Psychology 202 Chapter 6

Little Albert

11-month old boy initially unafraid of a live white rat but paired together with a loud noise, he was afraid. His fear became generalized to other things that looked similar to the rat, such as a cat, a beard, and a Santa hat.

Classical conditioning and romance

A 53-year old woman was reminded of her first love, Charlie, by the smell of Beeman's gum and cigarette smoke. Classical conditioning affects not only overt behaviors but physiological processes as well. CS - Beemans gum and cigarettes, US - Charlie, CR + UR - Romantic passion

Operant conditioning

A form of learning in which voluntary responses come to be controlled by their consequences.

Conditioned response (CR)

A learned reaction to a conditioned stimulus that occurs because of previous conditioning. -Ex: Salivation

Conditioned stimulus (CS)

A previously neutral stimulus that has, through conditioning, acquired the capacity to evoke a conditioned response. -Ex: Tone

Secondary or conditioned reinforcers

Events that acquire reinforcing qualities by being associated with primary reinforcers. Ex: money, good grades, attention..

Primary reinforcers

Events that are inherently reinforcing because they satisfy biological needs.

Intermittent reinforcement

Occurs when a designated response is reinforced only some of the time. -Makes a response more resistant to extinction than continuous reinforcement does.

Positive reinforcement

Occurs when a response is strengthened because it is followed by the presentation of a rewarding stimulus. -Good grades, paychecks, etc. Ex: Rat receives food when it presses the lever (reward).

Negative reinforcement

Occurs when a response is strengthened because it is followed by the removal of an aversive (unpleasant) stimulus. -A response leads to the removal of an aversive stimulus rather than the arrival of a pleasant stimulus. Ex: A shock is built into the Skinner box where rats are tested but when rats press the lever, it leads to the removal of the shock.

Reinforcement

Occurs when an event following a response increases an organism's tendency to make that response. -A response is strengthened because it leads to rewarding consequences.

Punishment

Occurs when an event following a response weakens the tendency to make that response. Ex: Presentation of an aversive stimulus. -Involves the presentation of an aversive stimulus, thereby weakening a response.

Resistance to extinction

Occurs when an organism continues to make a response after delivery of the reinforcer for it has been terminated. -The greater the resistance to extinction, the longer the responding will continue.

Stimulus discrimination

Occurs when an organism that has learned a response to a specific stimuli does not respond in the same way to new stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus. -The less similar new stimuli are to the original CS, the greater the likelihood (and ease) of discrimination.

Stimulus generalization

Occurs when an organism that learned a response to a specific stimulus responds in the same way to new stimuli that are similar to the original stimulus. -Ex: Student fearful of bridges generalized her fear to ALL bridges. The more similar new stimuli are to the original CS, the greater the likelihood of generalization.

Observational learning

Occurs when an organism's responding is influenced by the observation of others, who are called models.

Continuous reinforcement

Occurs when every instance of a designated response is reinforced.

Conditioned taste aversion

Study found that when taste cues were followed by nausea, rats quickly acquired conditioned taste aversions. However, when taste cues were followed by other types of noxious stimuli (such as shock), rats did not develop conditioned taste aversions.

Bandura, Ross, and Ross

Showed how the observation of filmed models can influence the learning of aggressive behavior in children. For one group of children, they used a video where an adult was beating up a "Bobo doll" and for the other group, they used a neutral video. The children were then lead into a room with a variety of toys. The first group of children immediately went over to the Bobo doll in the room and proceeded to beat it up while the second group did nothing.

Reinforcement contingencies

The circumstances or rules that determine whether responses lead to the presentation of reinforcers. -Experimenter manipulates whether positive consequences occur when the animal makes the designated response.

Extinction

The gradual weakening and disappearance of a conditioned response tendency. -Can occur with the consistent presentation of the conditioned stimulus alone, without the unconditioned stimulus. Ex: Presenting the tone alone to a dog.

Higher-order conditioning

When a conditioned stimulus functions as if it were an unconditioned stimulus. -Shows that classical conditioning does not depend on the presence of a natural US; an already established CS will do just fine.

Pavlov

A prominent Russian physiologist who studied dogs that were restrained in harnesses in an experimental chamber and collected their saliva by means of a surgically implanted tube in the salivary gland. -Noticed that dogs accustomed to the procedure would start salivating before the meat powder was presented. -Also used an auditory stimulus by the presentation of a tone.

Skinner box

A small enclosure in which an animal can make a specific response that is systematically recorded while the consequences of the response are controlled. -In box designed for rats, main response is pressing a lever mounted on one side wall.

Schedule of reinforcement

A specific pattern of presentation of reinforcers over time.

Unconditioned stimulus (US)

A stimulus that evokes an unconditioned response without previous conditioning. -Ex: Meat powder

Classical conditioning of a fear response

A student troubled by a bridge phobia so severe she couldn't cross interstate highways. Pinpointed her fear during her childhood whenever her dad would joke about bridges posing a particular danger. CS - Bridge, US - Father's scare tactics, CR + UR - Fear

Classical conditioning

A type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus. -Originally called Pavlovian conditioning.

Escape learning

An organism acquires a response that decreases or ends some aversive stimulation. Ex: Animal learns to escape the shock by running to the safe end of the box.

Avoidance learning

An organism acquires a response that prevents some aversive stimulation from occurring. Ex: If you were to quit going to parties because of your concern about being picked on by peers.

Unconditioned response (UR)

An unlearned reaction to an unconditioned stimulus that occurs without previous conditioning, often weaker or less intense. -Ex: Salivation

Forward conditioning

CS providing information about what's going to happen next.

Discrimination vs. generalization

Cat gets excited whenever it hears the sound of a can opener because they associate that with food (discrimination) vs. cat also responding to the sound of a blender because it sounds similar to a can opener (generalization).

Trial

Consists of any presentation of a stimulus or pair of stimuli in classical conditioning.

Cumulative recorder

Creates a graphic record of responding and reinforcement in a Skinner box as a function of time. -Horizontal axis used to mark the passage of time and vertical axis used to plot the accumulation of responses. -A rapid response rate produces a steep slope, whereas a slow response rate produces a shallow slope.

Discriminative stimuli

Cues that influence operant behavior by indicating the probable consequences (reinforcement or nonreinforcement) of a response. -Ex: Children learn to ask for sweets when their parents are in a good mood.

Skinner

Demonstrated that organisms tend to repeat those response that are followed by favorable consequences.

Tolman

Designed a study in which three groups of food-deprived rats learned to run a complicated maze over a series of once-a-day trials. Rats in Group A received a reward when they got to the end of the maze each day. Rats in Group B did not receive any food reward and therefore had no reinforcement to do better. Rats in Group C did not get any reward after the first ten trials but they were rewarded from the 11th trial onward.

Renewal effect

If a response is extinguished in a different environment than it was acquired, the extinguished response will reappear if the animal is returned to the original environment where acquisition took place. -Extinction does not appear to lead to unlearning.

Conditioning

Involves learning associations between events that occur in an organism's environment.

Preparedness

Involves species-specific predispositions to be conditioned in certain ways and not others. -Why certain phobias are most common, once threatened our actual survival.

Traditional "black box" view

Learning doesn't involve higher mental processing, thought that learning depended on the outcome or the stimuli that elicited the behavior and that learning and human behavior was not dependent on mental processes, thinking or expectations or processing the situation had nothing to do with it.

Latent learning

Learning that is not apparent from behavior when it first occurs. -Suggested that learning can take place without the presence of reinforcement and that rats who displayed latent learning (Group C) had formed a cognitive map of the maze.

Acquisition

Refers to the initial stage of learning a new response tendency. -Pavlov theorized that the acquisition of a conditioned response depends on stimulus contiguity, if they occur together in time and space.

Spontaneous recovery

The reappearance of an extinguished response after a period of nonexposure to the conditioned stimulus. Ex: reintroducing a stimulus when it has been taken away for a "rest interval."

Shaping

The reinforcement of closer and closer approximations of a desired response. -Shaping is necessary when it does not, on its own, emit the desired response. For example, an experimenter would release food pellets whenever the rat got closer to the lever.

Fixed-ratio (FR) schedule

The reinforcer is given after a fixed number of nonreinforced responses. Ex: A rat is reinforced for every tenth lever press. A salesperson receives a bonus for every fourth set of golf clubs sold. -Ratio schedules tend to produce more rapid responding than interval schedules.

Variable ratio-(VR) schedule

The reinforcer is given after a variable number of nonreinforced responses. Ex: A rat is reinforced for every tenth lever. The exact number of responses required for reinforcement varies from one time to the next. -Variable schedules tend to generate steadier response rates and greater resistance to extinction than their fixed counterparts.

Variable-interval (VI) schedule

The reinforcer is given for the first response after a variable time interval has elapsed. The interval length varies around a predetermined average. Ex: A rat is reinforced for the first lever press after a 1-minute interval has elapsed, but the following intervals are 3 minutes, 2 minutes, 4 minutes, and so on.

Fixed-interval (FI) schedule

The reinforcer is given for the first response that occurs after a fixed time interval has elapsed. Ex: A rat is reinforced for the first lever press after a 2-minute interval has elapsed and then must wait 2 minutes before receiving the next reinforcement.