Chapter 5 -- Learning

what are the three influences on classical conditioning?

-if too much time has passed between the CS and UCS -the individual's learning history (an extinguished response is usually easier to learn the second time around -the organism's readiness to learn certain associations

positive reinforcer

a rewarding environmental stimulus that, when presented strengthens the probability that a response will recur or strengthens a behavior -in BF Skinner's experiment with the pigeon, the pellet is the positive reinforcer

neutral stimulus

a stimulus that normally doesn't elicit the response in question -in Pavlov's experiment: the ringing of the bell

reflexes

behaviors elicited automatically by environmental stimuli

operants

behaviors that are emitted (spontaneously produced) by the organism rather than elicited by the environment

conditioned tolerance

decreased sensitivity (to the drug with repeated use as the body counteracts dosages that were previously effective)

conditioning trial

each pairing of the CS and UCS during the acquisition of a conditioned response

what may intermittent reinforcement schedules be?

either ratio schedules or interval schedules

acquisition

initial learning (of a conditioned response)

negative punishment

involves losing or not obtaining a reinforcer as a consequence of behavior, as when an employee fails to receive a pay increase because of frequent lateness

The basic idea behind operant conditioning, then, is that behavior is controlled by its consequences. Which two types of environmental consequence that produce operant conditioning?

reinforcement and punishment

prepared learning

responses to which an organism is predisposed because they were selected through natural selection -refers to the biologically wired readiness to learn some associations more easily than others

positive punishment

such as spanking, exposure to an aversive event following a behavior reduces the likelihood of the operant recurring

paradoxical conditioning

the CR is actually the body's attempt to counteract the effects of a stimulus that is about to occur -the opposite of the UCR

stimulus-stimulus (aka S-S)

the organism learns to associate the CS with the UCS -believed by Pavlov. He hypothesized that in classical conditioning the CS essentially becomes a signal to an organism that the UCS is about to occur -although both S-R and S-S occur, the weight of evidence tends to favor Pavlov's theory

negative reinforcement

the process whereby a behavior is made more likely because it is followed by the removal of an aversive stimulus

spontaneous recovery

the spontaneous reemergence of a response or an operant that has been extinguished -typically short lived and will rapidly extinguish again without renewed pairings of the CS and UCS

stimulus generalization

the tendency for learned behavior to occur in response to stimuli that were not present during conditioning but that are similar to the conditioned stimulus -related to Aristotle's principle of similarity

who was Pavlov heavily influenced by?

Darwin -he recognized that the ability to learn new associations is crucial to adaptions

laws of association

first proposed by Aristotle, basic principles used to account for learning and memory that describe the condition under which one thought becomes connected or associated with another

science of behavior

focuses on what we can directly observe

Unconditioned response (UCR)

- An unconditioned stimulus activates a reflexive response without any learning having taken place -does not have to be learned -in Pavlov's experiment: it was the salvation

operant conditioning

- B.F. Skinner called it this = As a behaviorist, Skinner believed that it was not really necessary to look at internal thoughts and motivations in order to explain behavior. Said operant is more important than classical conditioning -a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments for behavior. Through operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior. For example, when a lab rat presses a blue button, he receives a food pellet as a reward, but when he presses the red button he receives a mild electric shock. As a result, he learns to press the blue button but avoid the red button. -aka instrumental conditioning = thorndike used this term because the behavior is instrumental to achieving a more satisfying state of affairs -learning that results when an organism associates a response that occurs spontaneously with a particular environmental effect -offers one of the most comprehensive explanations for the range of human and animal behavior ever produced -influenced not only by characteristics of the individual but also by characteristics of the species

Little Albert

-performed by John Watson and Rosalie Rayner -deals with conditioned emotional responses -was introduced to a dog, a rabbit, a white rat, Santa Claus mask and a fur coat. = showed no fear to any of these objects -The CS was the rat - they proceeded to condition a fear response in Albert. -each time Albert reached to touch the rat, they would bang a steel bar, creating a loud noise that startled him = after only a few times, Albert was scared of the rat -with all other conditions (the dog, rabbit, etc) he acted negatively-- even toward his own white hair

law of prediction

-replaced the law of contiguity -states that a CS-UCS association will form to the extent that the presence of the CS predicts the appearance of the UCS. -moved the field substantially in a cognitive direction, suggesting that animals are not blindly making connections between any two stimuli that come along

what are problems of punishment?

-using punishment with animals and young children is that the learner may have difficulty distinguishing which operant is being punished -the learn learner may come to fear the person administering the punishment (via classical conditioning) rather than the action (via operant conditioning) -people typically use punishment when they are angry, which can lead both to poorly designed punishment (from a learning point of view) and to the potential for abuse -aggression that is used to punish behavior often leads to further aggression. The child who is beaten typically learns a much deeper lesson: that problems can be solved with violence

when is punishment most effective?

-when it is accompanies by reasoning -- which helps correctly connect an action with a punishment or -when it is also reinforced for an alternative, acceptable behavior-- which helps to generate alternative responses

theory of learning generally share what three assumptions?

1) experience shapes behavior -- particularly in complex organisms the vast majority of responses are learned rather than innate. 2)learning is adaptive -- just as nature eliminates organisms that are not well suited to their environments, the environment naturally selects those behaviors in an individual that are adaptive and weeds out those that are not. 3)careful experimentation can uncover laws of learning, many of which apply to human and nonhuman animals alike

are the reinforcement and punishment unlateral techniques, in whch one person (a trainer) conditions another person or animal ( a learner)?

No, for example, when a child behaves in a way his parents find upsetting, the parents are likely to punish the child. But the parents' behavior is itself being conditioned: the operant of punishing the child's behavior will be negatively reinforced if it causes the child's bad behavior to cease. Thus, the child is negatively reinforcing thee parents' use of punishment just as the parents are punishing the child's behavior

punishment

a conditioning process that decreases the probability that a behavior will recur

reinforcement

a conditioning process that increases the probability that a response will occur -something in the environment fortifies, or reinforces, a behavior -what is reinforcing to one person may not be reinforcing to another and stimuli that are rewarding at one time may not be at another

conditioning

a form of learning

conditioned taste aversion

a learned aversion to a taste associated with an unpleasant feeling, usually nausea. -unlike the other conditioned learned where the CS and UCS occur the interstimulus interval is less than 10 seconds or less, conditioned taste aversions learning often occurs with intervals up to several hours

escape learning

a negative reinforcement procedure in which the behavior of an organism is reinforced by the cessation of an aversive event that already exists -IE: a rat presses a lever and terminates an electric shock or an overzealous sunbather applies lotion to her skin to relieve sunburn pain

avoidance learning

a negative reinforcement procedure in which the behavior of an organism is reinforced by the prevention of an expected aversive event -IE:a rat jumps a hurdle into a safe chamber when it hears a tone that signals that a shock is about to occur and the sunbather puts on sunscreen before going in the sun to avoid a sunburn

latent inhibition

a phenomenon in classical conditioning in which initial exposure to a neural stimulus without a UCS slows the process of later learning the CS-UCS association and developing CR -thus =, if a bell repeatedly sounds without presentation of meat, a dog may be slower to learn the connection after the bell does start to signal mealtime.

blocking

a phenomenon that occurs when a stimulus fails to elicit a condition response because it is combined with another stimulus that already elicits the response

Superstitious behavior

a phenomenon that occurs when the learner erroneously associates an operant and an environmental event -IE; wearing a lucky outfit to a test

classical conditioning

a procedure by which a previously neutral stimulus comes to elicit a response after it is paired with a stimulus that automatically elicits that response; the first type of learning to be systematically studied. -sometimes called Pavlovian or respondent conditioning) -Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov noticed a peculiar phenomenon that if a stimulus (a ringing bell or tuning fork) repeatedly occurred just as a dog was about to be fed, the dog would start to salivate when it heard the bell even if the food wasn't present.

biofeedback

a procedure for monitoring autonomic physiological processes and learning to alter them at will -psychologist feed info back to patients about their biological processes, allowing them to gain operant control over autonomic responses such as heart rate, body temperature and blood pressure. As patients monitor their physiological processes on an electronic device or computer screen, they receive reinforcement for changes such as decreased muscle tension or heart rate -it can reduce or sometimes eliminate problems such as high blood pressure, headaches and chronic pain.

chaining

a process of learning in which a sequence of already established behavior is reinforced step by step

unconditioned reflex

a reflex that occurs naturally, without any prior learning

unconditioned stimulus (UCS)

a stimulus that produces a reflexive response without any prior learning -in Pavlov's experiment: it was the food

discriminative stimulus

a stimulus that signals that particular contingencies of reinforcement are in effect -animals lean to produce certain actions only in the presence of the discriminative stimulus -is one of the keys to the complexity and flexibility of human and animal behavior

conditioned stimulus (CS)

a stimulus that the organism has learned to associate with the unconditioned stimulus -through learning has come to evoke a conditioned response -in Pavlov's experiment: by pairing the UCS (the food) with the sound of the bell, the bell became the conditioned stimulus

are continuous or partial schedules more effective?

although it tends to be true during the initial learning (acquisition) of a response (presumably because continuous reinforcement makes the connection between the behavior and its consequence clear and predictable) partial reinforcement is usually superior for maintaining learned behavior. IE: suppose you have a relatively new car and every time you turn the key, the engine starts. If, however one day you try to start the can ten times and the engine will not turn over, you will probably give up and call the towing company. However if you own an old rusty car and are accustomed to 10 turns before the car finally cranks up. in this case, you may try 20-30 times before enlisting help. thus, behaviors maintained under partial schedules are usually more resistant to extinction

negative reinforcer

an aversive or unpleasant stimulus that strengthens a behavior by its removal -hitting the snooze button on on alarm clock is negatively reinforced by the termination of the alarm -cleaning the kitchen is negatively reinforced by the elimination of unpleasant sights, smells and whining by roommates

galvanic skin response (GSR)

an electrical measure of the amount of sweat on the skin that is produced during states of anxiety or arousal -also called skin conductance or electrodermal activity (EDA) -in a classic study the experimenters paired a tone (the CS) with a mild electrical shock (the UCS). with repeated pairings, subjects produced a conditioned response to the tone known as GSR.

reinforcer

an environmental consequence that occurs after an organism has produced a response and makes the response more likely to recur

phobia

an irrational fear of a specific object or situation

partial schedule of reinforcement

an operant conditioning procedure in which an organism is reinforced only some of the time it emits a behavior -also called intermittent schedule of reinforcement -these are called schedules of reinforcement but the same principles apply with punishment

continuous reinforcement schedule

an operant conditioning procedure in which the environmental consequences are the same each time an organism emits a behavior -called this because the behavior is continuously reinforced -a child reinforced for altruistic behavior on a continuous schedule of reinforcement would be praised every time she shares, just as a rat might receive a pellet of food each time it presses a lever -rarely occurs in nature or in human life

stimulus

any object or event in the environment that elicits a response in an organism

learning

any relatively permanent change in the way an organism responds based on its experience -central to adaption -essentially about predicting the future from past experience and using these predictions to guide behavior

what type of schedule do schools rely on?

heavily on FI schedules; as a result some students procrastinate between exams and pull all-nighters when reinforcement (or punishment) is imminent

extinction

in classical conditioning the process by which a conditioned response is weakened (NOT obliterated) by presentation of the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus -in operant conditioning the process by which the connection between an operant and a reinforcer or punishment is similarly broken

conditioned response (CR)

in classical conditioning, a response that has been learned - in Pavlov's experiment:after the bell had been paired with the unconditioned stimulus (the food) several times, the sound of the bell alone came to evoke a conditioned response, salvation

What is the most important of the laws of association?

law of contiguity

law of effect

law proposed by Thorndike which state that the animal's tendency to reproduce a behavior depends on that behavior's effect on the environment and the consequent effect on the animal -actions that are followed by desirable outcomes are more likely to be repeated while those followed by undesirable outcomes are less likely to be repeated. -states that behavior is controlled by its consequences

conditioned emotional responses

occur when a formerly neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that evokes an emotional response (either naturally or through prior learning).

law of contiguity

one of the laws of association which proposes that two events will become connected in the mind if they are experienced close together in time (IE: thunder and lightning)

law of similarity

one of the laws of association which states that objects that resemble each other (such as two people with similar faces) are likely to become associated

ratio schedules of reinforcement

operant conditioning procedures in which an organism is reinforced for some proportion of responses -payoffs are tied to the number of responses emitted -only a fraction of "correct" behaviors receive reinforcement, such as one out of every five

variable-interval (VI) schedules

operant conditioning procedures in which organism receive rewards for their responses after an amount of time that is not constant -ties reinforcement to an interval of time, but, unlike a fixed-interval schedule, the animal cannot predict how long that time interval will be -IE a VI-10 schedule -- a reinforcer that occurs, on average, every 10 minutes -in classrooms, pop quizzes make similar use of VI schedules

variable-ratio (VR) schedules of reinforcement

operant conditioning procedures in which organisms receive rewards for a certain percentage of behaviors/responses (required before reinforcement is unpredictable (ie: variable)) that are emitted, but this percentage is not fixed -specify an average number of responses that will be rewarded -generally produce rapid, constant responding and are probalby the most common in daily life -thus a pigeon on a VR-5 schedule may be rewarded on its fourth, seventh, thirteenth and twentieth responses, averaging one reward for every five responses

fixed-interval (FI) schedules of reinforcement

operant conditioning procedures in which organisms receive rewards for their responses only after a fixed amount of time -on an FI-10 schedule, a rat gets a food pellet whether it presses the bar 100 times or 1 time during that 10 minutes, just as long as it presses the bar at some point during each 10-minute interval. -an animal on an FI schedule of reinforcement will ultimately learn to stop responding except toward the end of each interval, producing the scalloped cumulative response pattern -IE workers whose boss comes by only at 2 o'clock are likely to relax the rest of the day

interval schedules of reinforcement

operant conditioning procedures in which rewards (or punishments) are delivered according to intervals of time, no matter how many responses the organism emits

fixed-ratio (FR) schedules of reinforcement

operant conditioning procedures in which the organism receives reinforcement at a fixed rate, according to the number of responses emitted -IE: Piecework employment uses a fixed-ratio schedule of reinforcement: a worker receives payment for every bushel of apples picked (an FR-1 schedule) or for every 10 scarves woven (an FR-10 schedule) -are characterized by rapid responding, with a brief pause after each reinforcement

what did Edward Thorndike use when performing his study?

placed a hungry cat in a box with a mechanical latch and then placed food in full view just outside the box

what are the different types of reinforcement?

positive and negative

what is the major distinction between operant and classical conditioning?

regards which comes first, something in the environment or some behavior from the organism -in classical conditioning, an environmental stimulus initiates a response, whereas in operant conditioning a behavior (or operant) PRODUCES an environmental response -IE: in operant conditioning -- whether the animal is a cat or a psychologist-- the behavior precedes the environmental event that conditions future behavior. By contrast, in classical conditioning, an environmental stimulus (such as a bell) precedes a response.

contingency

the consequence is dependent (or contingent) on the behavior

habituation

the decreasing strength of a response after repeated presentation of the stimulus -essentially learning what they can ignore

interstimulus interval

the duration of time between presentation of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus -presumably, if too much time passes between the presentation of these two stimuli, the animal is unlikely to associate them and conditioning is less likely to occur

stimulus discrimination

the learned tendency for an organism to respond to a very restricted range of stimuli or only to the stimulus used during training -in many ways its the opposite of stimulus generalization -humans tend to be the most advanced organisms when it comes to discrimination

Stimulus-response (aka S-R)

the organism learns to associate thee CS with the CR -Watson and other early behaviorists believed in this

positive reinforcement

the process by which a behavior is made more likely because of the presentation of a rewarding (or payoff) stimulus -IE BF Skinner placed a pigeon in a cage with a target mounted on one side. when it pecked at the target a pellet of grain dropped into a bin

shaping

the process of teaching a new behavior by reinforcing closer and closer approximations of the desired response

what is the fundamental aspect of the behaviorist agenda?

to rid psychology of terms such as 'thought' and 'motives'

are variable-interval schedules or fixed-interval schedules more effective in maintaining consistent performance?

variable-interval schedules

does temporal order of the CS and the UCS -- that is which ones comes first-- matter?

yes, very crucial -maximal conditioning occurs when the CS proceeds the UCS (which allows the organism to "predict" and hence to prepare.)