Transcript learning
learning How the environment influences our behavior. learning • More than just picking up knowledge or a skill: • A semi-permanent change in behavior potential caused by a interaction with the environment The four pillars of learning • Habituation – losing automatic connections • Classical Conditioning – gaining automatic connections • Operant Conditioning – repeating what works, avoiding what doesn’t • Social Learning – being influenced by those we admire HABITUATION • The dampening of an automatic response due to repeated exposure • Deals with hard-wired, preprogrammed responses, biologically preformed • For simple organisms, that’s about all there is But for humans, … • Our behavior is controlled by just a few automatic behaviors • We are born with a few that quickly fade • Those that remain deal with essential behaviors, such as: feeding, response to threats, and reproduction Basic terminology • An event which, all things being equal, always gets a reaction is an unconditioned stimulus or UCS • The automatic reaction is called an unconditioned response or UCR • UCS > UCR • Habituation temporarily dampens this connection Why? • Habituation helps us adjust to novel, upsetting circumstances to prevent the jarring,, stressful effects of triggers • High cost for sympathetic nervous system arousal • How else could we: • Live in New York city?, or Hit the clutch free throw on the road?