Learning from Experience
What is learning?
a relatively permanent change in behavior, or potential to respond, that results from experience.Goal of many researchers in this area: to uncover ________________ that can be applied widely across species and situations.
I Learning about events: Noticing and Ignoring:
_________ response -- tendency to automatically shift attention towards a novel event
__________ -- decline in the tendency to respond to an event that has become familiar through repeated exposure.
___________ -- when responsiveness to an event increases with repeated exposure.
II
________________ ________________Many events that occur in our world signal the presence of other events. Classical conditioning allows an organism to anticipate and prepare for upcoming events.
A. ________________________________________
Pavlov presented dogs with meat and collected saliva. He noticed that the dogs that were accustomed to the procedure would start salivating before the meat was presented.
______ naturally elicits salivation
Pavlov rang a bell then presented meat, continued to pair bell with meat several times
present the bell alone, how does the dog respond?
B. _______________: is a type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus.
C. Terminology
_________________________ -- stimuli that automatically leads to observable responses
__________________________-- the response that follows naturally (without training) from the unconditioned stimuli
_______________________ a previously neutral stimulus that has acquired the capacity to evoke a conditioned response.
_________________________ is a learned reaction to a conditioned stimulus that occurs because of previous conditioning.
D. Necessary conditions
1) CS (e.g. bell) usually needs to be presented before the UCS (e.g. meat)
2) usually the UCS (meat) needs to follow the CS (bell) closely in time.
3) The CS (e.g. bell) needs to provide reliable, and non-redundant, information about the occurrence of the UCS (e.g. meat).
E. Processes of Classical Conditioning
__________: refers to the initial stage of learning something.
Extinction:
Stimulus _____________ -- When a new stimulus produces a response similar to the one produced by the conditioned stimulus.
Poor little Albert Study:
--white rat (conditioned stimuli) followed by loud noise (unconditioned stimuli)
--response to both rat (conditioned response) and to loud noise (unconditioned response) was crying.
Then?
F. Classical conditioning in everyday life
Phobias
Anxiety
Other Emotional responses
Fetishism
Advertising campaigns -- pair product with UCS's that elicit pleasurable emotions.
III __________________:learn one's own actions, rather than conditioned stimuli, produce outcomes and one can modify one's behaviors accordingly to achieve more desired outcomes.
A. Classical Conditioning versus Instrumental Conditioning :
B. Thorndike's law of effect Read in book
C. ___________________________ occurs when an event following a response increases an organisms tendency to make that response.
D. Basic Processes in instrumental conditioning:
__________: the reinforcement of closer and closer (successive) approximations of a desired response.
__________ -- the gradual weakening and disappearance of a response tendency because the response is no longer followed by a reinforcer.
E. Types of Reinforcers
Primary reinforcers -- inherently reinforcing because they satisfy biological needs.
Secondary or conditioned reinforcers:
_____________ Reinforcement -- when a response is strengthened through presentation of a rewarding stimulus
________________ Reinforcement -- when a response is strengthened through the removal of an unpleasant stimulus.
F. ______________: as a Consequence that weaken or decrease the likelihood of responding
____________ Punishment -- when a response is weakened through the presentation of an unpleasant stimulus.
_______________ Punishment -- when a response is weakened through the removal of a pleasant stimulus.
______________ of Punishment
1) May unintentionally be rewarding
2) General suppression of behavioral activity.
3) Can increase other undesirable behavior.
G. Applications:
--Token economies, common in institutions
--Behavior modification therapy --
IV Limitations of Conditioning (CC and IC)
Preparedness -- involves a species specific predispositions to be conditioned in a certain ways and not others.
Good example of this: Taste aversions
Violates basic principles of Classical Conditioning
V _____________ Learning
Bandura (1986) Much human behavior results from observing the experiences of others.
A. When are we most likely to learn through observing others?
significant role model
--modeling -- tendency to imitate the behavior of significant others.
vicarious reinforcement
vicarious punishment
B. The dark side of _________ ___________
Observing Aggression on TV
Imitation of significant others maladaptive behavior
Propagation of Stereotypes
Learning any particular behavior often results from a combination of all three types of learning.