Psychology Show To survive, animals must adapt to their environments. Learning: any process through which experience at one time can alter an
individual’s behavior at a future time. Classical conditioning Classical conditioning is a learning processes that creates new reflexes. A stimulus results in a response. To be considered a reflex, the response to a stimulus must be mediated by the nervous system. Because reflexes are mediated by the nervous system, they can be modified by experience. Classical conditioning is a form of reflex learning that does produce a new stimulus-response sequence. Fundamentals of classical conditioning The procedure and generality of classical conditioning The stimulus (the bell sound by Pavlov) is a conditioned
stimulus. The original stimulus (natural, before doing anything) is an unconditioned stimulus with an unconditioned response. The procedure is called classical conditioning or Pavlovian conditioning Pavlov concluded that, any environmental event that the animal could detect could become a conditioned stimulus of salivation. Of course classical conditioning is not limited to salivary responses. Extinction of conditioned responses and recovery from extinction Pavlov found that, without food, the bell elicited less and less salvation on each trial, and eventually none at all. This phenomenon is called extinction. The conditioned response is not lost during extinction, but is somehow inhibited. Generalization and discrimination in classical conditioning After conditioning, animals show the conditioned response not just to the original conditioned stimulus, but also to the new stimuli that resembled that stimulus. The magnitude of the response to the new stimulus and the original depends on the degree of similarity between the new stimulus and the original conditioned stimulus. Generalization between two stimuli can be abolished if the response to one is
reinforced while the response to the other is extinguished. Generalization as an index of subjective similarity (With humans) Relevance of Pavlov’s work to the emergence of behaviorism Behaviorism: What is learned in classical conditioning? Behaviorism → a new stimulus-response But there is a different theory Evidence that stimulus-stimulus associations are learned
Classical conditioning interpreted as learned expectancy The stimulus-stimulus theory is more cognitive than the stimulus-response theory. Conditioned response is often different from the unconditioned response. Conditioning depends on the predictive value of the conditioned stimulus Conditioning occurs only when the new stimulus provides information that truly helps the animal
predict the arrival of the unconditioned stimulus.
Conditioned fear, linking, hunger and sexual arousal Liking Evaluative conditioning: changes in the strength of linking or disliking of a stimulus as a result of being paired with another positive or negative stimulus. Conditioned hunger In cases where a conditioned stimulus always precedes a specific kind of food, the conditioned hunger that occurs may be specific for that food. Conditioned sexual arousal Sexual arousal can be conditioned in nonhuman and human subjects. Conditioned drug reactions Bodily reactions
associated with natural emotions and drives can be conditioned. Conditioned compensatory reaction to drugs Many drugs have two effects:
It is often found that only the compensatory reaction becomes conditioned. The body protects itself with counteractive reflexes to all sorts of interventions (like shoves and drugs) that disrupt its normal functioning. Conditioned reactions as causes of drug tolerance Drug tolerance: the decline in physiological and behavioral effects that occur with some drugs when they are taken repeatedly. Many cases of overdoses which in heroin are addicts who took their
usual drug doses in an unusual environment. Conditioned reactions as causes of drug relapse after withdrawal Another drug phenomenon that is at least partly explained by conditioned compensatory reactions is that of relapse by addicts who have undergone periods of drug withdrawal. An addict’s best hope for overcoming a long-term addiction may be to move permanently, if possible, to an entirely new environment. Operant responses, they operate on the world to produce some effect. The
process by which people or other animals learn to make operant responses is called operant conditioning (or instrumental conditioning). Effects that favorable the animal; increase the rate From the law of effect to operant conditioning: From Thorndike to Skinner A trial-and-error process through which an individual gradually becomes more likely to make responses that produce beneficial effects. Thorndike’s law of effect Learning by altering the consequence of some aspect of the animal’s behavior. Law of effect: responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation become more likely to occur again in that situation. Responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to occur again in that situation. The animals have some control over their environment. Skinner’s method of studying and describing operant conditioning Skinner box Operant response: any behavioral act that has some effect on the environment Reinforcer: a stimulus change that follows a response and increases the subsequent frequency of that response. Operant conditioning without awareness Principles of reinforcement Shaping of new operant responses In operant
conditioning, the reinforcer comes after the subject produces the desired response. Extinction of operantly conditioned responses An operantly conditioned response declines in
rate end eventually disappears if it no longer results in a reinforcer. Schedules of partial reinforcement Partial reinforcement Continuous reinforcement In training, continuous reinforcement is most efficient, but once trained, an animal will continue to perform for partial reinforcement. Four basic types for partial-reinforcement schedules:
Different schedules produce different response rates in ways that make sense if we assume that the individual is striving to maximize the number of reinforces and minimize that number of unreinforced responses. Behavior that has been reinforced on a variable- schedule is often very difficult to extinguish. They have learned to be persistent. Distinction between positive and negative reinforcement Two types of reinforcement and punishment: (Positive and negative not in the moral way) The same stimulus can serve positive and negative. It can be
added and removed. Discrimination training in operant conditioning Discrimination training in operant conditioning is analogous to discrimination conditioning training in classical conditioning. Discriminative stimulus Discrimination and generalization as indices of concept of concept understanding Generalization occurs in operant conditioning. Concept: a rule for categorizing stimuli into groups. Sophisticated analysis of the stimulus information occurs before the stimulus is used to guide behavior. When rewards backfire: the over-justification effect in humans Rewards tied to specific performance or completion of a task are negatively associated with creativity.
Play, how the young learn how Play is behavior that serves no obvious immediately useful purpose. Groos’s theory; play is practice of species-typical skills The primamy purpose of play is to provide a means for young animals to practice their instincts. Evidence for Groos’s theory Five categories of evidence:
Applying the theory to humans We humans have at least as many species-typical behaviors as other mammals have, but ours are less rigid, more modifiable by experience, enabling us to adapt to a wider range of environmental niches than is true for other
mammals. Play has been seen as a preparation for adulthood. But play also provides some immediate benefits for the players. Exploration: how animals learn what and where Exploration is information learning The nature of mammalian exploration Exploration is often mixed with a degree of fear. This is in balance with curiosity. Evidence that animals acquire useful information through exploration Rewards affect what animals do more than what they learn. Animals that explore the most are the same animals that learn the most in a wide variety of test of learning. Social learning: learning by watching and interacting with others Social learning: a situation in which one individual comes to behave similarly to
others Vicarious reinforcement: the ability to learn from the consequences of others’ actions. Learning how by watching skilled performers Animals can learn or partially learn how to perform a new task by watching others do it. Stimulus enhancement: an increase in the salience or attractiveness of the object that the observed individual is acting upon. Emulation: observing another individual achieve some goal, then reaching that same goal by their own means. It is more focused on the goal, and less on the means used to achieve it. Mirror neurons: organized systems of neurons that seem to be well designed to make imitation easy and natural. Cultural transmission in chimpanzees Culture: the beliefs and traditions that are
passed along from generation to generation. Gaze following as an aid in learning from others When we are attending to another person our eyes move automatically in the same direction that his or her eyes move, so we look at the same object. No other animal follows the gaze of another to the extent humans do. Each species-typical learning ability helps to mesh some aspects of the animal’s species-typical behavior with particular variable characteristics of the animal’s environment. Special abilities for learning what to eat Omnivorous creatures must learn what is safe to eat. Food-aversion learning: how it differs from typical classical conditioning Learning of food-aversion is different from classical conditioning.
There is a continuum of preparedness, such that animals are prepared by natural selection to make some associations and unprepared, or even contra-prepared of others. Prepared behaviors: learned behaviors that are vital to an organisms survival Food-preference learning Animals learn to prefer food that is high in calories. Learning from others what to eat. Rats learn what to eat from another. Humans are influenced by our observations of what those around us eat. Summary of rules for learning what to eat
Other examples of special learning abilities Prepared fear-related learning Humans are biological predisposed to acquire fears of situations and objects that posed thread to our evolutionary ancestors, and are less disposed to acquire fears of other situations and objects. Imprinting in precocial birds: learning to identify one’s mother Precocial birds: species in which the young can walk almost as soon as they hatch. Natural selection has worked out that the brain, sensory organs, and experience are coordinated to produce a valuable adaptive behavior. Specialized place-learning abilities Many animals have specialized abilities for learning and remembering specific locations that have biological significance to them. What type of learning do organisms learn the association between two stimuli?In classical conditioning, also known as Pavlovian conditioning, organisms learn to associate events—or stimuli—that repeatedly happen together.
What involves a learned association between two stimuli?Essentially, classical conditioning is a process of: learning an association between two stimuli. In psychology, the term conditioning refers to: the process of learning associations between environmental events and behavioral responses.
What is the process of learning associations called?conditioning The process of learning associations between environmental events and behavioral responses. learning A process that produces a relatively enduring change in behavior or knowledge as a result of past experience.
What are the two forms of associative learning?Both classical and operant conditioning are forms of associative learning where associations are made between events that occur together.
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