PSYC EXAM 2

Cognitive development: T or F? The main difference between child and adult thinking is that adults simply know more information An infant would be surprised if an object moved past the edge of a table but didn't fall, as if they understood gravity. Infants who quickly get bored when repeatedly shown a simple object turn out to have higher intelligence later in childhood.

- F - The main difference is the thinking process, not the information - itself. However, as I mentioned a minute ago, the more information we acquire through new - experiences, the more opportunities we have to add to and improve our thinking process. -An infant would be surprised if an object moved past the edge of a table, but didn't fall as if they understand gravity. -This is true. -Infants act like little scientists in their eagerness to learn about the world around them. So prepare yourself. -They'll hit a stage during cognitive development where they'll become obsessed with dropping objects or pushing them off a surface just to watch them fall. - As with egocentrism, caregivers can get pretty frustrated with this behavior when they don't understand it-s a learning tool. - It-s better for everyone if you just recognize this as a normal stage of cognitive development and provide your baby with plenty of non breakable objects of different sizes, shapes, colors, materials, and let them run wild with their little physics experiments. -true-false. Infants who quickly get bored when repeatedly shown as simple object turn out to have higher intelligence later in childhood. This one is true. This is a correlational statistic, but its predictive value is very strong. Bonus, it's very easy to test a child with this using a simple research technique known as looking time. Remember that pretty much everything is new to an infant. You can take any household item, preferably something with strong color affordances, like a red plastic spoon or a yellow banana. Get your phone timer ready. Show the object to the child and time how long they focus on the object. - The time they spent looking at the object is called looking time. Then you repeat the whole process and you should notice the looking time getting shorter and shorter each time you present the object. Researchers have discovered that the first time the baby pays attention to the object, they're working to analyze its features and learn about it. So at first they look for a fairly long time. But once they figured out everything they can by looking, they'll barely glance at the item when you present it. Now they're bored with it. And this is called habituation. But if you make a change to the object, let's say you draw a smiley face on the banana. You should see your baby suddenly start concentrating in looking longer again because now there's something new to analyze. -So the faster a baby habituate to or gets bored with a new object, the faster they're analyzing its features. And this speedy analysis ability seems to stick with them and therefore predicts higher intelligence later. But beyond that, you can use this looking time process strategically as a parent and a bunch of cool ways.

Schedules of reinforcement

- different ways reinforcement can be applied in operant conditioning to achieve different intensities of learning. Recall that reinforcement, by definition, ALWAYS increases the behavior you are trying to train. But not all reinforcement is equal! Reinforcement - any consequence that strengthens the response (operant behavior) increases the probability that the subject will repeat the response behavior Reinforcement can be positive (+) OR negative (-), but it ALWAYS creates a "good" consequence Reinforcement schedule: Rules about the timing and frequency of reinforcing a particular response that determines the speed and strength of operant learning (training) - There are 2 categories of reinforcement: continuous and partial.

Partial reinforcement

- response is reinforced only part of the time (slot machine) slower acquisition (learning) slower extinction - reinforcement creates longer-lasting learning than continuous reinforcement - that is, slower extinction - but ACQUISITION of the learning is also slower -the reward is onlygiven SOME of the times after the subject performs the desired operant behavior. It may SEEM like only getting your reward SOMETIMES would make you LESS likely to consistently perform the operant behavior, but in fact quite the opposite is true! As we have seen previously with psychology, human thinking and behavior is certainly not always intuitive! PARTIAL reinforcement turns out to create deeper and more long-lasting operant conditioning than continuous reinforcement does

Negative reinforcement vs. negative punishment example

- that reinforcement is always a good consequence of some behavior, and punishment is always a bad consequence. Negative reinforcement- Jacob "paid his credit card bill by the due date" to avoid paying an additional penalty. What's the response? What's the consequence? -negative REINFORCEMENT would be Jacob paying his credit card bill on time to AVOID paying a penalty. The response behavior is paying the bill on time, and the consequence is avoiding a penalty. This is negative reinforcement because the consequence is AVOIDING (or removing) something BAD (a penalty), and that makes our subject feel good Negative punishment- Jacob lost money to a penalty for "paying his credit card bill late." What's the response? What's the consequence? -Negative PUNISHMENT on the other hand, is demonstrated when Jacob DOES pay his bill late and then has to PAY a penalty. Again, analyze the information in the scenario you are given: Jacob's BEHAVIOR here is to pay his bill late. His CONSEQUENCE is LOSING money to a penalty. So THIS set of events signals NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT because Jacob LOST money and that made him feel BAD

Equilibrium

- when one's schema successfully explains past experiences AND successfully predicts new events Requires effort to move from disequilibrium to equilibrium in order to make sense of a new experience Pet schema, Galileo and the solar system - way we feel when things do go as we expect, according to our schemas. The most fun example of shifting from disequilibrium to equilibrium is when you have that aha moment when you get a joke. Good jokes set you up to expect one thing. But then when you find out that there's a different surprise ending, something you didn't expect, something not in your schema, you get a shot of disequilibrium, quickly followed by that satisfying feeling of equilibrium when your mind adjusts your schema to accept this new information in the punchline as a sensible explanation. Jimmy and timmy example

Piaget's Constructivist Theory

- Cognition is the term for mental activity. But more specifically, It's about how the conscious mind works. To help us successfully get through our life experiences. - gold standard theory describing this process was proposed by Piaget. -He found that children make the same cognitive errors at roughly the same ages, and then they learn from those errors to change their thinking so that it becomes more effective. And again, they do this in predictable stages in roughly the same ages. - One limitation is that the age-bounded stage to stage progress in this theory makes it look like cognitive development is more consistent and predictable across children than it really is. In other words, it doesn't allow for as much individual difference among kids as there actually is in real life. -But the biggest failure of this theory that you need to keep in mind is that Piaget's research came from a socioculturally limited sample: Western infants and children. So It';s explanatory and predictive value, although it works well, it works well when generalized to that population. We now know that teaching and learning practices can vary dramatically across cultures, and these differences can cause kids to reach some cognitive milestones earlier than Piaget thought and others later. -Views children as active agents intrinsically motivated to experiment and construct their knowledge -Says children progress through 4 stages of cognitive development, each stage building on the previous one -Child organizes knowledge into increasingly more complex mental representations, called schemas -Child continually modifies schemas (based on what?) --When schemas aggregate enough knowledge from experience, qualitative changes in thinking occur - this is a stage theory describing how children's cognitive development unfolds over time as learning experiences accumulate. -He posits four stages that every child must go through in order to get to optimal adult level thinking. -Piaget says kids are naturally motivated to learn, and from birth, they use their interactions with the world to organize their experiences into mental representations called schemas. - Then they use these schemas to make plans about future experiences, future interactions. - So a schema is fundamentally a plan for how to operate successfully in a certain situation. Now hopefully, it's obvious that schemas will be very simple and error prone at first because the child hasn't had enough experiences yet to be able to analyze different pros and cons of new situations. -They make a lot of mistakes because they simply don't have enough experiences and with enough different situations to make solid, logical plans and decisions yet. -As the child grows physically in brain and body, it develops new abilities to interact in more ways with things and people in its environment to gain new information about what works and what doesn't. - he or she will continually make adjustments to their schemas based on new experiences. And gradually, the child becomes more successful and sophisticated in their thinking. Each time the schemas get rich enough for the child to consistently overcome common cognitive errors of whatever stage it's in, the child will then experience a qualitative change in the way it thinks, and it will graduate up to the next stage of cognitive ability in this theory. - that Piaget's theory dictates that kids have to move through the stages in order by accumulating information through trial and error experimentation. So the child's failures are as important as its successes in terms of developing effective and successful schemes for thinking, reasoning, planning and decision making, a.k.a. cognition. -So what is the mechanism that drives children to seek new information and make changes to their existing schemas? Humans normally have a variety of states of consciousness that appear to have a strong genetic basis. -And these states, drive us to behave in response to those states.

Intro to Cognitive Development

-how humans learn to think and reason and use logic to solve problems and make decisions. It's critically important to note that humans are not born with effective thinking processes already in place. Instead, we'e born with billions of unattached neurons that are ready to be used for cognitive development. -But the experiences that recruit those wrong neurons into mental pathways to hold the information, those experiences are required for cognitive development to occur. -This is called experience dependent neuroplasticity --our genetically endowed potential to create new neural connections as a function of our individual experiences and to reorganize those pathways as needed over our lifetime, as new experiences give us new information that allows our thinking to become more sophisticated and more effective. -children need cognitively stimulating learning experiences in order to develop the ability to think effectively. So they must learn it. Which in turn means that cognitive development has a very strong nurture component.

EXACT STEPS to determine the operant conditioning type

1. Identify the operant behavior -First, identify the operant BEHAVIOR the subject made that produced a consequence - and be sure to note that this operant behavior is sometimes called a response or a response behavior - but it is NOT the consequence - it is the behavior that CAUSES the consequence, and THAT is what you are analyzing in operant conditioning 2. Does the consequence of the behavior result in adding something (positive) or removing something (negative)? - Determine whether the CONSEQUENCE resulted in adding (positive) or removing (negative) some thing 3. Does the added or removed thing make me feel good (reinforcement) or bad (punishment)?

attachment categories

4 attachment categories 1 secure, 3 insecure subtypes - Secure= healthy - 3 insecure= problematic behaviors and parenting Attachment Categories Secure attachment - child has a high-quality, dependable, safe relationship with their attachment figure - Clearly shows that the caregiver is wanted by the child upset when the caregiver leaves but happy when caregiver returns, recovering quickly from distress - Mom is secure base when she's there and gets upset when she leaves - Easily comforted by mom because she is safe haven uses caregiver as a secure base for exploration and a safe haven when stressed About 60% of American middle-class children are securely attached - High self-esteem and healthy trusting relationships in childhood and adulthood

The Strange Situation

Ainsworth's "Strange Situation" - Interact in a lab looking like a playroom but has people and environment that are unfamiliar and maximize a child's need for their parent - Stanger increases child's need for parent to feel safe Assesses infants' attachment to their primary caregivers Child is periodically separated and reunited with the caregiver, and exposed to a stranger when alone and when the caregiver is present "reunion" behavior identified - Babies cant tell you how they feel about caregiver

Secure attachment

Attachment - The emotional bonding style babies develop as a result of the quality of their relationship with their primary caregiver or caregivers - the people who take care of them consistently on a daily basis. - Permanent and stable over lifetime and forms component of personality - But comes forms social interactions during infancy - Product of our nature or environment Predicts the way people will approach emotional attachments in all their relationships across space and time, and throughout their lifetime - Must be consistent from birth Forms with caregiver during first 6 months and solidifies through age 1 - Develop confidence and self-motivation to explore new things - Without are sickly, emotionally underdeveloped and unmotivated even if physical needs are fully met Specific events influence the development of attachment Temperament - Effects parenting style and response - To get trust must have responsive parenting - Healthy attachment is easier with easy temperament babies Responsive parenting (consistent sensitivity and quality care) Contact comfort - Babies need human contact and familiarity - Responds best in predictable routines and familiarity (sounds, smells) makes them feel safe and relaxed Familiar routines and environment

Insecure attachment - 3 subtypes

Attachment is a product of early social interactions with caregiver during first year/ 6 months of life - If give baby trust to caregiver - Same attachment is permanent and thus impacts social and personality development (self-esteem and ability to maintain relationships) Attachment in infancy Secure - open and trusting Insecure Avoidant - untrusting - Over inflated sense of self Insecure Resistant (ambivalent) - untrusting - Lower self-esteem and difficult time maintaining relationships Insecure Disorganized - untrusting - Lower self-esteem and difficult time maintaining relationships Test suing strange situation test Insecure-avoidant attachment - child seems mostly indifferent toward caregiver and keeps to themselves; ignore them when they leave and avoidant when they return about 20% of infants from middle-class U.S. families (1/5) - Mom isn't used as a safe haven because he isn't seeking comfort from her because he was taught to depend on himself Mostly ignores caregiver before the caregiver leaves and indifferent or avoidant when the caregiver returns If upset when left alone, they are as easily comforted by a stranger as by the caregiver Research suggests caregiver is not helpful when the child is in need, expects child to comfort themselves and obey rules without question, so the child learns to rely on self instead of the caregiver, and to avoid seeking caregiver help even when they need it. - Caused by parents not being adequately responsive to child (standoff ish, seldom offering warm interactions and not very receptive when they initiate the interaction themselves) - Insight on how the parent is raised themselves where (cultural norm) individual impendence and displays of affection aren't proper - Spare the rod and spoil the child - Tend to follow set of strict rules for childcare that they believe ins strongly and take care of child based on rules (cry it out- ignoring babies' effort to reach out when in distress) o Infants shouldn't be left to cry it out at 6 months o Feeding on predeveloped schedule - Learn to be self-sufficient and toe the line - Emotionally unavailable and perfectionists ( type A0- overinflates self-esteem making relationships hard to maintain Insecure-resistant (aka ambivalent) attachment - child is overly clingy and stays close to their caregiver rather than exploring the environment (10-15% of American middle-class children) tend to become intensely upset when the caregiver leaves, but not readily comforted upon reunion - Percent is getting higher because of lawnmower parenting when parents are over involved and over controlling - Overly clingly and stay close to caregiver and wont venture to new situations and are not comforted when the parents return - Seek comfort and resist comfort ( angry at caregiver) from caregiver Child appears both to seek comfort and resist comfort efforts by the caregiver Research suggests result of Inconsistent responsiveness from caregiver Overanxious/overbearing caregiver Child cannot depend on caregiver's responsiveness, so may show extreme behaviors in trying to get needs met Child tends to have low self-esteem, low self-initiative, and strong expectations of rejection - Mom isn't safe haven and he cant soothe himself - Parents are inconsistent in responsiveness to child, mixed signals, can't predict on when the parent will give them the attention, they need - Comes from parent of convenience- responsive when convenient to parent and fail to respond when inconvenient ( single moms) - Lawnmower parenting- shield child from experiences that can be upsetting or uncomfortable ( speak up, problem solving) o Also has a cultural bases (US) o Asian cultures- who and what their child is allowed to be § Overbearing, controlling, doesn't allow child to be a part of the process o No opportunity to deal with struggles, don't have proper coping skills or trust or security o Unintentionally sending message that the child isn't good enough to solve their problems o Essential in developing confidence, self-motivation, healthy self-esteem and emotional balance o Anxiety, low self esteem, poor decision making, clingy with an unhealthy overdependence on denying or making excuses for failures o Needing someone else to solve problems and manage normal, life demands o Need someone to control their life because they can't do it for themselves o Distrust in themselves and others and strong need for constant reassurance leading to clinginess in relationships and fear that their needs would be rejected o Compassionate and firm boundaries and redirect them from perceived rejection Disorganized-disoriented attachment - insecure attachment category used to describe a very small percentage of children who do not fit into the other categories no consistent way of coping with the Strange Situation no strategies for getting needs met by caregiver - No consistent way of coping to handle with strange situation or to get safe haven or base behavior is confused or even contradictory; often appears dazed or disoriented; often unresponsive - Contradictory behavior like seeking caregiver with back turned Research suggests abuse and/or severe neglect Institutional orphanages - Caregiver child ratio is very off and cant give responsive caregiving - No experience with responsive caregiving and don't know where to even start to have needs met Brain circuits in basic trust don't forma s they should Attachment Take-home messages Attachment is learned, and mostly in the first 6 months so we can control with parenting behavior even if you baby has difficult temperament or single mom - Have a plan to instill basic trust Parenting is learned, and mostly passed on - Create same attachment in kids as they have - They need to be taught how to change patenting them what they are used to Secure attachment CAN be learned later in life - Cognitive behavior therapy techniques that can help insecurely attached people to change social behaviors and require brain circuits to gain earned secure attachment

crystallized Intelligence and Wisdom

Crystallized intelligence- stays high, but fluid intelligence drops off *Crystallized Intelligence = one's accumulated knowledge and verbal skills tend to increase with age *Fluid Intelligence = one's ability to reason speedily and abstractly tends to decrease during late adulthood - Crystallized intelligence is all of the knowledge you've accumulated over your lifespan, because crystallized intelligence is an accumulation of knowledge, this is something that actually tends to get bigger with age. -There' another kind of intelligence called fluid intelligence. This has to do with how quickly you can solve problems and react to things and this kind of intelligence does tend to decrease during late adulthood. Wisdom - increased ability to know what matters, to live well, and to show good judgment; comes from experience! - Wisdom is defined as basically your ability to make good decisions, that comes from experiences. It's important to understand that brain cells die over time, but people retain lots of healthy neurons and healthy neurons in the older brain can still continue to make new connections, still experience arborization, synaptogenesis. -In the older brain for this kind of healthy brain activity to continue, it's important for the older person to continue learning, continue experiencing new things to make new connections and to stay physically active. -It turns out that there's quite a bit of evidence building up to show that physical activity provides the raw material that allows synaptogenesis and arborization to happen in the brain

dementia and alzheimers

Dementia: Loss in mental functioning caused by physical changes in the brain; dementia is NOT a part of normal aging - when brain development in aging is not healthy? There' a condition called dementia. -What it means is a loss of mental functioning that results from these abnormal physical changes in the brain. -So dementia is not something that normal and everybody should expect to experience. In fact, only a tiny fraction of people over age 65 have dementia -. As you get into really old age, over age 80, that number increases to about 20%. -Fewer than 1% of people between 65 and 80 develop dementia -About 20% over age 80 develop dementia Alzheimer's is the most common form of dementia Alzheimer's- a progressive, fatal brain disorder that causes gradual deterioration of memory, reasoning, language, and finally, physical function. as people continue to live longer and longer the numbers of people affected is likely to increase. -- that alzheimers is one form of this abnormal development of dementia. -And alzheimers is the most common of dementia. -So what about alzheimer's disease. It feels like the rates of alzheimers are really increasing, and in fact they are. And the reason is people are living so much longer. - Human life spans have extended dramatically with medical advances in just recent history. As people live longer the number of people who develop alzheimers is in fact increasing. -So what is it? Alzheimers is at this point, an incurable brain disorder. From its onset to death most people live about 8 years, sometimes shorter sometimes longer, but the average is about 8 years. Right now we don't have a cure, lots of research being done and progress being made. -Alzheimers typically starts with cell death in the hippocampus. The hippocampus is the neural structure in the brain that is responsible for our ability to create new long term memories. -From the hippocampus the problems that cause cell death spread to the reset of the brain. So typically the first signs that one sees is a deterioration in memory, spreading to a deterioration in reasoning, language skills, and finally physical function. -5.5 to 6 million people in the United States are dealing with alzheimers. -Again cell death starts in hippocampus and spreads -The Alzheimer's Association is the trusted resource for reliable information, education, referral and support to millions of people affected by the disease. -Neurons do die with age -However, healthy neurons can continue to thrive and increase in complexity, so keep your brain and body busy! -Arborization - dense dendritic branching that allows more potential connection points between neurons -Synaptogenesis - creation of a new communication portal (synapse) between two neurons

EXACT STEPS to determine the schedule of reinforcement

Does the reward come after some amount of time (interval) or after I make some number of responses (ratio)? Do I know exactly how much time or exactly how many responses (fixed) or is it unpredictable (variable)? Remember that schedules of reinforcement ALWAYS involve a reward because the whole point is to reinforce (increase) a desired behavior! *If the reinforcement comes after some amount of TIME, then it is INTERVAL. If it comes after some number of BEHAVIORS, then it is RATIO. If you KNOW the number of behaviors or the amount of time beforehand, then it is FIXED. If you do NOT know the number of behaviors or the amount of time beforehand, then it is VARIABLE

Adulthood & Aging

Early Adulthood: Physical Development Early adulthood marks the peak of physical health -From about 18 to 25 years of age: --Strength is greatest --Reflexes are quickest -Chances of dying from disease are minimal - This is primetime, the peak of physical health. - The best strength, the best reflexes, you're most resistant to dying from disease. - At this point in your life, only accident is a serious risk to your life span. Middle Adulthood: Physical Development During middle adulthood (40s - 60s); people gradually become aware of changes in their bodies and it's always a surprise --Weight gain is common --Sense organs become less sensitive --Reactions to stimuli are slower - but now it's not developing toward a peak, it's winding down from the peak. - Our vision starts to deteriorate a bit. Sense of smell, sense of taste, all of it. Reaction times get slower. - it's very gradual chart. So down here on the x axis we see age, 10 30 50 etc. The y axis represents visual acuity. So you notice the curve starting at around 5 years of age. We actually are not born with excellent vision. Vision gets better and better and better and peaks at around where you guys are not, 20 early 20's. It very gradually begins to decline over early adulthood and into middle adulthood. I remind you that this decline is so gradual most of us don't notice that it's happening. But look what happens at late adulthood here, right around age 70. Suddenly visual acuity drops off sharply, very sharply. I know you've hear the term the circle of life, I want you to notice as we talk about the aging senses, how the senses are not particularly sharp when were born, they peak in early adulthood and still pretty good during middle adulthood, then at around age 70 the sharpness of your ability to detect stuff out in the world drops off quickly.So that in our 70's our senses are back to functioning the way they did when we were infants. - Olfaction, remember that's the sense of smell. Again, its not peaked until we get into early adulthood. Gradual slight decline through the middle years, and then again at around age 70 it drops off sharply. - sense of hearing, this one's a little bit better at birth, but still not peaked until early adulthood. You'll notice that for the sense of hearing, acuity begins to drop off more sharply than the other senses we've seen. That is your sense of hearing peaks early 20's, but by the time you're 40, it's dropped pretty dramatically, almost back to infant levels. And by the time you're 50, it's all the way back.

Social & personality development - temperament

Emotional heath, personality, relationships and morality Temperament predicts ways a child may learn, react, behave, and feel Everyone shines when given the right lighting - Biological based style of social interaction - - born with, genetically driven, permanent, stable - Strongly effects way people feel and interact in emotional situations both in yourself and with other people - Huge driver of personality development

Type 1 Easy temperament

Establishes and keeps regular schedules Adaptable to new people and experiences positive attitude and sharing approach happy and laid back; moods are pleasant Makes it easy to be a responsive parent 40% - Able to coordinate parents schedule around baby's needs (take naps) - Responsive parent- aware and sensitive of child's needs and meeting them in a consistent and timely manner Critical for health socioemotional and personality development

there are FOUR different schedules of reinforcement you can use to train behaviors->

Fixed-Ratio Schedule:reinforcement is given only after an exact number of responses are made. Typical Outcome:Only short pauses occur after each response, because more responses yield more reinforcement. So, FR schedules produce the highest rate of responding. --you get your reinforcement reward after you have completed a predetermined EXACT number of the desired operant behaviors. So FIXED means you know ahead of time how many behaviors you have to make, and RATIO means your reward depends on making the BEHAVIORS. Of the four schedules of partial reinforcement, the fixed ratio schedule produces the highest RATE (or frequency) of the desired behavior Example: get paid for number of yards you mow. Result: You mow (response) more yards so you can get more pay (reward) --, if you get paid (reinforcement) for every ONE yard you MOW, or every FIVE yards you mow (the FIXED number of operant BEHAVIORS), then you are likely to mow as many yards as possible in a day in order to get the maximum number of rewards (payments) as possible

Face preference

From birth, infants like faces -Most attention to eyes and internal features -From paying attention to real faces, infant learns: To recognize and prefer their own caregiver's face (~12 cumulative hours) -To prefer the type of face they see most often -To understand the significance of different facial expressions (still face) - babies very quickly learn what facial expressions mean, and they use those expressions to guide their social interactions and development. still face. - young babies need and expect social interaction feedback and facial expressions are an important part of that - and they need this because they have to learn what their own social and emotional behaviors should look like. - Human babies prefer looking at faces over just about anything else, and - using our preferential looking and looking time research paradigms, we know a couple of very interesting thing - one, babies prefer to see faces arranged normally - so bilaterally symmetrical, with the eyes at the top, nose in the middle, and mouth at the bottom - so it's not just the complexity of individual facial features that interests them, because when we show them the exact same features cut and pasted into abnormal patterns, so the eyes at the bottom, for instance - they don't like that. - paying attention to real faces, the infant learns what faces are supposed to look like - and they do it fast. - It only takes babies about 12 cumulative hours to be able to recognize and prefer their own caregiver's face. -Another interesting fact is that babies prefer to see the type of face they see most often, the type that is most familiar to them. So babies that mostly see white faces prefer looking at white faces compared to, say black or middle eastern faces and likewise babies who mostly see black faces prefer to look at black faces over white or middle eastern, and so on. - it doesn't matter what color the baby's face is - only what the baby is most familiar with seeing in its environment. Evolutionary psychology explains this as a survival mechanism to basically help kids stick with their tribe when they get lost or parents die or something, because those are the people most likely to take care of them - but it's NOT that black prefers black and white prefers white and so on - it's that babies learn to prefer the kinds of faces that they have experience with.

habituation and dishabituation

Habituation - decreased responsiveness to a stimulus after repeated presentations Introduce a new stimulus - what happens? - If we show them that same object several times in a row, they will look at it for shorter and shorter amounts of time, because basically they are getting bored with it - they've already processed everything they can about it, and they aren't interested in it anymore. -We call this decrease in looking time, habituation. Dishabituation - rebound of a habituated response following a change in stimulation -Heart rate, sucking rate, looking time - But how do we know the infant isn't just bored with the task itself? Because if we then show them a new stimulus they haven't seen before, suddenly they start looking at it for a long time again. We call this, dishabituation, and it means the baby knows it is seeing something new, and now it is interested again. - is evidence that heart rate and sucking rate are also indicators that a baby is interested in something. - So looking time, heart rate, and sucking rate all are positively correlated - all are high when baby is seeing something new and interesting, all slow down as baby habituates, and all speed back up again as baby dishabituates when you present a new stimulus. - So parents can totally use looking time and sucking rate at home as a kind of a rough test for whether their child might have color deficient vision - 2 identical toys, let's say a red ball and a green ball, show the baby one of them until it habituates, and then introduce the other one. If the baby dishabituates to the new ball, then you will know they CAN tell the difference between the red and green colors, since that is the only feature that was different.

Newborn & infant capacities

Knowing what these tools are, and how they work, allows us to create learning environments and research strategies that capitalize can actually do. -newborns and young infants do not yet have the experience, the words, nor the long-term memory capacity to understand our questions or respond to us using language -"capacities."- Humans are born, normally, with sensory receptors and pathways that collect information from the environment, and we call this the sensation capacity. -information comes into the infants body through neural receptors in the eyes ears mouth nostrils and skin - so vision, hearing, taste, smell, and touch.

Punishment is a powerful controller of unwanted behavior, but it has drawbacks!

Punishment does work to change behavior, but one of the biggest unwanted side effects of punishment is that it teaches people to LIE and to HIDE the behavior that cause the punishment, rather than eliminating the behavior Punished behavior is suppressed, not forgotten Often causes a rapid decrease in motivation and creativity Undermines the parent-child (or human-animal) bond The punished subject may just discriminate where they can get away with the behavior. Plus avoiding punishment encourages DISHONESTY. Radar detectors, swearing -ex; Ever wonder why radar detectors are such a huge and persistent industry? Because getting speeding tickets - a positive punishment - does NOT make people stop speeding - it just makes them find better ways of not getting CAUGHT speeding - even if they have to pay a LOT of money for a really good radar detector! Same with cursing - lots of people use swear words but are careful not to SAY the swear words in front of certain people - say, your grandmother - who would most likely NOT be pleased to hear such things and would fuss at you for it! -- Punishment with little kids and pets can also damage their bond with the punisher, and can also smother a child's innovation and creativity - say when they decide to "help" paint the house using sharpie markers or your best nail polish - it is an emotionally painful thing for a young child to be punished by their caregiver - recall that they are still developing cognitive thinking skills, still working on making their schemas more sophisticated and adult-like, and still trying to understand things like morality and theory of mind. In most cases, the research indicates that the best way to train correct behaviors is through reinforcement rather than punishment. But what if your young child is running out into a busy highway, or biting another child, or what if reasoning with them simply isn't working? In other words, what if you find yourself in a situation where you feel you have no choice but to use punishment to change behavior?

Fixed-Interval Schedule:

Reinforcement of a response occurs only after a fixed period of time (NOT response based). --you get paid only after a predetermined amount of TIME. So you know when you will get your payment (reinforcement) for your lawn-mowing BEHAVIOR, but it doesn't matter how MANY behaviors you make - INTERVAL means the part that matters is the FIXED PERIOD OF TIME Typical Outcome:Slow, steady responses; second slowest rate of responding. Example: you get paid once a month (reward) no matter how many hours you work (response). Result: tend to work slow and steady, only as much as you have to do. -. If you are on a salary, for instance, and you get paid the same amount once a month, no matter whether you mow 10 lawns or 100, then that is a FIXED INTERVAL schedule of reinforcement. This type of partial reinforcement produces a slower RATE of response behaviors - because the number of behaviors doesn't matter - but the person still wants their reinforcement (paycheck), so they tend to demonstrate a fairly slow stream of the behavior they are being reinforced for - in this case mowing - and with longer breaks between the behaviors -DOES train subjects to make the desired behaviors, but the tendency is to only make as many behaviors as you HAVE to to get your reinforcement. This is probably why the people who receive SALARIES are the ones management is already confident will get their jobs done on time, even though that often means they have to put in extra hours WITHOUT getting the extra reinforcement of being paid overtime

Type 2 - Difficult temperament

Schedules are irregular, few if any established daily routines Nonadaptable, irritable, and hard to soothe Intense emotional displays, dislike change and new situations ~ 10% Does NOT mean something is wrong with the child or with the parents - but responsive parenting matters, and parent training will help! Patience, consistency, calm and supportive but firm emotional reactions - Parenting classes to deal with these types of babies - Be consistent even if tired and teach child how to cope with negative emotions - Doesn't mean bad child, parent needs to help child balance emotions

Sensation & Perception

Sensation: when environmental information interacts with sensory receptors—the eyes, ears, tongue, nostrils, and skin This is the primary tool 0 - 2 yr-olds have for learning -Sensation is the primary tool children from newborns to about 2 yr-olds use to learn about their world. Perception: when the brain interprets sensory information to make it meaningful -The child learns to interpret sensory patterns as a particular color, or face, or toy, or food... How do infants learn about their world? -Gradually, as the baby gains experience interacting with the world through its senses, it will begin to create perceptions about things. -Perception is another huge capacity that emerges as the brain learns how to interpret all the sensory information in a meaningful way. -For example, after a few exposures to the smell of the same person offering a nipple that delivers food, the infant will perceive that the sensation of that person's smell is associated with the comfort and satiation of feeding, and they will quickly begin to show a preference for that person's smell compared to that of a stranger, even when both are offering the identical food. -So now that person's smell is meaningful to the infant, whereas the stranger's smell is not. *repetition of experiences is critical for learning, especially when the primary learning tool is sensation.

Type 3 - Slow to warm up temperament

Shy and/or fearful at first, slowly becomes friendly with familiarity and time Somewhat negative in mood Low-key reactions to situation and displays of emotion need extra time to adjust to new things or changes in routine Do not respond well to punishment - Low displays of emotions - Attachments to caregivers - Somber or serious or withdrawn - Learn coping skills to deal with new experiences, yelling or push them into new situations will cause them to withdraw more

The Aging Senses

Slowing reactions contribute to increased accident risks among those 75 and older peak in early adulthood and at 70 it drops off in our 70's our senses are back to functioning the way they did when we were infants. ( circle of life) - where the peak and the drops offs occur early. Why do you think that might be? With the onset of industrialization and in particular earbuds, young people are losing their acuity of hearing at much earlier ages that they did even just a few years ago. - reaction time.; number of fatal car accidents people are involved in over their lifespan. The x axis is still age, but now the y axis is rates of fatal accidents. So once again, we see that like the other sense, early in life reaction time has not peaked. Reaction time is slower. Part of this is because driving is a learned process and reacting to challenges in driving takes experience. So 16 and 17 year olds show the highest rates among young people. Rates of accidents reduce, until the best drivers are in middle adulthood, and then notice how accident rates again start to gradually increase with age, and then you get to age 70 and you see this sharp increase. - As you age, all of your senses start to decline. And around age 70 in every sense except audition, there's this sharp decrease in our sensory acuity. -Driving requires more than just reaction time, although reaction time is of course important. But being able to see well and hear well are also really important to driving.

Stages of Death and Dying

Sooner or later, we all must go. It's never easy, but it can help to prepare well. There is a grief process. Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Acceptance - that there's a process that people go through when they are facing death and dying. -Not everyone will go through every stage and certainly people go through the stages at different rates. Being aware of the stages and the behaviors and thinking patterns that go along with each of the stage can help you navigate through it.

Temperament

Temperament - Biologically based emotional and behavioral style of reacting to internal and external events Thomas & Chess, 1977 - Tell within first day of infancy - Each type requires a different type of parenting skill Temperament also plays an important role in attachment style Children need to feel safe and secure, BUT... Differences in temperament may make it easier or harder for parents to provide the consistent responsiveness necessary for that Parental training makes a world of difference

Measuring S & P Capacities

These strategies are most useful with preverbal infants, so by that I mean babies from newborn up to about 2 years old, who aren't very good at language yet, so they can't tell us what they prefer - instead we have to use these strategies that let us observe behaviors that tell us what they prefer. Visual preference aka Preferential-looking: Examines infants' ability to discriminate between different stimuli seen at the same time -Show infant 2 stimuli at once, observe whether infant has a preference for one over the other Infants prefer to look at more complex patterns compared to simple ones - Visual preference, or Preferential looking examines infants' ability to discriminate between different stimuli seen at the same time - it's what the baby prefers to look at when given a choice between two things. - So each time you hear the chiming bell, that's an auditory stimulus to get the baby's attention, and right after the bell, she will see two images on the screen in front of her. -Your task is to watch her eyes, and see if you can tell whether she prefers to look at one more than the other. - even infants as young as 2-days-old respond to this technique, and what we repeatedly find throughout infancy is that - given a choice - they all prefer to look at more complex patterns compared to plain ones. -Even from infancy, human kids seem driven to learn what they don't know, and we can observe this when they consistently seek out the more difficult or complicated stimuli that have more affordances and that necessarily require more brain power to figure out. Looking time: length of time infant is visually fixated on a single stimulus - preverbal babies - Looking time measures how long a baby focuses on ONE thing, whereas preferential looking measure which of TWO things a baby prefers to look at. - Looking time tells us something new - the longer the baby looks at something, the more interested they are in that thing. And it turns out that babies are more interested in new things than old things - that is, when they see some object for the first time, they will look at it longest, processing its different features and trying to figure out what it is. -Repeated presentation of the same stimulus allows us to measure whether an infant can tell when a stimulus is old vs. new -Baby begins to ignore a stimulus it sees repeatedly

Sensory & Perceptual Capacities

Visual discrimination (acuity) -develops rapidly -least well-developed sense at birth, because there wasn't anything to see in the womb. -newborns are terribly nearsighted, they can still see shapes and colors, light and dark, and their best focus is on objects that are 8-12 inches away - which incidentally turns out to be right smack on target for the distance between your face and the baby's face when you are nursing it -they are still getting visual affordances, and by the time they are 4-6 months old, their vision is improving almost to 20/20, and now they are getting really good at being able to see and notice feature differences between familiar and unfamiliar objects, especially faces. We call this ability to see details clearly, visual discrimination aka acuity, -this improvement in visual discrimination supports the learning of hand-eye coordination, binocular vision, and depth perception. -the visual system is still developing at birth, and a big part of what is being built up are the neural pathways from the eyes to the brain. -Neural pathways require fatty acids as part of their construction material, so it is critically important to healthy visual development for newborns and young infants to have appropriate amounts of fat in their diet - human breast milk has the perfect amount, and infant formulas are designed to mimic that, but it's important not to impose the kinds of fat restrictions on a baby's diet that a parent might need to use on themselves or on an older child. -around 6 months, infants need to get an eye exam, and a hearing exam. -They do make these for babies, and because vision and hearing are these huge sensory capacities for learning, if one or both of these capacities is not functioning as it should, that can be a BIG roadblock for your baby's healthy development - physically, cognitively, and socially. -Visual system is still developing -Newborns ~ 20/240 acuity and focus best at 8-12" -4-5 months ~ 20/60; -gaining hand-eye coordination and depth perception -By 6 months ~20/40 vision; time to get an eye exam! -Acuity tests and fatty acids The Orienting Response- Infant turns head toward a sight or sound shows infant can see or hear - one simple and quick trick parents can use at home to at least get a sense of whether there might be a problem, and it's called the orienting response. - Human infants will orient, or turn their face toward, a salient sight or sound. So first you have to make sure your baby is awake and alert - not crying or drowsy - because awake and alert means they are ready for stimulation and interaction. - Then you stand to the side and call their name, for instance, and they should turn their face toward your voice. -Likewise if you put something with good visual affordances on one side of the baby and move it to the other side, they should try to track it, or follow it, by turning their face toward the new location.

Law of Effect (Thorndike's Law)

We are more likely to repeat behaviors that are followed by pleasant consequences, and less likely to repeat behaviors that are followed by unpleasant consequences -particular psychology law is very much common sense. All Thorndike's Law is saying is that, when we DO something - some voluntary, operant behavior - and then we get REWARDED for doing it, we are more likely to do that thing again in the future. Similarly, the law says that when we DO something, and then get PUNISHED for it, we are LESS likely to do that thing again in the future

Operant conditioning

adaptability. Operant Conditioning - Behavior Followed By A Consequence the association of voluntary behaviors with the consequences they cause - This is a type of learning in which the subject being trained is actively participating in the training, whether they know it or not. In other words, the subject is performing some VOLUNTARY behavior that is OPERATING on the environment, and that operant behavior is CAUSING some consequence. The key to understanding operant conditioning is to recognize that the CONSEQUENCE of our subject's behavior is the thing that is training them. -some BIG differences between CLASSICAL conditioning, which we talked about in an earlier lesson, and OPERANT conditioning, which we are discussing here. Recall that Classical conditioning works by REtraining subjects' innate, natural, instinctive responses. So with Classical conditioning, the subject produces an innate response, such as salivation or fear, to some stimulus that doesn't NATURALLY produce that response, such as a bell or a white kitten. Notice particularly that in classical conditioning, the behaviors being trained are instinctive or emotional ones. Conversely, OPERANT conditioning trains VOLUNTARY behaviors, such as whether you come to class, or whether you obey traffic laws, and things like that

Accommodation:

adapting our understanding (existing schema) to fit a new experience - For example, if you have a schema for how to successfully get food at McDonald's, you won't need to change your schema to be successful getting food at a different fast food hamburger joint like Burger King. However, if something unexpected happens during your new experience, that is your existing schema doesn't prepare you for it, doesn't explain it, then you do experience disequilibrium and you have to change your schema to get back to equilibrium. - Children are very good at accommodation. They are very mentally flexible in terms of adding new information to their schemas to adapt their thinking to deal successfully with the new situation. However, it's super important to note that caregivers can play a critical role in helping kids succeed through accommodation. To do this, caregivers must first pay attention to the kinds of cognitive errors that kids are making and then provide the explanations or alternatives that will give the child the best chance and the fastest pathway to improving their thinking and therefore their success. - without this feedback, kids may continue to make the same errors or make new errors because they don't know the right alternative yet. And they have to keep experimenting with failures until they finally figure out the change that will make them successful. And opportunities for assimilation or accommodation continue throughout life as long as we're having new experiences. And normally, part of what experience teaches us is how to recognize our own failures and look for changes we can accommodate to make ourselves more successful. - example of this in adulthood is with study habits in college freshmen. All too often, our schema for studying, which is based on our high school experiences, is entirely inadequate. - When we get to college and lots of us, including me, really [insert word here] that first semester as we have to learn how to change our study strategies and thus our study schema to accommodate the new demands at the college level. Fortunately, most of us learn from these initial failures and we do indeed look for ways to change our study schema to perform better and thank goodness for Q drops while we make this accommodation. But some students try to assimilate instead, and assimilation does not work for failures. - instead of changing or accommodating their study schema, some students will keep using the same study schema, assimilate, and explain their failure by using an excuse schema, such as believing the failure was because the test was too hard or unfair, or the instructor sucks or doesn't like them. This keeps them at equilibrium, but it does not help them actually perform better.

Disequilibrium

aka cognitive dissonance) - uncomfortable state encountered when new experiences don't fit existing schemas - cognitive dissonance, is that awkward, confused feeling you get when something you expect to happen or believe should happen simply doesn't. So your schema for that situation leads you to expect things to proceed in a certain way, and when they don't, It leaves you feeling at a loss because now you don't know what's next and you don't know what you should do or think now. - this is an uncomfortable state, we're driven to get out of this state. And in cognitive development, that means we're driven to find an explanation, to figure out what we missed, so that we get back to our comfortable state of equilibrium.

Reinforcement -

any consequence that strengthens the response (operant behavior) increases the probability that the subject will repeat the response behavior - The first part of the law says that when we DO some voluntary, and then we get REWARDED for it, we are more likely to do that behavior again in the future - obviously because we want another reward. That reward for behavior is called REINFORCEMENT. So if you are trying to train some behavior in your pet, your roommate, your child, and so on, you catch them doing some behavior you WANT - or even ask them to do the behavior, if they can understand language - and then you REWARD or REINFORCE that behavior by giving your subject something they want. Reinforcement can be positive (+) OR negative (-), but it ALWAYS creates a "good" consequence -. Reinforcement can be EITHER positive OR negative - but once again in psychology, positive and negative here do NOT mean good and bad - instead they mean add or subtract.

Punishment

aversive event that decreases the response (operant behavior) Always a "bad" consequence - But sometimes the consequences of our behaviors are NOT good consequences. -PUNISHMENTS are consequences that make our subject feel BAD, and therefore make our subject LESS likely to repeat the operant behavior in the future. But just as we saw with reinforcements, punishments can be either positive or negative. Again, positive and negative here mean adding or subtracting - they do NOT mean good and bad Can be positive (+) or negative (-), but always unpleasant

Physical changes in the Brain: Late Adulthood and Aging

changes in the brain? The brain also continues to develop throughout the lifespan, but remember that development doesn't always mean you're moving towards a peak. During middle adulthood, it means you're moving away from the peak. - again x axis is age, y axis is now performance. -These are several different kinds of thinking skills. Inductive reasoning, spatial orientation, number skills, verbal meaning, and word fluency, Notice that the general pattern here is that early adulthood, around age 25, where this chart starts, you have peak performance in most of these cognitive thinking skills and performance of those skills declines throughout early adulthood and middle adulthood, except for language skills. -Language skills are one of the thinking skills that tend to be robust toward aging. Maybe that's why old people are good at telling stories. -As we get to late adulthood r the 60's and beyond, we continue to see physical changes in the brain.

Vygotsky

focused on children's "readiness" to learn new ways of thinking -Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) -Allows for sociocultural heterogeneity and individual potential -theory is more effective for explaining differences and cognitive development among children and between sociocultural groups. -Specifically, Vygotsky proposed concept of the zone of proximal development, or ZPD, which essentially states that children's thinking develops most effectively when they are challenged by a cognitive task that's just beyond their ability to solve alone. - But they have a more knowing other, someone who does know how to solve the task, guiding them, giving them feedback so they can make changes in their thinking and eventually be able to do this task on their own. In this way, Vygotsky's theory, depends on social interactions, and therefore, it explains sociocultural differences and individual differences in children's cognitive development. -examples to understand is the state of consciousness called drowsiness, which drives sleeping behaviors. In the context of cognitive development,

Piaget

focused on common age-group errors to understand how children's thinking changes predictably oveqr time and experiences -egocentric simply means that the child does not have the cognitive ability to understand that other people have their own separate thoughts and feelings, and that these thoughts and feelings can be different from the child's own. -egocentric child does not and cannot understand that their actions can hurt other people. Because of this egocentrism, the child may say and do things that appear selfish or mean, things like biting their sister or loudly asking the guy in the grocery store line why he's bald or standing right in front of the TV so no one else can see it. -They simply cannot take another person's perspective yet. It's a normal stage in cognitive development and we were all there at one time. Assumes children's thinking is more homogenous than it really is -Understates sociocultural influences

Positive Punishment (+)

the punishment of a response by the application of an unpleasant stimulus. Example: Getting a speeding ticket. Results: adds a "bad" consequence. DECREASES the response of speeding. - positive punishment is a consequence that ADDS something BAD that the subject did not have before they did the operant behavior Ex; you ignored the speed limit and sped through campus, and you GOT a speeding ticket. Your operant behavior was speeding, and your consequence was GETTING something - a ticket - and getting that consequence made you feel bad - a punishment.

Experience

form the context for learning -Experiences stimulate learning by causing neurons to create a new and dedicated pathway to represent each of those experiences in the brain, and then repetitions of the experiences eventually strengthen the new pathway enough that the experience becomes a permanent memory - and fundamentally, memory is just another word for learning. -Learning happens when An experience is repeated, and with repeated exposures to the same experience, infants gradually learn to differentiate sensations as favorable neural pathways are formed to represent the experience and practiced (repeated) to hold the experience in the brain long-term -objects have affordances - opportunities for interaction and learning -So the sensations that objects and experiences provide, we call these affordances. -An affordance is an opportunity for interaction that provides the potential for learning, and as you might imagine, different objects and experiences have different quality levels for that learning opportunity. Ex: red scarf - Visual affordance, touch affordance, - Accidental learning to make it move which drives cognitive development - Favorable because it makes him happy - infants benefit most when their toys - stimulate their sensory capacities, and when their toys are changed often to stimulate different - capacities - having different things to interact with gives them new information. And it doesn't have to be expensive stuff, the toys just need to give them affordances that stimulate the senses

Cognitive development

is based on modifying knowledge structures to adapt to one's needs -We describe preschooler's as egocentric because they're selfish. This one is False. Egocentric has specific scientific meanings in the context of cognitive development theories, and the meanings may be quite different from the way you may think of egocentric in everyday language. We describe preschoolers as "egocentric" because they are selfish. Cognition is mental activity and how the mind works.

Negative Punishment (-)

the punishment of a response by the removal of a pleasant stimulus. - Negative punishment is STILL punishment, so it is still a consequence that makes our subject feel bad, but THIS time it's because they LOSE (negative) something GOOD. Example: Losing your car for breaking curfew. Results: removing something good is a "bad" consequence. DECREASES the response of curfew breaking. - speeding across campus and as a consequence you had to PAY a fine? Your operant behavior is still speeding, but this time I have worded the consequence so that it represents a NEGATIVE punishment, because you had to PAY - or LOSE some money, and that's a bad thing.

Punishment can be effective when the punishing agent is:

only mildly aversive used sparingly and only with great care Punishment should immediately follow the behavior it is meant to punish. Punishment should be consistent. Punishment of the wrong behavior should be paired, whenever possible, with reinforcement of the right behavior. -There are a few things you can do to increase the effectiveness of punishment. First, Remember that our brains are programmed to learn by association, and we default toward seeing the first thing as cause and the second as effect, so be sure to pair the punishment with the bad operant behavior very close together in time. Especially for pets and little kids, they will NOT be able to associate the punishment with the behavior unless the punishment happens immediately after the behavior -. Second, always try to follow the punishment with an alternative CORRECT behavior to show them what they could have done instead, then help them perform that correct behavior, and finally immediately reinforce them for that new, correct behavior - with praise or some other kind of reward that will motivate them to repeat that correct behavior in the future. Ex; The very day my daughter learned how to spell her name, she was soooo pleased with herself that she decided to write her name EVERYWHERE - on the walls, the floors, everything she could reach in her room. When I went in to check on her, she happily showed me all her new artwork - so proud of herself! So I gathered up all her markers and crayons and put them in grocery bag and told her she could not play with them again for 1 hour (negative punishment). Then I explained that we do NOT write on the house, and now we have to clean it all up. So I made her "help" me scrub the marks off! Then we went to the kitchen table, I gave her back the crayons and some paper, and explained that THIS is the right place to write your name and create art. Afterwards, I put up her drawings all over the refrigerator and made of big deal of how beautiful they were! HOWEVERRR, months later when we moved out of that apartment, I discovered that my daughter had absolutely demonstrated some of the drawbacks of punishment. When we moved the couch out, the cushions flipped up, and lo and behold, what do you think I saw? My daughter's name written all over the couch underneath the cushions! So, although my training effort - using punishment of undesired behavior paired with reinforcement of correct behavior - DID indeed reduce the undesired behavior and increase the correct behavior, my daughter subject ALSO demonstrated a known side effect of punishment, namely, to HIDE the undesired behavior in order to escape punishment.

Variable-Ratio Schedule:

reinforcement occurs after a varying (unpredictable) number of responses are made. - reinforcement actually yields the deepest and longest lasting type of operant conditioning, and most students learning about this type find it completely counter-intuitive - Variable ratio means that reinforcement happens after and UNPREDICTABLE (variable) number of the desired BEHAVIORS (ratio) has been made - produces a high, steady rate of responding (the operant behavior) and it is the hardest to extinguish. So THIS is the type of reinforcement you should use when you want to train a particular and long-lasting behavior in your kids - or your pet, or your spouse, etc. Typical Outcome:Responding occurs at a high, steady rate, and is the hardest to extinguish. Example: your chances for jackpot (reinforcement) increase with more scratchoff purchases (response) Result: you buy a scratchoff every time you go to the gas station. -. A great example of this is gambling, and the strength of variable ratio operant conditioning explains a lot about why so many people love to gamble, even though they lose more than they win. In variable ratio reinforcement, the subject feels motivated to complete the desired behavior (let's say putting money in a slot machine) at fast and steady rates, because they "know" they could win (or be reinforced) at any time, but they don't know WHICH time. So, they don't get very disappointed and extinguish their behavior when they don't win each time - because they don't EXPECT to win each time, as they would expect in continuous reinforcement, or even in FIXED ratio schedule where they know they will be reinforced after an exact number of behaviors - and they don't take long breaks between "putting money in the machine" behaviors, as they would in the fixed INTERVAL schedule, because again, they expect that they WILL get the reinforcement, but they don't know WHEN - so they just keep putting money in (the conditioned behavior) as fast and as often as they can - even when they aren't winning! Every time they make the operant behavior, they do it because they are conditioned to believe that THIS time could be the WINNING time, and if it isn't, then NEXT time could be, and NEXT time, and so on.

Variable-Interval Schedule:

reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals -one that produces the slowest but steadiest kind of operant conditioning, and has the lowest cost to the person doing the training. In this schedule type, the reinforcements come at unpredictable (VARIABLE) times (INTERVAL). It doesn't matter how MANY of the desired behaviors the subject makes, and it doesn't matter how much time has passed. You would only use this type of operant conditioning reinforcement for a behavior that you want to train with the least amount of effort on your part as the trainer, and when the behavior is one you want to consistently happen, but you don't need it to happen often Typical Outcome:Produces a steady stream of slow responses; slowest but most steady rate of responding Example: checking facebook (response) to see if anyone tagged you (reinforcement) Result: tend to check your FB at regular times (once a day, every morning and every evening, etc.) - checking email or facebook. The developers need you to consistently use the service to keep them in business, but it doesn't matter much whether you use it at certain times or at certain frequencies - just as long as you use it.

Continuous reinforcement -

response is reinforced every time (coke machine) Rapid acquisition Rapid extinction - Continuous is very straightforward and means just what it sounds like - it means the reinforcement is applied after EVERY instance of the desired behavior - that is, the operant behavior you are trying to train in your subject. In this case, the subject gets a reward every time they make the behavior. - when you put money into a soda machine - the operant behavior - you expect to receive a soda - the reinforcement - and you expect to receive that reinforcement every single time - that makes it continuous. So this kind of reinforcement produces very fast learning, and once the learning is achieved, we call that "acquisition." However, whereas it's handy that continuous reinforcement produces rapid acquisition, so we start seeing the behavior we want very quickly, it also produces rapid extinction. -Extinction means the subject STOPS doing the behavior we had trained. So think back to our soda machine example. If you put your money in the soda machine and NOTHING COMES OUT - WHAT? -. You EXPECT your reward every time, because you learned to put money in the machine through continuous reinforcement - that is, getting your soda reward EVERY time you put money in the machine. So once the machine cheats you out of your cash just ONE time, you are very unlikely to put more money into that machine - in other words, when a subject learns an operant behavior through continuous reinforcement, the FIRST TIME the reinforcement is not received, the operant behavior starts to undergo extinction. Bottom line, continuous reinforcement produces fast learning, but also fast extinction. So if you use this type of reinforcement to train some behavior, you should be aware of the cost in maintaining the behavior, because you will have to ensure that the behavior is reinforced every single time. -ex; . For instance, paying your kids $5 for every A they get on their report card should quickly train them to make the behaviors that get them A's, but you will have to be prepared to pay them every time - and as soon as you stop paying them, their A behaviors will start dropping off pretty quickly. So what are some other schedules of reinforcement we can use that might make the behaviors we want STRONGER and last LONGER?

Positive reinforcement (+)

the reinforcement of a response by the addition or gain of a pleasant event. Example: Giving a raise for good performance. Results: adding a "good" consequence. INCREASES the response of good performance. -POSITIVE reinforcement simply means that you reward your subject's behavior by giving them something they want, that they did not have BEFORE they did the behavior Ex; Let's say you come to class - your VOLUNTARY, OPERANT behavior - and I want you to repeat that behavior in the future, so I give you a crisp new 100 dollar bill - your consequence. In this case, the hundred dollar bill is a POSITIVE reinforcement, because I gave you something good, that you didn't have before, to reinforce you to repeat the voluntary behavior of coming to class. -ex; Penny's operant behaviors - every time she does something that the man Sheldon LIKES - then Sheldon gives her a piece of chocolate candy - positive reinforcement. As a result, Penny LEARNS through operant conditioning to do MORE things Sheldon likes. Notice also that the subject, Penny here, does not have to be aware that she is being conditioned - nevertheless, it IS her voluntary behaviors that cause her to receive reinforcements that then motivate her to perform more of those same kinds of behaviors

Negative reinforcement (-)

the reinforcement of a response by the subtraction or elimination of an unpleasant event. Example: Taking aspirin for a headache.( Say, taking an aspirin (operant behavior) to remove a headache (the consequence). Getting rid of a headache is a good thing, therefore this is reinforcement - and since we got rid of the bad thing, that makes it negative reinforcement. Same principle for taking an antibiotic to remove an infection) Results: removing the headache is a "good" consequence. INCREASES the response of taking aspirin. -Negative reinforcement is STILL reinforcement! So it still involved your subject having a GOOD consequence for some operant behavior. But recall that NEGATIVE here means to subtract something, so in negative REINFORCEMENT, the subject does some behavior that causes the consequence of something BAD being REMOVED - which makes the consequence a good thing. My favorite example of this is taking a medication to REMOVE some symptom you don't like

Assimilation:

understanding a new experience in terms of an existing schema (no change to schema) - You can either assimilate the new information into an existing schema or you can accommodate your schema. First, remember that schemas exist to help you successfully navigate or explain or understand an experience. If your new experience can be successfully explained by your existing schema, you don't experience disequilibrium and you don't have to change your schema.