week 1 - skinner

Question 1

what is the first main claim of behaviorism?

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Answer 1

emphasis on learning:

-strong rejection of innate ideas/traits -> everything you know/are is the result of your experience

Question 2

what is the second main claim of behaviorism?

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Answer 2

anti-mentalism:

• stay away from ‘unscientific’: desires, wishes, goals, beliefs, emotions
• stick to things we can observe: stimulus, responses, environment, etc.

Question 3

what is the third main claim of behaviorism?

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Answer 3

• there are no interesting differences across species

- these learning mechanisms will work for any stimulus and any response

Question 4

what is habituation?

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Answer 4

-declining tendency to respond to stimuli that are familiar due to repeated exposure -> we get used to things, react less strongly when we experience over and over again

Question 5

what is the role of habituation in learning?

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Answer 5

-extremely important learning mechanism

Question 6

what are the components of classical conditioning?

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Answer 6

• neutral stimulus (will become conditioned stimulus)
• unconditioned stimulus
• unconditioned response
• conditioned stimulus
• conditioned response

Question 7

what is an “unconditioned stimulus” in the context of classical conditioning?

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Answer 7

natural/innate trigger for a response

e.g.: food in Pavlov’s dogs

Question 8

what is an “unconditioned response” in the context of classical conditioning?

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Answer 8

natural response to an unconditioned stimulus

e.g.: salivating in reaction to food

Question 9

what is a “conditioned stimulus” in the context of classical conditioning?

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Answer 9

neutral stimulus that has been paired with unconditioned stimulus, now produces response without unconditioned stimulus

Question 10

what is a “conditioned response” in the context of classical conditioning?

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Answer 10

original unconditioned response now provoked by formerly neutral stimulus

Question 11

what is the distinction between reinforced and unreinforced trials?

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Answer 11

reinforced trials: when the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are brought together - increases the connection
unreinforced trials: conditioned stimulus happens without the unconditioned stimulus, decreases the connection of learning

Question 12

what is the best way to pair up the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus in order to ensure the best learning?

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Answer 12

conditioned stimulus should come immediately before the unconditioned stimulus - preparation for the unconditioned stimulus

Question 13

what is instrumental conditioning? (aka operant conditioning)

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Answer 13

learning the relationship between actions and rewards and punishment - learning what works and what doesn’t

Question 14

what is the role of instrumental conditioning in learning?

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Answer 14

-if an action brings a reward, that action becomes stamped into the mind -> behavior changes because of its consequences

Question 15

what is the “Law of Effect”?

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Answer 15

the tendency to perform an action is increased if rewarded, weakened if not - leads animals gradually to come to the correct behavior in certain situations

Question 16

what is the partial reinforcement effect?

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Answer 16

response is only reinforced part of the time - learned behaviors are acquired more slowly, but response is more resistant to extinction

Question 17

what is positive reinforcement?

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Answer 17

giving the subject something it wants

Question 18

what is negative reinforcement?

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Answer 18

releasing the subject from something aversive

Question 19

what is punishment?

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Answer 19

a way to decrease an animal’s likelihood of doing a behavior in the future

Question 20

how can instrumental and classical conditioning be combined?

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Answer 20

• use classical conditioning to make something rewarding

- use operant conditioning to use that reward

Question 21

what is an example of how instrumental and classical conditioning can be combined?

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Answer 21

• pair dog treat with pat on the head -> classical conditioning to make pat on the head rewarding
• use pat on the head to reinforce a desired learned behavior

Question 22

what are the different schedules of reinforcement?

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Answer 22

• fixed vs. variable

- ratio vs. interval

Question 23

what is the distinction between fixed and variable reinforcement schedules?

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Answer 23

• fixed: exactly every Nth time interval (e.g. every hour), or exactly every Nth response
• variable: on avg every Nth time interval, or on average every Nth response

Question 24

what is the distinction between interval and ratio reinforcement schedules?

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Answer 24

• interval: reward every Nth time period

- ratio: reward every Nth response

Question 25

what are the main challenges to behaviorism?

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Answer 25

• a lot of evidence for unlearned knowledge
• different animals have different learning mechanisms
• all sciences talk about unobservables (e.g. genes before we knew what they looked like, string theory)
• animals get better at learning/understanding things even without reinforcement and punishment

Question 26

what is the concept of latent learning?

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Answer 26

learning without any sort of feedback

Question 27

why is the concept of latent learning a problem for behaviorism?

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Answer 27

reinforcement is not always plausible - e.g. understanding spacial arrangement of house without any sort of reinforcement

Question 28

what are Noam Chomsky’s primary criticisms of behaviorism?

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Answer 28

• notions are either wrong or so vague as to be unfalsifiable and uninteresting
• e.g.: talking to yourself, creating art - these things are not reinforcing, except in themselves - too abstract, no explanatory power - “we like it because we like it”

Question 29

how would behaviorists describe classical conditioning?

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Answer 29

learning of an association between one stimulus and another stimulus
(Pavlov’s dogs)

Question 30

what is a neutral stimulus in the context of classical conditioning?

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Answer 30

-evokes no response

Question 31

how does classical conditioning work?

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Answer 31

• take unconditioned stimulus and unconditioned response
• pair up neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus
• with repetition, neutral stimulus will become conditioned stimulus and give rise to conditioned response

Question 32

what is a difference between classical and operant conditioning?

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Answer 32

• classical conditioning is passive - sit there and observe how stimuli interact, respond to them, learn as a result of co-occurrence of things
• operant conditioning is based on your actions - you interact with the world, then based on the way the world treats your actions, future actions are shaped