Topic 4 (Learning) Flashcards
What theory is the foundation of the behaviourist perspective?
Learning theory
What is prediction?
Predicting the future from past experience, and using these predictions to guide behaviour.
What is a reflex?
A reflex is a behaviour that is elicited automatically by an environmental stimulus.
What is habituation?
Refers to the decreasing strength of a reflex response after repeated presentations of the stimulus.
What three assumptions do theories of learning share?
- Experience shapes behaviour.
- Learning is adaptive
- Careful experimentation can uncover laws of learning
What are the laws of association?
Law of contiguity, law of similarity, and law of contrast.
What does associationism believe?
That complex thoughts are nothing but elementary perceptions that become associated and then recombined in the mind.
What is the law of contiguity?
Two events will become connected in the mind if they are experienced close together in time (such as thunder and lightning).
What is the law of similarity?
The law of similarity states that objects that resemble each other (such as two people with similar faces) are likely to become associated.
What is classical conditioning?
Occurs when we learn to identify a relationship between two different stimuli.
Learning where an environmental stimulus produces a response.
What is an unconditioned reflex?
A reflex that occurs naturally, without any prior learning.
What kind of stimulus produces an unconditioned reflex?
Unconditioned stimulus.
What is a UCR?
An unconditioned response (UCR) is a response that does not have to be learned.
What is a CR?
A conditioned response (CR) is a response that has been learned.
What is a CS?
A conditioned stimulus (CS) is a stimulus that, through learning, has come to evoke a conditioned response CR.
What is the initial stage of learning in which the CR becomes associated with the CS?
Acquisition
What is a conditioned emotional response?
Neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that evokes an emotional response (Little Albert).
What is one explanation for phobias?
Classical conditioning. Fears are acquired through subcortical pathways (activated before cortex even gets the message).
What is psychoneuroimmunology?
The study of the interaction between psychological processes and the nervous and immune systems of the body.
What is a conditioned immune response?
CS is paired with a stimulus that evokes a change in the functioning of the immune system.
What is stimulus generalisation?
Responding similarly to stimuli that resemble the CS.
What is stimulus discrimination?
Learned tendency to respond to a restricted range of stimuli used during training.
What is extinction?
Weakening of CR by presenting CS without UCS.
What is a conditioning trial?
Each pairing of the CS and UCS is known as a conditioning trial.
What is spontaneous recovery?
The re-emergence of a previously extinguished CR.
What factors influence classical conditioning?
Interstimulus interval (time between), individual’s learning history, prepared learning.
What is the optimal interval?
The optimal interval between the CS and UCS is very brief, usually a few seconds or less.
What is maximal conditioning?
Maximal conditioning occurs when the CS precedes the UCS.
What is forward conditioning?
- delayed conditioning (forward) - the CS is presented before the US and it (CS) stays on until the US is presented. This is generally the best, especially when the delay is short. example - a bell begins to ring and continues to ring until food is presented.
What is simultaneous conditioning?
The CS is presented at the SAME TIME as the UCS.
What is backward conditioning?
The CS is presented AFTER the onset of the UCS.
Why is an extinguished response easier to learn the second time around?
Later learning can build on old ‘tracks’ that have been covered up but not obliterated. Neuronal connections established through learning may diminish in strength when the environment no longer supports them, but they do not entirely disappear.
What is blocking?
The failure of a stimulus to elicit a CR when it is combined with another stimulus that already elicits the response.
What is latent inhibition?
A familiar stimulus takes longer to acquire meaning.
What is prepared learning?
The biologically wired readiness to learn some associations more easily than others.
What are the laws of prediction?
CS–US association will form to the extent that the presence of the CS predicts the appearance of the US.
What is paradoxical conditioning?
When the CR is actually the body’s attempt to counteract the effects of a stimulus that is about to occur (eg drug tolerance).
What is LTP?
The tendency of a group of neurons to fire more readily after consistent stimulation from other neurons. Suggests that learning occurs through changes in the strength of connections between neurons. Can remain stable for a year.
What does Thorndike’s law of effect state?
An animal’s tendency to produce a behaviour depends on that behaviour’s effect on the environment
What part of the brain is involved in fear conditioning?
Amygdala
What part of the brain disrupts contextual learning?
Hippocampus
What is operant conditioning?
Operant (instrumental) conditioning means learning to operate on the environment to produce a consequence.
What is the law of effect?
Behaviour is controlled by its consequences.
What is an operant?
Behaviours that are emitted (spontaneously produced) by the environment.
What is positive reinforcement?
Is when presenting a stimulus (a reward or pay-off) after a behaviour makes the behaviour more likely to occur again.
What is a positive reinforcer?
An environmental consequence that, when presented, strengthens the probability that a response will recur.
What is superstitious behaviour?
Such behaviours develop because the delivery of a reinforcer strengthens whatever behaviour an organism is engaged in at the time.
What is reinforcement?
Something in the environment fortifies, or reinforces, a behaviour.
What is a negative reinforcer?
Aversive or unpleasant stimuli that strengthen a behaviour by their removal.
What is negative reinforcement?
Where termination of an aversive stimulus makes a behaviour more likely to occur.
What is escape learning?
A behaviour is reinforced by the elimination of an aversive state of affairs that already exists; that is, the organism escapes an aversive situation.
What is avoidance learning?
Occurs as an organism learns to prevent an expected aversive event from happening.
What is punishment?
Punishment decreases the probability that a behaviour will recur.
What is positive punishment?
In positive punishment, such as spanking, exposure to an aversive event following a behaviour reduces the likelihood of the operant recurring.
What is negative punishment?
Negative punishment involves losing, or not obtaining, a reinforcer as a consequence of behaviour.
When is punishment most effective?
When the person being punished is also reinforced for an alternative, acceptable behaviour.
What are some limitations with punishment?
- May not know what is being punished.
- May come to fear person rather than stimulus.
- May not eliminate existing rewards for behaviour.
What is extinction?
Extinction occurs if enough conditioning trials pass in which the operant is not followed by the consequence previously associated with it.
What is spontaneous recovery?
A previously learned behaviour recurs without renewed reinforcement.
What are the four phenomena in operant conditioning?
Schedules of reinforcement, discriminative stimuli, behavioural context, characteristics of the learner.
What is continuous reinforcement?
Reinforcement occurs every time behaviour is emitted.
When is continuous reinforcement most useful?
Acquisition of a response.
What is partial reinforcement?
Where the behaviour is reinforced only part of the time, or intermittently.
What is the superior schedule for maintaining learned behaviour?
Partial/Intermittent
What is a fixed-ratio schedule?
An organism receives reinforcement for a fixed proportion of the responses it emits.
EG Payment for every 10 apples.
Rapid responding with pause after reinforcement.
What is a variable-ratio schedule?
Reinforcement for some percentage of responses but the number of times required is unknown.
EG fishing.
Rapid and constant responding.
Fixed-interval schedule?
Reinforcement occurs after a fixed amount of time.
EG press bar once during 10 minutes
Will learn to stop responding until towards end of interval.
What is a variable-interval schedule?
Reinforced at random intervals of time.
EG unexpected tests in class.
Maintains consistent performance.
What is response contingency?
The connection that exists between a behaviour and a consequence because the consequence is dependent on the behaviour.
Good grades are contingent on studying or intelligence.
What is shaping?
Shaping produces novel behaviour by reinforcing closer and closer approximations to the desired response by reinforcing a response the animal can readily produce.
What is successive approximations?
The process of rewarding those behaviours that move the subject progressively closer to the desired behaviour.
What is chaining?
Chaining involves putting together a sequence of existing responses in a novel order.
What influences operant conditioning?
Environmental contingencies and characteristics of the learner.
What features do operant and classical conditioning share?
Extinction, prepared learning, discrimination, generalisation, maladaptive associations.
What is the basic premise of cognitive–social theory?
Incorporates conditioning concepts, focusing on cognition and social learning.
What did Tolman demonstrate with rats?
Rats formed cognitive maps responsible for latent learning.
What are cognitive maps?
Mental representations or images without reinforcement.
What is latent learning?
Learning that has occurred but is not currently manifest in behaviour.
What is an internal locus of control?
People believe they are the masters of their own fate.
What is external locus of control?
People believe their lives are determined by forces outside (external to) themselves.
What is learned helplessness?
The expectancy that one cannot escape aversive events and the motivational and learning deficits that result from this belief.
What is explanatory style?
The way people make sense of bad events
What is pessimistic explanatory style?
People blame themselves for the bad things that happen to them. They also tend to see these causes as stable (unlikely to change) and global (broad, general and widespread in their impact).
What is social learning
Learn many things from the people around them, with or without reinforcement.
What is observational learning?
Learning by observing the behaviour of others
What is modelling?
Learning to reproduce behaviour exhibited by a model
What is vicarious conditioning?
Learning the consequences of an action by observing its consequences for someone else.
What is direct tutelage?
Teaching concepts or procedures primarily through verbal explanation or instruction.
