Transcript Learning - Liberty Union High School District

What is ‘learning’?
What are the things that need to be in
place for learning to occur?
• Learning involves adapting to changing conditions
in a lifetime.
• The mechanisms of learning are evolutionary
adaptations of the nervous system.
• Theories of learning reflect trends in psychological
thinking.
Are there different ‘types’ of learning?
• Perceptual
– Sensitization
• Stimulus – Response
– Habituation
– Classical Conditioning
– Operant Conditioning
• Procedural (Motor)
– Classical (reflex) conditioning
• Associative (Relational)
– Declarative learning
• Spatial
– Cognitive maps
• Episodic
– Events over time
• Observational
– Imitation and mimicry
Psychological perspectives on learning
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Biological – nervous system
Behaviorist – Stimulus-Response (S-R)
Cognitive – Stimulus-Stimulus (S-S)
Social – interactions
Developmental – changes in a lifetime
Evolutionary – changes in species
Raphael – The School of Athens (1510)
Classical Conditioning
Association formed between involuntary (reflex) response
and a stimulus not related to the learned response initially.
Pavlov with an assistant
and a subject (the dog).
US
UR
Pairing
CS
CR
Classical conditioning dynamics
Timing and contingency are both important in classical
conditioning
The effectiveness of conditioning
depends on when the stimuli are
presented …
… but also on how much
the CS predicts that the US
will occur.
What can be classically conditioned?
• Reflexes (Pavlov, 1927)
• Emotional responses (Watson & Raynor, 1920)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pzni66fyt3o
• Drug reactions (Siegel et al., 1988)
Operant Conditioning
The Law of Effect (Thorndike, 1898)
Responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation become
more likely to occur again in that situation, and responses that produce a
discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation.
A critical difference between
classical conditioning and
operant conditioning …
… Operant conditioning requires the
subject to form a response
voluntarily
… Classical conditioning involves an
involuntary (reflexive) response
The modern Skinner box used in operant learning
Operant conditioning involves
reinforcement and punishment
Schedules of reinforcement lead to different
patterns of responding
What traits contribute to your ability to learn?
The Biology of Learning
• Hebbian Learning
– Hebb’s Postulate
• Long-term Potentiation
• Long-term Depression