Schacter
Gilbert
PSYCHOLOGY
Wegner
Chapter 6
Learning
Slides prepared by
Randall E. Osborne, Texas State University-San Marcos
Schacter
Gilbert
PSYCHOLOGY
Wegner
6.1
Defining Learning: Experience
That Causes a Permanent
Change
6.1 Defining Learning
-
Learning – Experience that causes a
permanent change
-
Habituation
• gradual reduction in responding
3
6.1 Learning and Behaviorism
Behaviorism: 1930s – 1950s
- Observable, quantifiable behavior
-
-
Mental activity is irrelevant and unknowable
4
Schacter
Gilbert
PSYCHOLOGY
Wegner
6.2
Classical Conditioning: One
Thing Leads to Another
6.2 Classical Conditioning
-
Classical
conditioning
• Unconditioned
stimulus (US)
• Unconditioned
response (UR)
• Conditioned
stimulus (CS)
• Conditioned
response (CR)
6
6.2 Classical Conditioning
-
Basic principles of
classical conditioning
• Aquisition
• Extinction
• Spontaneous recovery
• Generalization
• Discrimination
7
6.2 Conditioned Emotional
Responses
-
John Watson
“even complex behaviors are the result of
conditioning”
9-month-old “Little Albert”
Stimuli—white rat; dog; rabbit; burning
newspaper
• Showed curiosity
• Then shown stimulus (rat) and loud noise when he
reached to touch it—result was fear
• Soon sight of rat caused fear
8
6.2 Conditioned Emotional
Responses
-
Watson’s goals:
• Complex reactions can be conditioned using Pavlovian
techniques
• Emotional responses (such as fear) are learned and not
result of unconscious processes
“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 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 thief, regardless of his talents,
penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his
ancestors.”
9
6.2 Classical Conditioning
-
Neural elements
• Amygdala—central nucleus
-
Cognitive elements
• expectation
-
Evolutionary elements
• survival (such as food aversions)
• adaptiveness
• biological preparedness
10
6.2 Rescorla-Wagner Model of
Classical Conditioning
11
Schacter
Gilbert
PSYCHOLOGY
Wegner
6.3
Operant Conditioning:
Reinforcements from the
Environment
6.3 Operant Conditioning
-
-
E. L. Thorndike (18741949)
Instrumental behaviors
Puzzle box
Law of effect
Watson originally
rejects need for reward
13
6.3 Operant Conditioning
-
-
B. F. Skinner
Operant conditioning
Operant chamber
Reinforcer
• Positive
• Negative
-
Punishment
• Positive
• Negative
14
6.3 Operant Conditioning
Primary reinforcement
- Secondary reinforcement
-
Primary punishment
- Secondary punishment
-
15
6.3 Operant Conditioning
Which reinforcers are more effective?
- Premack principle
-
• “no TV until the homework is done”
-
Relatively reinforcing
• Water to reinforce a thirsty rat for exercising
• Nonthirsty rat drinking in order to exercise
-
Overjustification effect
16
6.3 Operant Conditioning
Discrimination
- Generalization
-
Importance of context
- Extinction
-
17
6.3 Operant Conditioning
-
Schedules of
reinforcement
• fixed-interval (set
time)
• variable-interval
(avg. time)
• fixed ratio (set
number)
• variable ratio
(avg. number)
18
6.3 Operant Conditioning
-
Ratio schedules
• high rates of responding because number of
rewards received is directly related to the
number of responses made
-
Intermittent-reinforcement effect
• resist extinction
19
6.3 Shaping
20
6.3 Operant Conditioning
-
Superstitious behavior
• reinforcement of
accidental behavior
• “this stench causes
home runs!”
21
6.3 Operant Conditioning—Neural
Elements
-
Pleasure centers
• nucleus accumbens
• medial forebrain
• hypothalamus
• involve dopamine
22
6.3 Operant Conditioning—
Cognitive Elements
-
Edward Tolman
(1886-1959)
Means-ends
relationships
Latent learning
Cognitive map
23
6.3 Operant Conditioning—
Evolutionary Elements
Rats trained to let in T-maze to get food
- Next day turned right (contrary to
conditioning)
- Why?
-
• rats are foragers
• adaptive foraging strategy is to NOT search for
food the same place twice
24
Schacter
Gilbert
PSYCHOLOGY
Wegner
6.4
Observational Learning: Look at
Me
6.4 Observational Learning
-
-
Learning without
direct
experience
Bandura’s bobo
dolls
Adult models
26
6.4 Observational Learning
-
Social learning
Cultural norms
Viewing media
violence
Mirror neurons
27
Schacter
Gilbert
PSYCHOLOGY
Wegner
6.5
Implicit Learning: Under the
Wires
6.5 Implicit Learning
-
Implicit learning
Ways to study
implicit learning
• artificial grammar
• can learn “rules”
even without being
taught rules
29
6.5 Implicit Learning
-
Characteristics of implicit learning
• smaller individual differences than explicit
• unrelated to IQ
• changes little across lifespan
• resistant to disorders that impair explicit
strongly suggests that explicit and implicit learning
use different neural pathways
30
6.5 Implicit Learning—More on
Characteristics
-
Resistant to disorders
that impair explicit
• strongly suggests that
explicit and implicit
learning use different
neural pathways
31