Week 3 Flashcards
1
Q
What is the problem of a psychological science?
A
- Early experimentalists focus on measurement
- But how do we measure mind and consciousness?
- Methods of introspection have limitations
- Psychoanalysis looks at unconscious mind
2
Q
Behaviourism reaction against the unobservable
A
- Introspection is not verifiable as the subjective is not objective
- Caused a shift to behaviourism
- Psychology is not because of experience but about observable objective behaviour
- Use animal learning as can carefully control environment
3
Q
Pavlov – 1849-1936
A
- Physiologist – studied dog digestion
- Discovered conditional reflexes by chance
- Looked at saliva excretion in dogs to dilute acid stimulus on tongue
- Found that dogs started salivating when they began laboratory preparation
- These stimuli were previously unlinked
4
Q
Pavlov’s classical conditioning
A
- A type of learning in which a neutral stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus
5
Q
Conditioned reflexes
A
- Found associations between previously unlinked stimuli
- Unconditioned stimulus – food
- Unconditioned response – salivating
- Conditioned stimulus – sight of keeper
- Conditioned response – salivating
6
Q
Edward Thorndike – 1874-1949
A
- Focused on the acquisition of behaviour
- How cats learned to escape from a puzzle box
- Animals made a response and were rewarded if correct
- Eg escaping and food
- Law of effect
- Stimulus and response probabilities (stimulus-response)
7
Q
Law of effect
A
- Behaviour depends on consequence
- Reward/punishment
8
Q
Stimulus and response probabilities
A
- Learning occurs when there is an increase in S-R probabilities
- Forgetting occurs when there is a decrease in S-R probabilities
9
Q
J B Watson – 1878-1959
A
- Founder of behaviourism
- Did not like introspection or participating in introspection
- Wanted a break between philosophy and psychology
- Knowledge should be based on observable phenomena
- Learned about Pavlov’s work with animals
- Looked at conditioning with humans
10
Q
Watson and behaviourism
A
- Published an article outlining behaviourism
- Psychological review 1913
- Must be completely objective – rules out any subjective interpretations
- Not to describe a conscious state but to predict and control overt behaviour
- Believed that work on animals could tell us about human behaviour
11
Q
Little Albert
A
- 11-month-old boy
- Conditioned Albert to fear a white rat
- Generalised to other stimuli
- Watson
12
Q
Conditioned learning
A
- Watson believed conditioned learning could account for all kinds of behaviour
- Eg human emotions are conditioned
- All except fear, rage and love which are innate responses
- Conditioned reflex was a model for behaviour
- Thinking did not involve the brain – muscular act
13
Q
Nature versus nurture – Watson
A
- Watson believed it was environment that was important
- You can train any infant to become successful
14
Q
B F Skinner – 1904-1990
A
- Radical behaviourism
- Learning in life requires more than passive acquisition
- Operant conditioning – modification of behaviour
- Respondent conditioning – new S-R connections built on Thorndike’s law of effect – relationship between response and reward
- Skinner box
15
Q
Skinner’s operant conditioning
A
- Learning in which voluntary responses come to be controlled by their consequences
- Favourable consequences – reinforcers – cause organisms to repeat
- Unfavourable – punishers – discourage behaviours
16
Q
Skinner box
A
- Rats pressed a lever by accident
- Dropped food pellet
- Rewarded for behaviour
- Reinforcement – behaviour occurs with greater frequency
- Punishment – behaviour occurs less frequently
17
Q
Shaping
A
- Skinner believed operant conditioning could explain all behaviour
- Trained pigeons to play ping-pong
- Trained pigeons to be superstitious
18
Q
Project Pigeon
A
- World war 2 – US navy required a weapon effective against German battleships
- Lenses projected an image of distant objects onto a screen in front of each bird
- When the missile was launched from an aircraft with sight of an enemy ship
- An image would appear on the screen
- The screen was hinged – pecks at image of the ship would guide the missile towards the ship
- Project was abandoned
