Introduction to Psychology
Class 11: Learning 1
Myers: 224-255
July 5, 2006
Types of Learning
A relatively permanent change—owing to
experience—in the behavior of an organism
Observational learning is learning from others’
experience and examples
- Imitation
parents, peers, media
Associative learning is the learning that certain
events occur together
- Two stimuli
thunder – lightning
mom – food
- Behavior and consequence naughty  punished
fire  burned
Overview
CONCEPT
 Two stimuli
 Every response
TERMINOLOGY
PIONEERS
 Pavlov
 Classical
Watson
conditioning

Operant

Thorndike
has a consequence
conditioning
Skinner
 Watch and learn  Observational
 Bandura
learning
Observational Learning
 Learning by observation and imitation
 Also called modeling
 Children
 Adults
 Copycat incidents
- Similar, successful, desirable
Play behavior, gender roles, cuss words, smoking, TV
- Jargon, fashion, ideas, TV
Research
 Animal research
- When unforgiving rhesus macaques growing up with
forgiving stumptails
- Gorillas learn how to eat with both hands
- Rats, crows, pigeons
 Mirror neurons of the frontal lobe
- Imitation
- Language learning
- Empathy (TOM)
More research
 Anti-social behavior
- Bobo doll experiments (1961)
- Copycat killings/suicide
- Violence on TV
 Pro-social behavior
- Good Samaritans of the Holocaust
Little Albert (1920)
Classical Conditioning
A learning process whereby a
previously neutral stimulus becomes
associated with a particular
physiological or emotional response
by being paired with another stimulus
that does produce that physiological or
emotional response
UCS, UCR, CS, and CR
UCS, the unconditioned stimulus and
UCR, the unconditioned response
Stimulus-response pair that occurs
naturally
Food (UCS)  Salivation (UCR)
CS, the conditioned stimulus and
CR, the conditioned response
A stimulus-response pair that was originally
disconnected
They become associated because of repeated
pairing of the CS with the UCS
UCS (food)  UCR (salivation)
CS (bell) + UCS (food)  UCR (salivation)
CS (bell)  CR (salivation)
1. Breakfast tacos (UCS)
2.
3.
Coffee (CS)
+
Breakfast tacos (UCS)
Coffee (CS)
 Salivation (UCR)
 Salivation (UCR)
 Salivation (CR)
Stages
 Acquisition
 Extinction
 Spontaneous
recovery
 Generalization
 Discrimination
Tomorrow
 Applications of CC
 Operant Conditioning
 Applications of OC