Topic 6 Flashcards
Unlearned behaviours
Instincts and reflects are innate, unlearned behaviors
Reflexes: automatic involuntary responses to specific stimuli
- Protective & essential for Survival
- Involve primitive pars of CNS (brainstem)
- Pupillary light reflex, startle reflex, withdrawal reflex, scratch reflex
Instincts & reflexes:
Instincts - innate drives or tendencies that lead to particular patterns of behavior
- More complex
- Involves the movement of the organism as a whole
- Involves higher brain centers
What is learning
Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge that results from experience
- Involves acquiring skills/knowledge through experience
- Involve conscious & unconscious processes
Many types of learning
- Habituation
- Sensitization
Classical conditioning
Associate an involuntary response and a stimuli
We learn to associate stimuli and consequently anticipate events
Organisms have 2 types of responses to env’t
- Unconditional (unlearned)
- Conditional (learned)
Operant Conditioning
Associate a voluntary behavior and a consequence
Law of effect
- Reward → behavior more likely to occur
- Punishment → behavior less likely to occur
- Positive: add something
- Negative: take something away
- Reinforcement: increase a behavior
- Punishment: decrease a behavior.
Components of classical conditioning
Neutral stimulus
- A stimulus that initially doesn’t elicit a specific response
Unconditioned stimulus
- Stimulus that naturally triggers a response
Unconditioned response
- The natural automatic reaction to UCS (becomes CR after acquisition)
Acquisition, extinction & spontaneous recovery
Extinction
- Conditioned response decreases & eventually disappears
Spontaneous recovery
- Conditioned response reappears
Renewal effect
- Response reappears when brought back original env’t
Little Albert
John B. Watson applied principles of classical conditioning in the study of human emotion
Believed that all behavior could be studied as a stimulus-response reaction
Applied classical conditioning to study human emotions
“Little Albert” study
Stimulus generlization
After a response has been conditioned, stimuli that are similar to the original produce the same response e.g. fear of dogs (all dogs)
Stimulus discrimination
If two stimuli are sufficiently distinct from one another one triggers a conditioned response but the other doesn’t
E.g recognizing different alarm sounds
Fetishes & Classical conditioning
Sexual attraction to nonliving things
- Shoes, stuffed animals …
Arousal + stimulus
Researchers have been able to classically condition fetishes in the lab
- 1970: Showed male ps pictures of a naked women and then boots after time men showed arousal to boots
Conditioned taste aversion
Develops after only one trial
Learning is still possible even with very long delays (6-8 hours)
Shows little generalization
Biological preparedness
Reinforcement
Positive reinforcement
- Something is added to increase the likelihood of a behavior
- High grades, paychecks, praise
Negative reinforcement
- Something is removed to increase the likelihood of a behavior
- Beeping sound
Punishment
Positive punishment
- Something is added to decrease the likelihood of a behavior
- Scolding students for talking in class
Negative punishment
- Something is removed to decrease the likelihood of a behavior
- Confiscating a toy when a child misbehaves
Does punishment work?
Only tells us what not to do
Creates anxiety which interferes with learning
May encourage subversive behavior (people get
sneakier)
Modeling aggressive behavior for children
Concepts in OC
Stimulus discrimination
- Pigeons could distinguish paintings by Monet from those by Picasso
Stimiuls generalizetion
- Pigeons learned to distinguish art similar to Monet
Biological influences on learning
Biology places limits on what kinds of behavior we can learn through reinforcement
Eveloruantriary predisposed to be more afraid of certain things
- Snakes and spiders vs cars & guns
Instinctive drift: the tendency for animals to return to innate behavior following repeated reinforcement
Schedules of reinforcement
Behavior differs depending on the schedule of reinforcement
Continuous reinforcement
- Reinforces a behavior every time it occurs
- Faster learning but faster extinction
Partial reinforcement
- Only occasional reinforcement of a behavior
- Slower extinction better maintenance
Partial reinforcement & IPV
Operant learning principles may contribute to stay-leave decisions
Relationship partners provide intermittent reinforcement to significant others
Partial reinforcement schedules
Fixed vs variable
- Fixed - the number of responses between reinforcements or the amount of time between reinforcements is set and unchanging
- Variable - the number of responses between reinforcements and other amount of time between reinforcements varies or changes
Interval vs ratio
- Interval - schedule is based on the time between reinforcements
- Ratio - The schedule is based on the number of responses between reinforcements
- Fixed interval
- Reinforcements are delivered at predictable time intervals
2. Variable interval - Reinforcement is delivered at unpredictable time intervals
3. Fixed ratio - Reinforcement is delivered after a predictable number of responses
4. Variable ratio - Reinforcement is delivered after an unpredictable number of responses
Cognitive approaches to learning
How did you learn how to drive a car
Not all learning is due to operant and classical conditioning
Unseen mental processes that occur during learning
Challenges radical behaviorism - thinking plays a role in learning
Latent learning
Learning that occurs without immediate reinforcement & becomes apparent only when there’s a reason to use it
- E.g torments rats learned the maze without reinforcement
Observational learning
Learning by watching the behavior of another person or model
Paying attention & perceiving the critical features, remembering the behavior, reproducing the action, band being motivated to carry it out
- Negative & positive behaviors learned
Media violence & real-world violence
Violence is rampant in media by grade 8 graduation, the average US child will have viewed more than 8000 murders & 800 000 violent acts on network TV
Surette, 2022 – ¼ of violent offenders incarcerated in FL had tried to commit a media-inspired copycat crime
Andeson et al 2004;2009 – players of violent video games more likely to be involved in delinquent behavior and aggression
