Week 3/4 - Learning

Question 1

What is learning about?

Answer 1

The ability to adapt in response to environmental changes.

This adaptation usually involves a change in response to specific conditions, signals or processes.

Question 2

What are some of the costs of learning?

Answer 2

• significant parental time and investment
• often a delay in the outcomes produced from learning
• dangers from trial an error (ie development fallibility)
• requires complex CNS and significant metabolic energy usage from the brain

Question 3

What is Noticing and Ignoring learning?

Answer 3

The act of noticing an important event but not changing your behaviour in response if it happens continually without impacting you

Question 4

What is Learning What Events Signal learning?

Answer 4

Understanding the signs that events provide to indicate they are about to happen

Question 5

What is Learning About the Consequences of Behaviour learning?

Answer 5

Registering the results/outcomes of certain behaviours to avoid making future mistakes and to reinforce behaviours that produce positive outcomes

Question 6

What is Learning From Others learning?

Answer 6

Taking feedback from the outcomes/consequences of others’ behaviours

Question 7

What is learning?

Answer 7

The enduring change in behaviour based on interaction with the environment (ie lived experiences).

IMPORTANT: It is not observable, instead it is an inferred process from developing associations between environmental stimuli and behavioural responses

Question 8

Why are instincts and reflexes NOT learning?

Answer 8

Instincts are the result of an organism’s genotype and reflexes are an automatic reaction (not able to be controlled) to some environmental change or condition. Neither are able to be changed with environmental interaction.

Question 9

What is non-associative learning?

Answer 9

When learning from a SINGLE stimulus

Question 10

What is Habituation?

Answer 10

The decline in the tendency to respond to an event that becomes familiar or is repeatedly presented.

Caused by MILD stimuli

Question 11

What is Sensitisation?

Answer 11

The increase in the tendency to respond to an event that becomes familiar or is repeatedly presented.

Caused by INTENSE stimuli

Question 12

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 12

Learning a new associations between two previously unrelated stimuli and responding through reflexes or autonomic responses (involuntary).

Question 13

Identify and describe the three different types of stimulus

Answer 13

NEUTRAL - an event/stimulus that doesn’t elicit any particular response

UNCONDITIONED - an event/stimulus that elicits an automatic (involuntary) response (ie unconditioned response)

CONDITIONED - a previously neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a conditioned response

Question 14

What are the three phases of Classical Conditional?

Answer 14

1. ACQUISITION -
   Gradually learn or acquire the CR causing the CR to increase in strength
   Note: the steepness of the acquisition curve is dependent on how close together the UCS and CS are presented (half a second is optimal)
2. EXTINCTION -
   The elimination of a CR by removal of the UCS (ie the removal of the food in Pavlov’s experiment). The CR decreases in magnitude and eventually disappears when the CS is repeatedly presented alone.
3. SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY -
   A phenomenon in which representing the UCS with the CS causes a revival of the CR (this is often in a weaker form though).

Question 15

What is associative learning?

Question 16

What is Stimulus Generalisation?

Answer 16

When CS’s that are similar, but not identical, to the original CS elicit the same CR.

Question 17

What is required for a CS to elicit a CR?

Answer 17

The conditioned stimulus must be a predictor of the imminent arrival of the unconditioned stimulus.

Question 17

What is required for a CS to elicit a CR?

Answer 17

The conditioned stimulus must be a predictor of the imminent arrival of the unconditioned stimulus.

Question 18

What are the two types of contingency (ie predictions)?

Answer 18

1. Excitatory conditioning - creating a predictor of something happening
2. Inhibitory conditioning - creating a predictor of something NOT happening

Question 19

What is Robert A. Rescorla’s Theory?

Answer 19

CONTINGENCY THEORY - Conditioned stimulus needs to be a useful predictor of the unconditioned stimulus for learning to take place

Question 20

What is the Contiguity Theory?

Answer 20

The idea that when two stimuli are presented together in time, associations are formed between the two

Question 21

What are the factors that influence the acquisition of a conditioned response?

Answer 21

1. Sequence - the timing between the CS and the US
2. Strength - the stronger the US is the greater the conditioning effect
3. Number of pairings - the more times the US and CS are paired together, the more reliable the signal becomes and hence the greater the conditioning

Question 22

What are the four types of sequences that influence the acquisition of a CR?

Answer 22

Delayed conditioning - when the CS comes first and the US succeeds it (MOST EFFECTIVE METHOD)

Trace conditioning - when the CS comes first followed by a gap (ie the trace interval) and then the US

Simultaneous conditioning - when the CS and US start and finish at the same time

Backward conditioning - when the US comes before the CS

Question 23

What is the Opponent Process Theory and who developed it?

Answer 23

Solomon and Corbit (1974) developed this theory which concludes that:
An emotional stimulus creates an initial response that is followed by adaptation and then an opposite response.

It consists of the A-process and B-process:
- A-process is the initial reaction that occurs at the onset of a stimulus and drops off immediately once it ends
- B-process is the after reaction that causes an emotional reaction that is opposite to the initial reaction; its onset and delay are more sluggish

The observed response is the sum of the A and B processes (eg fear + relief = thrill)

Question 24

What are the characteristics of emotional reactions?

Answer 24

They are BIPHASIC which means that the initial reaction is followed by an opposite after-reaction.
- primary reaction weakens with repeated stimulations (ie exposure)
- after reaction is strengthened

Question 25

How is the Opposite Process Theory homeostatic?

Answer 25

It assumes that neurophysiological mechanisms involved in emotional behaviour serve to maintain emotional stability.

Question 26

How does addiction relate to OPT?

Answer 26

Addiction is caused by the process of repeatedly eliciting Stage A to escape the negative experience of Stage B.

Note: the Stage A peak decreases in magnitude over time while Stage B increases in magnitude over time

Tip: Changing the context in which Stage A is elicited can enhance the Stage A experience

Question 27

What is the difference between spontaneous recovery and reacquisition?

Answer 27

Both processes occur after extinction.

Spontaneous Recovery - you only reintroduce the CS (this is the weaker process)

Reacquisition - you reintroduce the CS and US pair to reintroduce the condition