Transcript Chapter 8: Learning - rcook

Chapter 8: Learning
Riane Barrera
Asia Gandy
Brianna Jones
Johnia Murray
David Stewart
How do we learn?

Learning: a relatively permanent change in an organism’s behavior due to
experience

We learn by association

Associative Learning: Learning that certain events occur together.


The events may be two stimuli or a response and its consequences

Being able to predict the immediate future
Three forms of learning:

Conditioning
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Operant

Observational
Classical Conditioning

A type of learning in which an organism comes to associate stimuli. A neural
stimulus that signals an unconditioned stimulus begins to produce a response
that anticipates and prepares for the unconditioned stimulus.

Behaviorism: The view that psychology should be an objective science that
studies behavior without reference to mental processes.
Types of Stimuli and Response


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Unconditioned Stimulus and Response (US and UR)

US – a stimulus that will evoke the most basic, natural and innate of responses in
any organism
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UR – a response that happens uncontrollably after being presented with the US
Conditioned Stimulus and Response (CS and CR)

CS – a stimulus that has been associated with the US to evoke the same response as
before
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CR – a response that happens uncontrollably after being presented with the CS
because the association has taught the organism that the US will follow.
It’s almost in a sense of preparation when discussing the CS, US, and CR.
Pavlov’s Experiments

Studying salivary secretion in dogs

When he puts food in the dog’s mouth the animal begins to salivate
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Notices the dog began salivating to stimuli associated with food
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Sight of food, food dish, presence or sound of the person who usually brought the food
Experiment
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Isolated dog in a room and attached a measuring device to measure its saliva
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Present food from an adjacent room
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Sliding in food bowl, blowing meat powder into dog’s mouth at a specific moment, paired
various neutral stimuli with food in the dog’s mouth
If the neutral stimulus regularly signaled the arrival of food, would the dog
associate the two stimuli? Would it begin salivating to the neutral stimulus in
anticipation of the food?
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Yes and Yes
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Before placing food in the dog’s mouth, Pavlov sounded a tone. After repeatedly pairing
sound and food, the dog began salivating at the sound alone.
Pavlov’s Experiments

The dog and food experiment lead to a gateway
showing 5 major conditioning processes:
 Acquisition
 Extinction
 Spontaneous
Recovery
 Generalization
 Discrimination
Acquisition
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The initial stage in classical conditioning
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The phase associating a neutral stimulus with an US so that the neutral
stimulus comes to elicit a CR.

It’s proven that it can be done but timing is the next question of the stimulus
– response relationship. In general, only half a second is really necessary.
Why? Survival.
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Conditioning to the CS doesn’t happen when the US precedes it.
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If the event happened already, the significance of the CS is lost.
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The connection of survival can be understood through sexual arousal by:

A male and female Japanese quail and a red light or
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Onion breath and a kiss from a woman
Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery
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Extinction – the diminishing effect of the CR when there isn’t a US

When you continue to give the CS without the US to follow, the CR
slowly begins to go away. Why?


The subject is learning to dissociate the two because there was a change
to where the CS doesn’t equal the previous US anymore. Although you
learn the dissociation, the response doesn’t completely go away.
Extinction only suppresses the CR.
Spontaneous Recovery – the spontaneous response to a dissociated CS.

You can take away the CS and US for a long period of time (several hours
or more) and use it again later and get the same reaction. Why? How?
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Why – although it has been dissociated, you still remember it for what it once
was but the reaction will be a weaker form

How – the neurons in your brain tend to make connections and ‘bonds’ that
can’t be broken which leaves it to be embedded. Think of riding a bike. . .
Generalization
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The recognizing of stimuli that are similar to the CS that
will elicit the same response but in a weaker form
depending upon how similar or dissimilar the stimuli is to
the original CS
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Ex.
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A dog and being scratched or rubbed
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The CS can be being scratched on the left thigh. As the form of being
touched changes so does the strength of the response. As the location
of being touched changes, so does the strength of the reaction.
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Although it may know the difference between them all, the dog will
give a variation of the response depending upon how close or far away
you are to it’s jackpot spot (scratching the left thigh)!
Discrimination
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Learning and demonstrating the ability to differentiate between a CS and
other irrelevant stimuli
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Can determine you livelihood. Why?
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No matter how minute or monumental the stimuli, they can evoke vastly different
responses.
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Knowing the difference are a key tool in your survival and/or sanity (I don’t believe
you. How?
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Think of dogs. Little dog = a yelp or a very weak bark with a pinching bite, Big dog = an
alarming and booming bark with a strong and bone breaking bite
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Think of snakes. Although it’s not the best way to tell the difference, the shape of their
eyes can tell you which have poisonous venom in their bite and those that have a harmless
bite. Typically round eyes = non venomous slit, cat like eyes = venomous.
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(There are snake families in which they fall together. Some can mimic an aunt, uncle or
cousin and be venomous through head shape and eyes and vice versa. Nevertheless, snakes
are DANGEROUS and you should STAY AWAY and CLEAR them!!!)
Limits to Classical Conditioning?
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Of course. . . Two, actually
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Cognitive Processes – understanding a chain of events in chronological order.
ROBERT RESCORLA and ALLAN WAGNER argued that when two significant events
occur close together in time, one can learn the predictability of the second event.
Through the experience, one can learn the expectancy of the second event
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Rat and electrical shock
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Alcoholics and nausea (failed attempt)
Biological Predispositions – embedded and innate behaviors due to DNA. It’s
capacity to be conditioned is constrained by its biology.
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This allows it to take in just enough to enhance their chances of survival.
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Whichever sense is your primary lifeline, it can be deterred but your others won’t be
effected.
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This change can be passed down generation to generation leading to a superior species of
that kind. (Darwin’s principle of natural selection and survival of the fittest)
Operant Conditioning
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A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a
reinforce(r) or diminished if followed by a punisher.
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Respondent Behavior: behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some
stimulus
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Learned through classical conditioning
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Operant Behavior: behavior that operates on the environment, producing
consequences
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Is the organism learning associations between events that it doesn’t control or
is it learning associations between its behavior and resulting events?

Classical conditioning is learning associations between events that it doesn’t
control

Operant conditioning is learning associations between its behavior and resulting
events
Skinner’s Experiment
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Law of effect: Thorndike’s principle that behaviors followed by favorable
consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by
unfavorable consequences become less likely
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Skinner develops a “behavioral technology”
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Reveals principles of behavior control
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Taught pigeons how to walk in a figure 8, play Ping-Pong, and to keep a
missile on course by pecking a target on a screen
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His first study was with rats
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Operant Chamber: aka Skinner box, containing a bar or key that an animal can
manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforce(r), with attached devices to record
the animal’s rate of bar pressing or key pecking.
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Shows how to pull habits out of a rat
Skinner’s Experiment: Shaping Behavior
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Shaping: an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward
closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior
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Reinforcer: any event that strengthens the behavior it follows
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The food that guided an animal’s action toward a desired behavior.
Conditioning a hungry rat to press a bar
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Observe at how the rat naturally act before training
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Build on existing behaviors
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Give the rat a reward each time it approaches the bar
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Once that is a regular, give the require the rat to move closer before awarding it
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Finally, require the rat to touch the bar before giving it a reward
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Rewarding responses that are closer to the desired behavior and ignoring all other responses
Can be used to determine what nonverbal organisms perceive

Rewarding a pigeon for pecking after seeing a human faces, but not for any other image will
teach a pigeon to recognize human faces.
Skinner’s Experiment: Types of
Reinforcers
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Positive reinforcers may be tangible, praise/attention, an activity (being able to borrow
the car)
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Anything that serves to increase a behavior is a reinforcer
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Reinforcers vary between people and situations
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Positive Reinforcement: increasing behavior by presenting positive stimuli (food). A
positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the
response
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Food is positive reinforcer for hungry animals
Negative Reinforcement: increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli (a
shock). A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response,
strengthens the response
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Not punishment
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Taking aspirin to relieve a headache

Pushing snooze on a sounding alarm
Skinner’s Experiment: Types of
Reinforcers
Primary & Conditioned
Reinforcers
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Primary reinforcers: An innately
reinforcing stimulus, such as one that
satisfies a biological need

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Receiving food when hungry
Conditioned reinforcers: A stimulus
that gains its reinforcing power
through its association with a
primary reinforcer; aka secondary
reinforcer

If a rat knows that a light signals food
coming, it will work to turn on the
light. The light is the conditioned
reinforcer
Immediate and Delayed
Reinforcers
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Rat scenario
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Before performing “wanted” behavior, the rat engages in
“unwanted” behavior
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When the food reinforcer immediately follows one of the
behaviors, that response becomes more likely to recur
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If the rat presses the bar, and the reinforcer is delayed, the
rat will not learn to press the bar
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However, humans still respond to delayed reinforcers
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Pay check at the end of the week
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Postpone immediate awards for greater long-term rewards
Some immediate reinforcers are better sounding than delayed
reinforcers
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Smoking a cigarette today compared to cancer thrity years from
now
Skinner’s Experiment: Reinforcement
Schedules
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Continuous reinforcement: reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs
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Learning occurs rapidly
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Extinction occurs rapidly
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When the reinforcement stops, the rat stops pressing the bar
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When a usually dependable candy machine stops delivering a chocolate bar twice in a row, we stop putting
money into it
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Real life does not provide continuous reinforcement
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Partial (Intermittent) reinforcement: Reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower
acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous
reinforcement
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Produces greater persistence
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A pigeon has learned to peck a key to receive food
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The experimental gradually decreases the delivery of food until it’s unpredictable
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Pigeons may peck 150,000 times without a reward
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Keep trying because of hope
Skinner’s Experiment: Reinforcement
Schedules

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Fixed-ratio schedule: a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response
only after a specified amount of times
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One reinforcer for every 30 responses
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Once conditioned, the animal will pause briefly after a reinforcer then return to a
high rate of responding
Variable-ratio schedule: a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response
after an unpredictable number of responses
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Slot-machines
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Produces a high rate of responding because reinforcers increase as the number of
responses increase
Skinner’s Experiment: Reinforcement
Schedules
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Fixed-interval schedule: a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response
only after a specified time has elapsed
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People checking more frequently for mail as the delivery time approaches
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Pigeons pecks a key more frequently as the anticipated time for reward approaches
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Not a steady rate of response
Variable-interval schedule: a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a
response at unpredictable time intervals
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The “You’ve got mail” finally rewarding the persistence in rechecking for email
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Produce slow, steady responding
The reinforcement principles of operant conditioning are universal
Skinner’s Experiment: Punishment
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An event that decreases the behavior that it follows
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Usually administering an undesirable consequence or withdrawing a desirable one
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Rat shocked after touching forbidden object learns not to repeat that behavior
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Consequence: children who receive spankings are at increased risk for aggression,
depression, and low self-esteem.
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This states physical punishment is followed by bad behavior and physical punishment is
followed after that
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A claim used for those who are for milder forms of punishment
Punished behavior may not be forgotten, but suppressed.
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The suppression can negatively reinforce the parent’s punishing behavior
Child may learn not to do the bad behavior around the parent, but do it everywhere else
Skinner’s Experiment: Punishment
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Physical punishment may increase aggressiveness by showing that aggression
is a way to cope with problems
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Can create fear
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Person may associate fear with the bad behavior, the punisher, and the situation
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When punishments are unpredictable and inescapable, there’s a sense that events
are beyond one’s control
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Feeling helpless and depression
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Punishment does not guide one toward desirable behavior
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Punishment = what not to do
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Reinforcer = what to do
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Punishment combined with reinforcer is more effective
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Punishment teaches how to avoid it
Extending Skinner’s Understanding:
Cognition and Operant Conditioning
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Skinner died resisting the belief of cognitive process having a necessary place
in understanding conditioning
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However, cognitive process is shown when the rats began expecting a reward to
come
Latent Learning: learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an
incentive to demonstrate it
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Studying rats in mazes
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With no reward, rats seem to develop a cognitive map (a mental representation of the
maze)
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When placing a reward in the maze’s goal box, the rat will perform as well as a rat that
was reinforced with food
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Rats developed latent learning
Extending Skinner’s Understanding:
Cognition and Operant Conditioning
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Intrinsic Motivation: a desire to perform a behavior for its own sake
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Can be decreased by excessive rewards
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Those who are intrinsically motivated work and play in hopes of obtaining joy,
interest, self-expression, or challenge
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Extrinsic motivation: a desire to perform a behavior due to promised rewards
or threats of punishment
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Are you pressured to get an assignment done?
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Yes? You are extrinsically motivated
Would you complete the assignment even if it wasn’t for a grade?
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Yes? You are intrinsically motivated
Extending Skinner’s Understanding:
Biological Predispositions
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Reinforcing a hamster with food
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Easily condition it to dig, why?
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It is a natural behavior to dig in search for food
More difficult to condition a natural behavior not associated to food when using
food as a reinforcer
Animals can drift back to their natural ways
Skinner’s Legacy
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External influences behavior, not internal knowledge
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Administer rewards to manage people more efficiently
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Critics
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He dehumanized people by neglecting a person’s freedom and their ability to
control their own actions
His response?
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People are naturally controlled by external consequences so use this characteristic
for human betterment
Skinner’s Legacy: Applications of
Operant Conditioning
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At school
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Teaching machines offering immediate reinforcements for correct responses will
shape learning
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A class learning concepts, some will understand quickly others will not. What do
you do?
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Go through material according to each student’s rate of learning, provide positive
feedback promptly and positive reinforcements OR
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Teach the class as a whole. The ones who get it succeed easily, the ones who don’t fail.
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The first ideal is not yet realistic, but Skinner believed it was achievable

Students must be repeatedly told whether if they are right or wrong and then guided to
the next step once right

Computerized help will make the first ideal achievable (Web-based learning)
Skinner’s Legacy: Applications of
Operant Conditioning
In Sports
At Work

Reinforcement as an athletic
performer enhancer
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Reinforcement can boost
productivity

Reinforcing small success then
gradually increasing the challenge

Companies now offering a share of
profits and ownership to employees

Increase in motivation, moral, and
cooperation when productivity is
associated with rewards
Skinner’s Legacy: Applications of
Operant Conditioning

At Home
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Spending behavior controlled by its consequences


Those who pay a utility bill use 20% less energy compared to those who have a
landlord that pays for it
Parenting

“Get ready for bed!”

Parent giving in to the whines and defiance are reinforcing the behavior

Parent yells, child realizes the seriousness, gets in bed which reinforces the behavior of
the mom’s yelling

Develops a destructive parent-child relationship
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Give children a reward when behaving
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Ignore the whining
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Explain the behavior when children act up
Learning by Observation

Observational learning: learning by observing others

Modeling: the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior

The phrase “monkey see, monkey do”

Mirror neurons: frontal lobe neurons that fire when performing certain actions
or when observing another doing so. The brain’s mirroring of another’s action
may enable imitation, language learning, and empathy

Helps children learn how to form new words when observing someone saying it

Helps children increase empathy and ability to infer someone’s mental state

It’s harder to frown when viewing someone smiling
Bandura’s Experiments

Preschool child is drawing while an adult in another part of the room is working with
some Tinkertoys.
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The adult begins to kick and throw a large inflated Bobo doll and yelling “hit him
down” or “kick him”

The child, after observing this unexpected behavior, is taken to another room with
plenty of fun toys.

The experimenter tells the child she has decided to save those toys for other children
and leads the child to a room containing a few toys, including a Bobo doll.

Those who seen the adult’s outburst was more likely to do likewise than those who
didn’t see it

Through observing, we learn to anticipate a behavior’s consequence in similar
situations

More likely to imitate people that are similar to ourselves
Applications of Observational Learning

Bandura’s studies show that antisocial models may have antisocial effects

After the Columbine High massacre, every state except Vermont had to
handle with similar copycat incidents

TV can influence people to think certain ways are THE way

Physical intimidation is an effective way to control others

Men are to be tough and women are to be gentle

Shows how abusive parents have aggressive children

Lessons we learn as a child are not easily unlearned as an adult
Positive Observational Learning

Prosocial behavior: positive, constructive, helpful behavior

Prosocial models have prosocial effects

People such as Ghandi and Martin Luther King, Jr. used nonviolent actions to
inspires others to do likewise
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Parents can be prosocial models

Seeing your parent be courageous and have strong morals can bring out the same in
you when necessary

Prosocial models are more effective when actions/words are consistent

Hypocrisy can arise (do as I say and not as do) and children will imitate the
same hypocrisy (doing what they did and saying what they said)
Television and Observational Learning



Real world not matching up with the world shown through TV

Real world: 87% of crimes are nonviolent

“Reality-based” show: 13% of crimes are nonviolent
Does televised aggression or playing aggressive video games influence
aggressive behavior?

Possibly

The more hours children watched violence, the more fights they got in two to six
months later and the greater risk they have of developing aggressions as teens or
adults
Prolonged exposure to violence desensitizes viewers