Week 2 Flashcards
1
Q
Instrumental learning – cat box
A
- Thorndike
- Put cat inside boxes
- Cat must escape the box – placed food outside of the box
- Cats will act as if they are trying to escape
- Cats will eventually learn how to escape
- Transition between random escape behaviour to directed behaviour
- Measure time cat took to escape over and over again
- Time taken to escape decreases over time
- The harder the task – the longer it takes to learn
2
Q
Cat changes of behaviour
A
- Some behaviours became more likely over repeated experiences
- Some behaviours became less likely over repeated experiences
- No new actions are acquired – the cats could already do what was necessary
- They just needed to direct these actions at the right things
- Trial and error learning
- No reasoning behind the actions
- It is able to select the effective behaviours and discard the ineffectual ones
3
Q
Law of effect – hypothesis (allows us to question)
A
- Satisfaction and dissatisfaction are evoked by certain events
- Connections between stimuli and behaviour
- Satisfaction and dissatisfaction changes the strength of the connections
4
Q
Is it true that instrumental learning is just the strengthening and weakening of stimulus response connections?
A
- Stimulus response theory – animals do not do things in order to achieve specific outcomes, they do them because the stimulus present elicited them
- No, can also involve learning about response to outcome association
5
Q
Is it true that animals do things in a reflex fashion without any intent or aim to achieve a specific outcome?
A
- No, animals can learn to do things to achieve outcomes
- Can show goal-guided behaviour
- Habits may be elicited however animals can do this for the outcome
6
Q
If all that learning does it select between existing behaviours, how can animals learn how to do something new?
A
- Rat needs to learn to press on lever in skinner box
- Without training the rat is unlikely to do it
- Involves reinforcement of successive approximations
- Reward lever proximity – reward when rat is close to lever
- Reward rearing near lever
- Reward only when facing lever
- Reward only lever contacts
- Reinforcing a sequence
7
Q
What are satisfaction and dissatisfaction? Are they feelings of some kind? What evidence do we have for their existence?
A
- Hypothetical internal condition that it critical for strengthening and weakening
- Unobservable
- No way of knowing if they do play a role in instrumental learning
- Replaced by reinforcement and punishment
8
Q
Reinforcement
A
- The act or process of strengthening a connection in the nervous system that mediates the link between two things such as a stimulus and a response
- The production of a situation that has reinforcing effects as a consequence of a behaviour
9
Q
Reinforcer
A
- Something (usually a stimulus) that leads to the strengthening of a connection when it is delivered/produced as a consequence of behaviour
10
Q
Positive reinforcement
A
- Delivery or production that results in strengthening of a connection/behaviour
11
Q
Negative reinforcement
A
- Removal of something from an organism’s environment that results in strengthening of a connection/behaviour
12
Q
Punishment
A
- The delivery or production of a situation that has punishing effects as a consequence of a behaviour
13
Q
Instrumental conditioning procedure
A
- Also known as operant conditioning
- Skinner
- Situational stimuli – stimuli of the situation
- Responses of the participant
- Outcomes of the responses
- Stimulus response connections
- Response outcome connections
- Stimulus outcome connections
14
Q
Law of effect and outcomes
A
- Should not form connections
- Only stimulus response connections should form
- No R-O or S-O connections
15
Q
Outcome connections
A
- Outcome itself motivates the behaviour rather than being elicited by the stimuli
- The organism makes the response because it desires the outcome
