Chapter 8 - LearningReading Map

• Wed, Dec 14 309 – 312

• Thur, Dec 15 312 – 322

• Fri, Dec 16 322 – 334

• Mon, Dec 19 335 - 341

• Tues, Dec 20 in class essay – 1997 #1

• Wed, Dec 21 Quiz/Cards/SG

• Thur, Dec 22 review period

True and False Quiz (TG 8-1)

• 1. Lowly animals, like sea snails, behave by instinct and are incapable of learning.

• 2. Humans are the only animals that can learn behaviors merely by observing others perform them.

• 3. The study of inner thoughts, feelings and motives has always occupied a central place in psychology.

• 4. A person can be more readily conditioned to fear snakes and spiders than to fear flowers.

• 5. With training, pigeons can be taught to discriminate a Bach composition from a Stravinsky composition.

True and False Quiz (TG 8-1)

• 6. Negative reinforcement is another term for punishment.

• 7. Psychologists agree that punishment, regardless of its form, has little effect on behavior.

• 8. Animals learn only when rewards are given.• 9. Animals can learn to make virtually any response if

consistently rewarded for it.• 10. Research indicates that televised violence leads to

aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the programs.

3 Types of Learning

This chapter discusses:

• 1. Classical Conditioning

• 2. Operant Conditioning

• 3. Observational Learning

Learning (309)

• Def - a relatively permanent change in an organism’s behavior due to experience.

• What has been learned can be changed by new learning ---- leads to counseling, coaching, teaching

Adaptability (309)

• Is the capacity to learn new behaviors to cope with new circumstances.

Associative Learning (309)

• Locke, Aristotle and Hume all say that we learn by association.

• Associative learning is the linking of 2 events that occur close together.

• The Jerk http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tcwz8-EfFYE

• Simple animals can learn simple associations

Conditioning (309)

• Is the process of learning associations

• In classical condition we learn to associate two stimuli and thus anticipate events

• In operant conditioning we associate a response and its consequence.

Classical Conditioning (312)Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

• First studied digestion

• By mistake he noticed that his dog was salivating in response to meat, but also in response to the person giving it the meat

• Pavlov experiment clip ( 3 min) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CpoLxEN54ho

UCS/UCR and the CS/CR (312)

• Meat automatically causes dog to salivate

• Bells do not!• But, if a bell is rung

just before the dog is given meat, eventually the dog will salivate to the bell ALONE

UCS/UCR and the CS/CR (312)

• Conditioned = learned

• Unconditioned = unlearned/automatic

• UCS (meat) --- UCR (salivation)

• CS (bell) -- UCS (meat) ---UCR (salivation)

• Eventually CS (bell) --- CR (salivation)

Classical Conditioning (314)Acquisition Stage

• Acquisition has occurred when the learner associates the CS (bell) with the UCS (meat). Put another way, it is when the CS (bell) alone will cause the CR (salivation).

Acquisition (314)

• It is best if there is very little time between the CS (bell) and the UCS (meat)

• The UCS (meat) must follow the CS (bell) - CC is biologically adaptive - the animal learns the needed behavior to survive. The snap of the twig (CS) has to precede the predator (UCS)

Classical Conditioning (316)Extinction

• Extinction is when the CS (bell) no longer causes the CR (salivation). This happens after a length of time where the CS is presented without the UCS (meat).

Classical Conditioning (316)Spontaneous Recovery

• AFTER extinction happens, spontaneous recovery is when, after a ret period, the CR(salivation) once again occurs in response to the CS (bell) alone.

• The CS magically reappears.

Classical Conditioning (316)Generalization

• This is when the dog will salivate to the bell and also to similar stimuli - other bells, a buzzer, etc.

Classical Conditioning (316)Discrimination

• This is when the dog will be able to tell the difference between similar stimuli but will only respond (salivate) to ONE BELL

• Discrimination has an adaptive and survival function. Ex. Police dogs will only eat food from their master.

Find the UCS/UCR and CS/CR

• Martin likes to take a shower in the men’s locker room after working out. During one shower, he hears someone flushing a nearby toilet. Suddenly boiling-hot water rushes out of the shower head, causing Martin to jump away from the water as he is burned. The next day during his shower Martin hears a toilet flush and immediately jumps out from under the shower head.

Find the UCS and the CS

• Watch this clip from the office and find the UCS and the CS.

• (1 minute) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfZfMIHwSkU

Updating Pavlov’s Understanding (317)

• Pavlov and Watson both underestimated– the importance of cognition and – how biological constraints effect an organism’s

capacity to learn

Example of cognition - spiking alcohol with a nausea drug doesn’t work to condition people not to drink because they THINK and blame their nausea on the drug not the alcohol

Cognitive Processes and Classical Conditioning (317)

• In classical conditioning, predictability of the UCS is important. Animals will be more easily conditioned if the UCS is predictable.

• Expectancy - conditioning is best with the CS and UCS have a relationship where one would expect a connection

Biological Predispositions (317)

• Kimble - 1951 - says ANY stimulus that an animal can perceive works for classical conditioning

• Kimble - 1981 - Whoops!!! - now says the animal’s capacity for conditioning is constrained by its biology. Animals are disposed to learn associations that help them SURVIVE

John Garcia and Taste Aversion• Garcia discovered that with

nausea, the UCS (the need to be sick) does not need to immediately follow the CS (the food you ate). It makes sense that there can be a delay because there IS a delay between eating tainted food and getting sick.

• Also, animals can condition better to sound, sight or taste, depending on how they normally find their food.

Pavlov’s Legacy (319)

• Learned that cc is one way that almost all organisms learn to adapt to their environment

• Showed us that learning can be studied objectively (there were no subjective guesses about what was in the dog’s mind)

• Pavlov advanced the scientific-ness of psychology

Pavlov - Watson (312)

• Pavlov was Watson’s foundation for the idea that psychology should disregard inner thoughts, feelings and emotions and should focus on observable behavior (Behaviorism)

• Remember that Watson did the Little Albert experiment

Pavlov and Watson (319)

• Watson took Pavlov’s classical conditioning and tested it on a human subject - Little Albert. The UCS was the loud noise and the CS was the rat in the Little Albert experiment. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xt0ucxOrPQE

• Watson claimed that he could train anyone to become anything ----

Operant Conditioning (322)

• The organism associates its behaviors with consequences

• Behaviors that are reinforced are repeated

• Studied by behaviorists like B.F. Skinner

Classical Conditioning v Operant Conditioning

• Remember that classical conditioning deals with RESPONSIVE BEHAVIORS (automatic behaviors like salivating)

• Operant Conditioning deals with VOLUNTARY BEHAVIORS (purposeful behaviors like the dog sitting up)

Classical v Operant

Classical Operant

Learner forms associations between 2 stimuli that it doesn’t control

Learner associates its behavior with consequences

Respondent behavior (automatic behaviors)

Operant behavior (voluntary/thought-out behavior)

B. F. Skinner (323)

• 1904 - 1990• Behaviorist• Expanded upon

Edward Thorndike’s “law of effect” --- rewarded behavior is likely to reoccur

• Known for the Skinner box

Shaping Behavior (324)

• Start with the animal’s natural behavior

• Uses successive approximations - reward responses that get closer to the desired behavior

• As animal gets closer to the goal reward the newest behavior but no longer reward the older behavior that has now been improved upon

Shaping Behavior (324)

• The fact that shaping works also shows us that animals can perceive the difference between different stimuli

• Humans can unknowingly shape behavior - the wining kid

Reinforcement (325)

• A reinforcer is anything that strengthens a response/behavior that it follows. Kid whines - give it candy. Candy is the reinforcer that strengthens the whining behavior.

Positive and Negative Reinforcers (325)

• Reinforced behaviors get strengthened and are repeated.

• Positive reinforcement is when a good thing that is added to the person

• Negative reinforcement is when a bad thing is taken away from the person

• Both are reinforcers and strengthen the behavior that precedes

Primary and Conditioned Reinforcers (325)

• Primary - inborn reinforcing stimuli - ex. Giving food or taking away electric shock

• Conditioned - are learned - they become associated with primary reinforcers - ex. money

Immediate and Delayed Reinforcers (325)

• Animals need to have the reinforcer occur immediately after the behavior - sit - treat

• Humans can learn if the reinforcement is immediate or delayed. Work - get paid in 2 weeks

• Delayed gratification - (Mischel 1989) - 4 year olds who chose a big candy tomorrow over a smaller candy today mature to be more socially competent and high achieving.

• Nicotine???????? Good Health ?????????

Continuous v Partial Reinforcement (326)

• Continuous reinforcement happens every time after the behavior happens. Dog gets a treat every time he sits.– Learning is fast but so is extinction

• Partial or Intermittent reinforcement happens once in a while– Learning is slower but so is extinction.

Reinforcement Schedules (326)

Fixed Ratio Variable Ratio Fixed Interval Variable Interval

R after a set # of responses

R after a variable # of responses

R after a fixed time period

R after varying time periods

Ex. Piecework

Will pause briefly after R but then go back to responding

Ex.Gambling and fishing

Highly effective

Low extinction

Produces a choppy stop-start pattern rather than a steady rate of response

Produces slow, steady responses

Punishment (328)

• Is anything that decreases the behavior it follows

• Can be negative punishment (take away something good - candy) or positive punishment (giving something bad - slap)

Problems with Punishment (328)

• Punished behavior is suppressed but not forgotten BUT the suppression negatively reinforces the parent’s behavior of slapping you!

• Children might just learn to discriminate - swear at school but not at home where you get punished

• Punishment causes child to fear the punisher• If punishment is unpredictable and inescapable, it

leads to the concept of learned helplessness

Reinforcement/Punishmenttype + or - Something

good or badBehavior continues or stops

Positive reinforcement

+ Good

candy

continues

Negative reinforcement

- Bad

dishes

continues

Positive punishment + Bad

dishes

stops

Negative punishment

- Good

candy

stops

Operant Conditioning

Acquisition Strengthening of reinforced response (dog sits)

Extinction You stop reinforcing the sit and the dog stops sitting.

Spontaneous Recovery After extinction and without reintroducing the reinforcement, the dog sits again.

Generalization Dog will sit for a cookie, a cake OR dog will sit at anyone’s command

Discrimination Dog will only sit for a cookie OR dog will only sit at one person’s command

Operant Conditioning

• Check out this clip from Big Bang http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euINCrDbbD4&feature=related

Updating Skinner (329)

• Skinner acknowledged private processes, cognition and biological underpinning of behavior, but he discounted their importance. Listen carefully to this 4 min clip of Skinner http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_ctJqjlrHA

• However, if cognition isn’t important, how do we explain that in fixed-interval reinforcement, the animal seems to “expect” the reinforcement as it gets closer to the time it normally happens????

Latent Learning (329)

• Is learning that becomes apparent only when thee is some incentive to demonstrate it

• Is learning that occurs without reinforcement/punishment

• Ex. Rats living in a maze later do as well with a reward offered as rats trained in that maze with reinforcements.

• The rats seem to develop a cognitive map of the maze even when they just live in the maze and are not trained through it with reinforcements

Cognitive Map (330)

• Cognitive map is generally defined as a mental representation of the layout of one’s environment.

• It applies to people in neighborhoods and rats in mazes!

Overjustification (330)

• People that argue that cognition is part of operant conditioning use the idea of overjustification to support their argument.

• Overjustification happens when we reward already pleasurable activities. The person may then start to focus on the reward rather than on the intrinsic pleasure of the activity. He might also start thinking less of the activity - if you have to reward me to do it, it must be a crappy activity!

Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation (330)

• Intrinsic - desire to perform behavior for its own sake

• Extrinsic - desire to perform behavior to get the outside reward or to avoid the outside punishment

• A good reward should boost your own feelings of competence after doing good work. (it shouldn’t just be given out when the job is done). This type of reward fosters a sense of intrinsic motivation.

Biological Predisposition (331)

• Our natural predispositions constrain or help our capacity for operant conditioning

• We best learn behavior tat is naturally adaptive

• It’s easy to train a pigeon to peck but hard to train it to flap its wing

Skinner’s Legacy (332)

• He said that external influences shape our behavior and urge the use of these external rewards. He believed that we are driven by reward/punishment so we might as well admit it and make the best use of this principle

• Critics say Skinner dehumanized people by ignoring their personal freedom and cognition

Applications of Operant Conditioning (332)

• Teaching machines???

• Sports???

• Work place???

• Visa cards???

Learning by Observation (336)

• Observational Learning need not occur through experience. We learn by observing and imitating.

• Modeling - observing and imitating a specific behavior

Learning by Observation (336)

• Memes- ideas, fashions, habit transmitted culturally

• Mirror Neurons - frontal lobe neurons that fire when observing other’s actions or when we perform the action ourselves.

Bandura’s Experiments (337)

• Bandura was the pioneer of observational learning• In his bobo doll experiment his hypothesis was

that children would mimic violent action modeled by an adult model http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHdovKHDNU

• BUT - he learned that the children also devised their own version of violence to use on the doll!!!

Models (337)

• We are more likely to imitate models we perceive as – similar to ourselves,

– admirable

– successful

Application of Observational Learning (337)

• Antisocial models have antisocial effects• After Columbine all states except Vermont had

threats or incidents of school violence• Abusive behavior is learned• Prosocial models have prosocial effect• Models are most effective when their actions and

word are consistent• Children tend to imitate hypocrites by doing what

the hypocrite does and saying what the hypocrite says!

TV and Observational Learning (338)

• Correlation studies link violence-viewing to violent behavior

• The more time spent watching tv, the more violence performed

• ????? Do violent people just like violent tv?

• ????? Do neglectful parents just allow violent tv?

Violent Models

• Have more effect when they are– Attractive

– The violence seems justified

– The violence goes unpunished

– The violence causes no visible pain or harm

Desensitization

• After prolonged exposure to violence we become less bothered by the violence and less sympathetic to the victim of the violence

True and False Quiz (TG 8-1)

• 1. Lowly animals, like sea snails, behave by instinct and are incapable of learning.

• 2. Humans are the only animals that can learn behaviors merely by observing others perform them.

• 3. The study of inner thoughts, feelings and motives has always occupied a central place in psychology.

• 4. A person can be more readily conditioned to fear snakes and spiders tan to fear flowers.

• 5. With training, pigeons can be taught to discriminate a Bach composition from a Stravinsky composition.

True and False Quiz (TG 8-1)

• 6. Negative reinforcement is another term for punishment.

• 7. Psychologists agree that punishment, regardless of its form, has little effect on behavior.

• 8. Animals learn only when rewards are given.

• 9. Animals can learn to make virtually any response if consistently rewarded for it.

• 10. Research indicates that televised violence leads to aggressive behavior by children and teenagers who watch the programs.

AP Psych T Shirt Ideas

• Every year the AP Psych students design a class t shirt.

• Ideas for this year???????