Theories of learning

Question 1

What is habitutation?

Answer 1

the reduction of an innate response given familiarity with a repeated stimulus

• It explains the drop in arousal levels when we go on a rollercoaster for the 3rd, 4th or 15th time
• But we have not really ‘learned’ anything in that process, we are simply less surprised/shocked by it
• e.g. animals become less startled each successive time they encounter a stimuli

Question 2

What is learning in classic conditioning?

Answer 2

Learning is to do with associations:

• strengthened by repeatedly creating that association
• Weakening of existing associations

Question 3

What’s happened with dogs salivating in Pavlov’s experiment?

Answer 3

- Dogs salivate when:
 Meat placed in mouth
 Sight of meat
 Sight of dish
 Sight of person who brings meat
 Sound of that person’s footsteps

Question 4

What’s the unconditioned reflex in Pavlov’s experiment (include unconditioned stimulus and unconditioned response)?

Answer 4

• Meat placed in mouth – salivation
• No learning needed
• Meat = unconditioned stimulus – US
• Saliva = unconditioned response – UR

Question 5

What’s the conditioned reflex in Pavlov’s experiment (include conditioned stimulus and conditioned response)?

Answer 5

• Sound of bell/person’s footsteps – salivation
• Learning needed
• Bell = conditioned stimulus – CS
• Saliva = conditioned response – CR

Question 6

Does conditioning happen straight away?

Answer 6

No, conditioning takes place over time

Question 7

What is second order conditioned response?

Answer 7

when have a stimuli that comes just before the conditioned stimuli, e.g. a black square coming before the bell and that can also trigger the conditioned response.

Question 8

What’s extinction?

Answer 8

When the association declines as you realise the unconditioned stimuli and conditioned stimuli are no longer linked

Question 9

What is spontaneous recovery?

Answer 9

Occurs after extinction when you see the stimuli again and still have a response (but not as rapid) and then the association decreases again as you realise the unconditioned stimuli and conditioned stimuli are no longer linked

Question 10

What is reconditioning?

Answer 10

happens when after extinction you see the stimuli again and realise it is linked to the UC stimuli and then your association response rapidly increases

Question 11

What is generalisation?

Answer 11

If a similar stimuli is seen/ heard ect. then an association will be rapidly learnt

Question 12

What is discrimination?

Answer 12

• Realises the generalisation to a similar stimuli is incorrect
• Learns to discriminate against the similar stimuli and response is inhibited

Question 13

What is conditioned fear?

Answer 13

• Conditioned emotional response procedure (Estes and Skinner, 1941; Kamin, 1965)
• Fear response is superimposed on ongoing activity
   Initially the new fear imposing stimuli will be ignored and the initial CR will happen
   In later trials the fear imposing stimuli will supress the initial CR (e.g. straight after a dog hears a bell they hear footsteps which indicate they will get tasered. Their fear response will take over from the salivating)

Question 14

Is there any difference between the UR and CR ?

Answer 14

Yes. E.g. when salivating the saliva in the UR is richer in enzymes for breaking down food.

Question 15

What is a compensatory reaction in diabetes?

Answer 15

• Inject insulin, to deplete blood sugar levels
• After many injections, sight of needle starts to trigger early physiological response = INCREASE in blood sugar levels
• Body is striving for homeostasis – CR prepares for US
• Compensatory reaction
• have been conditioned to have a response before the actual stimulus

Question 16

What is Gerevich’s case of KJ, 26 year old male?

Answer 16

• Fist seen in rehab with wife, 1997
• Reported to take 1g heroin/day
• Died of overdose, Jan 9th 1999
• Day before took 0.5g heroin with wife at home
• Following day, 0.5g heroin in subway station toilet
• Confirmed by blood and urine samples at pathology
• Lack of body’s normal anticipation/conditioning led to his body not preparing for the drugs and so him overdosing.

Question 17

What is contiguity and how does this relate to psychology and conditioning?

Answer 17

• when one thing follows another
• in psychology we think of it as the proximity in which a response follows a sequence
• contiguity or a quick sequence of CS followed by US is needed to develop strong associations

Question 18

What is contingency and how does this relate to psychology and conditioning?

Answer 18

• how often the US follows the CS
• you need to learn that one particular stimulus reliably precedes the US
• According to contingency learning, the animal updates their understanding of the probability of the US following the CS on a trial-by-trial basis. This is how is learns. If a result is unexpected then this surprise will change their sensitivity to the situation. Here learning occurs through things being surprising

Question 19

What is blocking and how does this relate to psychology and conditioning?

Answer 19

• Involves pairing of the CS and US at exactly the same time
• if an animal repeatedly hears a hiss before an electric shock then it will learn the association. If a red light then comes on at exactly the same time as the hiss then no matter how many times it is paired, it will be unlikely to associate the red light on it’s own with the shock. Given the red light there will be no fear response
• 2nd order conditioning and blocking are different

Question 20

What is instrumental/operant conditioning?

Answer 20

Reward/punishment based conditioning

Question 21

What is the law of effect?

Answer 21

Responses that are rewarded become strengthened, those than are not rewarded (or punished) are weakened
- The strength of the response is therefore adjusted according to the consequences of that response

Question 22

What was Edward Thorndike (and later BF Skinner’s Instrumental conditioning experiment?

Answer 22

realised you could get animals to learn more effectively than by simply pairing a new stimuli with reflexes repeatedly.

• He demonstrated that learning can be voluntary – decided by the animal itself
• In experiments he encouraged specific behaviours by pairing them with consequences
• Behaviours that should be encouraged were rewarded or not punishment
• Behaviours that should be discouraged were met with a lack of reward or punishment

Question 23

What was Edward Tolman’s experiment on cognitive learning and what were the findigns?

Answer 23

carried out studies where rats were put in a maze and had to find the location of a reward. He did this with three groups of hungry rats:

• the first group received a food reward at the end of the maze
• The second group received no food reward in the maze. There was no incentive to learn the maze: they wandered aimlessly
• The third group spent 10 days wandering the maze aimlessly. On the 11th day they were put in the maze with food at the end of the maze
• The rats in the first group learned to navigate the maze faster than the rats in the second group. The rats in the third group, on day 11 when food was introduced could already navigate the maze as well as the first group. This indicates that they had learned the maze without needing rewards
• Tolman called this latent learning (Tolman and Holzik, 1930). Through latent learning, the rats had formed a ‘cognitive map’ of the maze. This is clear evidence for learning in the absence of conditioning and instead through cognitive means.