Theories of learning Flashcards
Habituation
Getting used to a particular stimuli and getting desantitised to it( not responding)
Classical conditioning
Learning = associations
Natural occuring stimuli and unconditioned response vs. conitioned stimuli to an unconditioned stimuli
Instrumental conditioning
Edward Thorndike - response depends on the reinforced behaviour
BF Skinner insisted actions are voluntary, operant - certain action brings certain consequences
Law of effect
Responses that are rewarded are strenghtened and the ones that are punished are weakened
Acquisition of conditioned response CR
CR to a CS , CS leads + CS (secondary conditioned stimulus) = CR, blank + CS= CR
Extinction in learning
We develop associations connected to a stimulus and producing a reaction, but over time if the item to which we associated changes the response declines
Spontanious recovery & Reconditioning
After a break we try again and the original associated item is present some residial learning has left so the response reappears
Generalisation
Seeing similar objects to the original association but the conditioned response is still present
Discrimination
Over time we realise we won’t get what we want from the original association and earlier weve generalised to the original item.
Later we learn to discriminate between one and another association
Ihibitor - learning our original association is no longer valid
Conditioned fear
CR is much more complex than just salivating (pavlov’s experiments) , conditioned emotional response procedure
- fear response is sometimes biological
- wolf initially ignores footsteps of danger while approaching food shack, continues to salivate
- later supresses salivation
KJ, 26 YO - CR to doing heroin at home so body reacted differently when in an unfamliar enviornment - overdose
Conditioned fear
past negative experience leading to us quickly learn a negative association with something
CR and UR connection
CR and UR are very similar however salive samples show different enzymes
UR - intense salivation, richer in enzymes (meat in mouth)
UR - fear conditioning - exposed to negative stimuli, heart rate increases (wolf exposer to teaser)
CR - footsteps wolf hears - wolf freezes, tenses muscles, heart rate slows = fearful anticipation
We can adapt to conditioned responses
For example in diabetes, when people take insuline over and over again they can see changes in insulkine levels just by seeing the needle
Edward Tolman’s maze experiment
Cognitive learning- goal oriented or learn about the conditioned stimulus
In Classical conditioning animals don’t respond the same way to CS as US
They’re subtly or very different sometimes
CS signals that US is to follow - animal makes preparations
Signal needs to occur within close timeframe in classical conditioning so as to learn
Contiguity (Pavlov)
Short period of time between CS and US for learning to occur
Contingency
For learning to take place a stimulus must provide a signal of a likelihood of something happening
Reliably has to occur prior to event
Contingency effect
Rescorla 1967,1988
Rats exposed to tone (CS) and shock (US)
Tone not always presented prior to shock
in 2 groups of rats tone indicated 40% chance of shock (CS-US pairing)
The Blocking Effect - Leon Kamin, 1968
refers to the fact we larn less if a second stimulus which was previously reliable is now unreliable or inconsistent with our initial association
Latent learning ( Tolman & Honzik, 1930)
Acquisition of new knowledge without change in behaviour
Best studying/ learning techniques
Techniques that have evidence based research suggesting they work
Elaborative interogation
Explaining why a specific fact is true
Self explanation
Explain steps taken for problem solving, cxpl, how new info is incorporated with old info
Keyword mnemonic
Using keywords and mental images to associate with verbal materials
Interleaved practice
Schedule of study of different topics, materials within a single study session
Presley et al1987
Self explanation works because it helps to incorporate new information to prior knowledge (students must be able to discriminate among related facts)
In this experiment Ps were asked to soon after revising, therefore not sufficient method for longer texts
Highlighting and underlining
Most frequently used method
Fowler & Barker (1974) - Ps read an article, 1 hour of study, 1 week later 54 MCQs (allowed to review material 10 mins prior to test)
Highlighting groups didn’t outperform control groups
Draws attention to important information if highlighting has been used appropriately and distictively
Enhances understanding
Active engagement should benefit performance
Practice testing
Low stakes or no stakes practice (eg. Practical recall, practice problem solving or questions)
Retrieval practice
Practice test - MCQs, fill in blank tests, essay style recall tests
Added benefit to long-term retention
Roediger & Karpicke (2006)
Passage read 4 tmes, no test - single test: passage read 3 times, students recall as much as poss, repeated test - read once then recall as much as poss on 3 occassions
Average recall waas 50% higher in the repeated test condition - ROBUST EFFECT
Why is practice testing good for learning?
Mediated effect - better learning at next study
Carpenter (2009) testing improves retantion by triggering elaboratibe retrieval process (multiple pathways to facilitate access)
Cramming vs. distributed practice
Distributed practice works better according to Bude et al. 2011
Capeda (2006) found 47% of students recall better after spaced study - robust effect
Why is distributed practice good?
Deficient processing - not much effort to reread ntes or retrieve straight away, students can think they know more then they do
Reminding- what’s to be le-learned
Consolidation - second learning episode benefts from first learning episode
The longer the space between the learning episodes the longer the retenton?!
To remember something for a week episodes should be 12-24 hrs apart
