Thorndike’s Later Theory: Emphasis on Reinforcement
Repealing his previous laws
Law of Exercise
Some situations may not be learned by only repetition
Some need more flexibility
Half a Law of Effect
Behaviours can be stamped in but there may be other ways
Less dichotomous
Announcement of right and wrong strengthens or weakens but not nullifies the effect
Learning by Ideas
Recognition of hinting towards cognitive concerns
Principle of Belongingness
If reinforcers ( based on a need state) and responses belonged with each other connections between S-R
Behaviours that belong together usually pair strong bond together
Ex: Hunger → Foraging → (belongingness) –> Food
Bond between Hunger and Foraging
Hunger → Grooming → (No belongingness) → Food
No bond between Hunger and Grooming
Law of Exercise
Some situations may not be learned by only repetition
Some need more flexibility
Half a Law of Effect
Behaviours can be stamped in but there may be other ways
Less dichotomous
Announcement of right and wrong strengthens or weakens but not nullifies the effect
Radical Behaviourism: Anti-Theory
No educated guesses only based on observed behaviour
Skinner claimed behaviour should be studied and explained in the most direct way
Ei: the number of presses or lever flicks
Skinner’s Behaviourism
Rely exclusively on directly observable phenomena
Psychology is considered an objective science
Analysis of behaviour without appeal to subjective mental events or speculative physiological events
Skinner’s Theory
Based on 2 fundamental assumptions
Human behaviour follows certain laws
Causes of Behaviour are outside the person, and these can be observed and studied
Experimental Analysis of Behaviour
Cause → Effect
What is Manipulated → What is Measured
Independent Variable → Dependent Variable
Operant Learning
Responses elicited by a stimulus are labelled respondents
Organism reacts to the environments
Involuntary
Responses simply emitted by an organism are labelled operants
Organism acts to the environment
Voluntary
Consequences and Prevalence of Operant Behaviours
Most of the important behaviours in which people engage are operant
Consequences of the behaviours are key
Positive and Negative Reinforcement
Behaviour(studying) → Consequence in Positive RI presentation (teacher approval) → Frequency of Behaviour increases
Behaviour(studying) → Consequence in negative RI removal (teacher disapproval) → Frequency of Behaviour increases
Punishment vs Negative Reinforcement
Negative Reinforcement: Procedure that increases the probability of a behaviour
Punishment: introducing a negative contingency or termination of a positive one
Eg: Disney Positive reinforcement to keep employ moral
Reinforcement Schedules
Experimental Analysis of Behaviour
Dependent Variables
Acquisition Rate
Rate of Responding
Extinction Rate
Indepentent Variables
The way rewards are administered
Way rewards are administered in Reinforcement Schedules
Continous
Every Desire is rewarded
Intermittent
Only occurs some of the time
Fixed
Ratio: every x correct response is rewarded
Interval: every first correct response is rewarded every x seconds
Random (or Variable)
Ratio: on every x amount of time, a response may be rewarded
Interval: may be rewarded every first correct response every 15 seconds
Animals don’t know when so they work harder all the time → higer slope
Concurrent
Different schedules associated with different behaviours are presented concurrently, eg: one can be random interval and the other fixed ratio
Combined
Combined of continuous and intermittent
Magazine Training
Teaching the organism where to go to get its reward
Experimenter demonstrates process for attaining reward
Organism is deprived for food to increase reinforcer effectiveness
Effects of Extinction
Extinction rate = the amount of time that passes before the organism stops responding after withdrawal of reinforcement
Continous schedule = rapid extinction
Fixed schedule extinction > variable schedule extinction
Effects of Schedules on Rate of Responding
Fixed Interval → Animal rests until its time to perform for reward
Random Ratio → Less rest since reward is unpredictable
Premack Principle
Reinforcers can be activities or responses rather than only stimuli
Preferred activities can be reinforced with less preferred activities
Pleasent tasks are reinforcing tasks, we get more of that something when reinforcing tasks are put after something
Practical application of Operant Conditioning
Attention Economy
Attention is a commodity to apps → more attention more ads
Autoplay in youtube/netflix
Dopamine → when novel things
Persuasive AI
Tristan Harris
Smartphones and addiction to media
3 Solutions
Acknowledge we are Persuadable
We need new models for accountability system
Rethink on how we use the systems
Skinner’s Appraisal
Contribution to understanding the human behaviour is his description of the effects of reinforcing on responding
Applied to drugs, gambling, addiction etc
Limits on cognitive theory, decision and problem solving perception
Neglecting role of biology in learning
