Learning
{
I’m Forcing You to Do It!
How do we define
“learning”?

Learning: some experience that results in a
relatively permanent change in the state of the
learner
How about…

Habituation: general process in which repeated
or prolonged exposure to a stimulus results in a
gradual reduction in responding

May remind you of a term from the sensation
lesson…
Back to Basics

Behaviorism: school of psychological thought


Argues that psychologists should “never use the
terms consciousness, mental states, mind,
content, introspectively verifiable, imagery, and
the like” (J.B. Watson).
Why?
Behaviorism!

Occurs when a neutral stimulus evokes a
responses after being paired with a stimulus
that naturally evokes a response
Classical Conditioning

Unconditioned stimulus: something that
reliably produces a naturally occurring
response reaction in an organism

Unconditioned response: reflexive reaction that
is reliably elicited by an unconditioned
stimulus
Pavlov’s Dog Experiments

Conditioned Stimulus: a stimulus that is
initially neutral and produces no response in
an organism

Conditioned Response: a reaction that
resembles an unconditioned response but is
produced by a conditioned stimulus
Pavlov Continued
Research Apparatus

What does the experiment tell us about
learning?

What does the experiment tell us about the way
humans behave?
Why was Pavlov’s
experiment so
groundbreaking?

An organism experiences events or stimuli that
are observable and measurable, and changes in
that organism can be directly observed and
measured

No need to resort to explanation about why it
had happened, what the dog wanted, or how
the animal thought about the situation

No need to consider the mind
Why is Classical
Conditioning Attractive?

Second-Order Conditioning: conditioning
where the US is a stimulus that acquired its
ability to produce learning from an earlier
procedure in which it was used as a CS

Can you think of ways this might apply to your
life?
Learning on top of
learning?

CS can be more than a simple bell or tone; also
includes the overall CONTEXT within which
the conditioning takes place

Drug tolerance: an organ’s defensive response
against a drug
Drug Overdoses

Generalization: CR is observed even though the
CS is slightly different from the original one
used during acquisition

Octave pitches act as CS
Generalization

Alcoholism: addiction to alcohol

An alcoholic goes out to a restaurant where
alcohol is not served. There is no bar in the
restaurant and no bottles of liquor anywhere to
be seen. But the alcoholic suddenly feels the
overwhelming urge to drink. Why?
Alcoholics & Bars

Discrimination: capacity to distinguish between
similar but distinct stimuli

Splat the dog!
Discrimination
Little Albert Experiments

What do they tell us about learning?

What do they tell us about human beings?

What do they tell us about psychology?
Why Are the Baby Albert
Experiments Considered
Significant?

Watson: “Give me a dozen healthy infants,
well-formed, and my own specified world to
bring them up in and I’ll guarantee to take any
one of them at random and train him to
become any type of specialist I might select—
doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes,
even beggar-man and theif, regardless of his
talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities,
vocation, and race of his ancestors.”
???? vs. ????

Food aversions cut acquisition time between CS
and UR

Food aversions can occur even when an animal
is unconscious

Less likely to occur in familiar foods
Evolutionary Elements to
Classical Conditioning

The natural (innate) ability to learn particular
kinds of associations over others

Phobias: examples of biological preparedness?
Fear of heights? Fear of snakes?
Biological Preparedness

A type of learning in which the consequences
of an organism’s behavior determine whether it
will be repeated in the future

Exploration of behaviors that are ACTIVE
rather than passive
Operant Conditioning

Thorndike’s Cat in a Box experiment

Over time, ineffective behaviors become less
and less frequent and effective behaviors
become more common

Law of Effect: behaviors that are followed by a
“satisfying state of affairs” tend to be repeated
and those that produce an “unpleasant state of
affairs” are less likely to be repeated
Cats!

Operant Behavior: behavior that an organism
produces that has some impact on the
environment
B.F. Skinner
Take a look!
Skinner Box

In Skinner-ese:

Punisher: any stimulus or event that functions to
decrease the likelihood of the behavior that led
to it

Reinforcer: any stimulus or event that functions
to increase the likelihood of the behavior that led
to it
Punishers and Reinforcers
Increases
Likelihood of
Behavior
Decreases the
Likelihood of
Behavior
Stimulus is
presented
Positive
reinforecement
Positive
punishment
Stimulus is
removed
Negative
reinforcement
Negative
punishment
*Reinforcement is generally more effective than punishment in
promoting learning
*Punishment signals that a behavior is ineffective but provides
no alternative
Positives and Negatives

Extrinsic reinforcement: rewards that come
from external sources

Overjustification effect: when external rewards
undermine intrinsic satisfaction of performing
a behavior
Reinforcement =
Punishment?

In Operant Conditioning rewards are given out
only when the correct behavior is undertaken—
and sometimes not even then!

Schedule of reinforcement—when rewards are
presented relative to correct behavior—
drastically effect on behavior
Classical vs. Operant
Conditioning

Fixed Interval Schedule: reinforcement
presented every two minutes as long as correct
behavior is undertaken

Bursts of correct behavior just before interval is
up

Procrastination?
Fixed Interval Schedule

Responses are reward on average every two
minutes but not after each two minute interval

Produces steady, consistent responding because
the time until the next reinforcement is more
variable
Variable Interval Schedule

Reinforcement is delivered after a specific
number of responses have been made

Eat five pizzas and get the sixth one free!
Fixed Ratio Schedule

Delivery of reinforcement is based on a particular
average number of responses

Slot machines

Intermittent-Reinforcement Effect: the fact that
operant behaviors that are maintained under
intermittent reinforcement schedules resist
extinction better than those maintained under
continuous reinforcement

Skinner got a pigeon to peck 10,000 before it got a
food pellet!
Variable Ratio Schedule
Reward Schedule and
Superstition

Edward Chace Tolman designed experiments
to show that rats seemed to have BELIEFS
about the rewards they would receive

Latent Learning: something is learned but it is
not manifested as a behavioral change until
sometime in the future

Cognitive Map: a mental representation of the
physical features of the environment
But What About the Mind

Observational Learning: learning takes place by
watching the actions of others

Challenges behaviorism’s reinforcement-based
explanations of classical and operant
conditioning
That Looks Bad…