Learning
AP Psychology
Hollywood High School
Jonathan Lee
What is learning?
• Learning is a relatively permanent change in
behavior as a result of experience.
• For a change to be considered learning, it
cannot simply have resulted from maturation,
inborn response tendencies, or altered states
of consciousness.
Question!
• Did you have to learn how to yawn?
A: YOU DIDN’T NEED TO LEARN TO YAWN YOU
DO IT NATURALLY
Classical Conditioning
• Classical conditioning, the subject learns to
give a response it already knows to a new
stimulus.
• A stimulus is a change in the environment that
elicits (brings about) a response.
• A response is a reaction to a stimulus.
• When food – a stimulus – is placed in our
mouths, we automatically salivate – a
response.
S -> R
• In CC, two stimuli, the unconditioned stimulus
and neutral stimulus are paired together.
• A neutral stimulus (NS) initially doesn’t elicit a
response. The UNCONDITIONED STIMULUS
(UCS or US) reflexively, or automatically,
brings about the UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE
(UCR or UR)
Conditioned Stimulus and Reponse
• The CONDITIONED STIMULUS (CS) is a neutral
stimulus at FIRST, but when paired with the
UCS, it elicits the CONDITIONED REPONSE
(CR).
• During Pavlov’s training trials, a bell was rung
right before the meat was given to the dogs.
By repeatedly pairing the food and the bell,
acquisition of the conditioned response
Strength of Conditioning and Classical
Aversive Conditioning
• Different experimental procedures have tried to
determine the best presentation time for the NS
and the US, so that the NS becomes the CS.
• Delayed conditioning occurs when the NS is
presented just before the US, with a brief overlap
between the two.
• Trace conditioning occurs when the NS is
presented and then disappears before the US
appears.
Classical Conditioning Learning Curve
Continued types of conditioning in CC
• Simultaneous conditioning occurs when the US
and NS are paired together at the same time.
• In backward conditioning, the US comes before
the NS. A pregnant woman who vomits hours
after eating a burrito often will not eat a burrito
again, which is a case of rare backward
conditioning.
• Aversive conditioning: conditioning involving an
unpleasant or harmful US. (Lil Albert)
Spontaneous Recovery
• If baby Albert had stopped crying whenever
the rat appeared, but 2 months later saw
another rat and began to cry, he would have
been displaying spontaneous recovery.
Sometimes a CR needs to be extinguished
several times before the association is
completely broken.
Continued
• Generalization occurs when stimuli similar to
the CS also elicit the CR without any training.
(i.e. Albert seeing a white rabbit and crying
white rat ~ white rabbit) (occurs after
conditioning).
• Discrimination occurs when only the CS
produces the CR.
Higher-Order Conditioning
• Higher-order conditioning occurs when a welllearned CS is paired with an NS to produce a
CR to the NS.
Operant Conditioning
• In operant conditioning, an active subject
voluntarily emits behaviors and can learn new
behaviors. The connection is made between the
behavior and its consequence, whether pleasant
or not.
• Law of effect: rewarded behavior is likely to recur.
• Operant chamber: aka Skinner box. Soundproof
box with a bar or key that an animal presses or
pecks to release a reward of food or water, and a
device that records these responses.
Skinner Box
• Skinner used a lot of shaping in his
experiments, a procedure in which reinforcers,
such as food, gradually guide an anima’s
actions towards a desired behavior.
• Reinforcer: in operant conditioning, any event
that strengthens the behavior it follows
• Primary reinforcer: an innately reinforcing
stimulus, such as the one that satisifies a
biological need.
• Conditioned reinforcer: a stimulus that gains
its reinforcing power through its association
with a primary reinforcer; also known as
secondary reinforcer.
Whining Kid + Tying Shoes
• The kid’s whining is postively reinforced,
because he gets something desirable – his
dad’s attention.
• Dad’s response is negatively reinforced
because it gets rid of something aversive –
Billy’s whining.
Intermittent Reinforcement Schedules
Skinner
• Skinner believed all these reinforcement
principles of operant conditioning are
universal. It matters little what response, what
reinforcer, or what species you use. The effect
of a given reinforcement schedule is pretty
much the same: “pigeon, rat, monkey, which is
which? It doesn’t matter…Behavior shows
astonishingly similar properties.” (Myers,
2004)
How is punishment different from
reinforcement?
• The effect of punishment is opposite to that of
reinforcement. Reinforcement increases a
behavior; punishment decreases it.
Cognition and Operant Conditioning
• Latent learning – learning that occurs but is not
apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.
• Cognitive map
• Overjustification effect – the effect of promising a
reward for doing what one already likes to do. The
person may now see the reard, rather than intrinsic
interest, as the motivation for performing the task.
• Intrinsic/extrinsic motivation: a desire to perform a
behavior for its own sake and to be effective.
• A desire to perform a behavior due to promised
rewards or threats of punishment.
Biological Predispositions
• An animal’s natural predispositions constrain
its capacity for operant conditioning.
• “Never try to teach a pig to sing. It wastes
your time and annoys the pig.” (Mark Twain)
• Animals revert to their biological
predispositions.
What are some pros and cons against
operant conditioning and Skinner?
• Pros
• At school – teachers and computers can work in tandem
• At work – influences productivity, shares profits, and
participate in company ownership.
• At home – limits people spending behavior, effective
parental discipline, take ownership of your life.
• Cons
• Inhumane – humans are basically machine that respond to
stimulus.
• Behaviorism ignores cognitive learning theories.
Module 22 Learning by Observation
• Observational learning – learning by observing
others.
• Modeling – the process of observing and
imitating a specific behavior.
• Mirror neurons = frontal lobe neurons that fire
when performing certain actions or when
observing another doing so. The brain’s
mirroring of another’s action may enable
imitation, language, learning, and empathy.
Bandura’s Experiment = Bobo Doll
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmBqw
WlJg8U
• What determines whether we will imitate a
model?
• Prosocial behavior: positive, constructive,
helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial
behavior.
TELEVISION AND OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING
Some not so good examples of observational
learning come from research on media models
of aggression.
What was the theme of the Dr. Phil show
Correlation does not imply causation