week 1 - skinner Flashcards
what is the first main claim of behaviorism?
[week 1 - skinner]
emphasis on learning:
-strong rejection of innate ideas/traits -> everything you know/are is the result of your experience
what is the second main claim of behaviorism?
[week 1 - skinner]
anti-mentalism:
- stay away from ‘unscientific’: desires, wishes, goals, beliefs, emotions
- stick to things we can observe: stimulus, responses, environment, etc.
what is the third main claim of behaviorism?
[week 1 - skinner]
- there are no interesting differences across species
- these learning mechanisms will work for any stimulus and any response
what is habituation?
[week 1 - skinner]
-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
what is the role of habituation in learning?
[week 1 - skinner]
-extremely important learning mechanism
what are the components of classical conditioning?
[week 1 - skinner]
- neutral stimulus (will become conditioned stimulus)
- unconditioned stimulus
- unconditioned response
- conditioned stimulus
- conditioned response
what is an “unconditioned stimulus” in the context of classical conditioning?
[week 1 - skinner]
natural/innate trigger for a response
e.g.: food in Pavlov’s dogs
what is an “unconditioned response” in the context of classical conditioning?
[week 1 - skinner]
natural response to an unconditioned stimulus
e.g.: salivating in reaction to food
what is a “conditioned stimulus” in the context of classical conditioning?
[week 1 - skinner]
neutral stimulus that has been paired with unconditioned stimulus, now produces response without unconditioned stimulus
what is a “conditioned response” in the context of classical conditioning?
[week 1 - skinner]
original unconditioned response now provoked by formerly neutral stimulus
what is the distinction between reinforced and unreinforced trials?
[week 1 - skinner]
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
what is the best way to pair up the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus in order to ensure the best learning?
[week 1 - skinner]
conditioned stimulus should come immediately before the unconditioned stimulus - preparation for the unconditioned stimulus
what is instrumental conditioning? (aka operant conditioning)
[week 1 - skinner]
learning the relationship between actions and rewards and punishment - learning what works and what doesn’t
what is the role of instrumental conditioning in learning?
[week 1 - skinner]
-if an action brings a reward, that action becomes stamped into the mind -> behavior changes because of its consequences
what is the “Law of Effect”?
[week 1 - skinner]
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
what is the partial reinforcement effect?
[week 1 - skinner]
response is only reinforced part of the time - learned behaviors are acquired more slowly, but response is more resistant to extinction
what is positive reinforcement?
[week 1 - skinner]
giving the subject something it wants
what is negative reinforcement?
[week 1 - skinner]
releasing the subject from something aversive
what is punishment?
[week 1 - skinner]
a way to decrease an animal’s likelihood of doing a behavior in the future
how can instrumental and classical conditioning be combined?
[week 1 - skinner]
- use classical conditioning to make something rewarding
- use operant conditioning to use that reward
what is an example of how instrumental and classical conditioning can be combined?
[week 1 - skinner]
- 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
what are the different schedules of reinforcement?
[week 1 - skinner]
- fixed vs. variable
- ratio vs. interval
what is the distinction between fixed and variable reinforcement schedules?
[week 1 - skinner]
- 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
what is the distinction between interval and ratio reinforcement schedules?
[week 1 - skinner]
- interval: reward every Nth time period
- ratio: reward every Nth response
what are the main challenges to behaviorism?
[week 1 - skinner]
- 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
what is the concept of latent learning?
[week 1 - skinner]
learning without any sort of feedback
why is the concept of latent learning a problem for behaviorism?
[week 1 - skinner]
reinforcement is not always plausible - e.g. understanding spacial arrangement of house without any sort of reinforcement
what are Noam Chomsky’s primary criticisms of behaviorism?
[week 1 - skinner]
- 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”
how would behaviorists describe classical conditioning?
[week 1 - skinner]
learning of an association between one stimulus and another stimulus
(Pavlov’s dogs)
what is a neutral stimulus in the context of classical conditioning?
[week 1 - skinner]
-evokes no response
how does classical conditioning work?
[week 1 - skinner]
- 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
what is a difference between classical and operant conditioning?
[week 1 - skinner]
- 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
