Learning
If you can’t observe it,
You can’t study it
The schools of behaviorism
Behaviorism
Classic
Methodological
Watson
Neobehaviorism
Hull
Cognitive
Tolman
Social
Bandura
Radical
Skinner
The schools of behaviorism
Behaviorism
Classic
Methodological
Watson
Neobehaviorism
Hull
Cognitive
Tolman
Social
Bandura
Radical
Skinner
History of Behaviorism
Thorndike (1900’s - 1932) an
American psychologist whose theory of
connectionism (forming associations between
stimuli and responses) was dominant in the US
during the first half of the 20th century.
•Thorndike focused much of his attention on
education, especially learning and transfer. He
thought transfer happened only when the situations
have identical elements and call for similar
responses.
History of Behaviorism
Thorndike
The instinctive and intelligent behavior of
chickens
Studies under James at Harvard
Goes to Columbia
Puzzle boxes for cats
Not reasoning nor insight
Trial and error
Single response, no problem
Two response, but problem
History of Behaviorism
Thorndike
Law of Effect
Annoyers
Satisfier
Stamp-in=reinforce
The effect of any action thus determines whether it becomes the
response to a given stimulus or not.
History of Behaviorism
Thorndike
Law of Exercise
A response will be more strongly connect to a
stimulus in proportion to the number of times it
has been connected with that situation and to
the average vigor and duration of the connection
History of Behaviorism
Thorndike
Animals are not people!
To T:
The number, delicacy and complexity of cell
structures in human brain make for a
corresponding number, delicacy and complexity
of associations.
Enter the dog
Classical Conditioning:
The Elements of
Associative Learning
Ivan Pavlov
Typical
Conditioning
Trial:
‫ריור‬
Test Trial:
‫ריור‬
Classical Conditioning:
Definitions
Unconditioned(al) Stimulus (US):
a stimulus that has the ability to produce
a specified response before conditioning
begins.
Unconditioned(al) Response (UR):
the response produced by the US.
(SALIVATION PRODUCED BY THE FOOD)
Classical Conditioning:
Definitions
Conditioned(al) Stimulus (CS):
an initially neutral stimulus that comes to
produce a new response because it is
associated with the US.
Conditioned Response (CR):
the response produced by the CS.
(SALIVATION PRODUCED BY THE BELL)
‫‪Acquisition -‬‬
‫‪Extinction -‬‬
‫‪X‬‬
‫החלמה ספונטנית‪ ,‬מדוע נעלמת התגובה?‬
Generalization -
Discrimination -
X
‫התניה רגילה כאבחנה על רקע הקונטקסט‬
The schools of behaviorism
Behaviorism
Classic
Methodological
Watson
Neobehaviorism
Hull
Cognitive
Tolman
Social
Bandura
Radical
Skinner
Philosophical Foundations of
Learning Theory
Empiricism says that all knowledge comes from
experience. Beginning with Aristotle, empiricist philosophers
have proposed theories to explain how experience gets
translated into knowledge.
The basic process proposed was association. An
association is a connection between ideas. If two ideas
(representations) are associated, when you think of one you
will automatically think of the other.
For example:
?
?
?
Philosophical Foundations of
Learning Theory
Why chair? Probably because we see tables and chairs
together so often.
This statement points to two key principles philosophers
used to explain the formation of associations:
Temporal Contiguity
Two events that are experienced at the same
time will tend to be associated.
Frequency
The more often we experience events that
are contiguous, the more strongly we will
associate them.
Watson
• John B. Watson (1916, 1926), an American
psychologist is credited as the founder of
behaviorism.
– Watson strove to make the new field of
psychology more scientific.
– He believed that all behavior, even that which
appeared instinctive, is the result of conditioning
that occurs in response to a stimulus.
– Like E.L. Thorndike, Watson was popular in the
first half of the 20th century
“Give me a dozen healthy infants,
well-formed, and my own special
world to bring them up in and I’ll
guarantee to take any one at
random and train him to be any
type of specialist I might select – a
doctor, a lawyer, artist…”
-Watson 1924
Who was he
• Fear of the dark
• Father was a drunk and abandonded the
family
• The original fight club
• Talked his way into Furman college
• University of chicago to study Philosophy
• First to build a rat maz
Running record ex.
• 12 min., 12 min., 3 min., 8
min., 2 min., 3 min., then
.33 min, .33 min, .16 min.,
.08 min, .108 min. A
fundamental discovery:
Learning is not an even
process: Rather, slow
haphazard improvements
followed by a sudden
solution.
From rats to people
• 1) studied how young he could get rats to solve the
mazes,
• 2) turned to neurology. Killed rats aged from 1 to
30 days and examined the state of their brains at
each age. Wanted to link their psychological
abilities with the physiological development of
their cortex.
Ph. D
• "If you could
understand rats
without the
convolutions of
introspection, could
you not understand
people the same way?"
Youngest professor
•
(a) Previous study had been of vision. Hooded birds.
•
(b) In 1906 Watson began to operate on a group of six-month-old-old rats who had previousl¥ learned
the maze.
•
Made one group blind by removing eyeballs.
•
One group deaf by removing middle ear.
•
Took out olfactor bulb of one group to be sure they
•
could not smell.
•
Snipped the whiskers off two rats. No effect.
Therefore
• WATSON HYPOTHESIZED THAT RATS WERE
LEARNING BY
• KINESTHETIC SENSE. HE & HARVEY CARR
--IDENTICAL MAZE, HALF AS LARGE, rats
that had learned the maze kept running into walls.
• "I never want to see another rat go round the
maze.”
Pavlov’s influence
• Won Nobel in 1905
• Translated in 1915
• to condition humans with a bell (CS) a small electric shock
to the foot, (US) and a toe-flexing response. The bell and
shock occurred simultaneously. The reflex was not fully
reliable but some were conditioned. A subject trained in
may and retested in October required only one reminding
shock for the reflex to reappear. They carried out a number
of experiments, and Watson believed that emotions as well
as saliva flows and toe movements could be conditioned
Baby love
• First to observe children in their natural
setting
• Believe mental illness was conditioned
response
• Wanted to become a social engineer
• "are really consolidations of instinct and habit."
Getting radical
• -- Society can employ psychology to retrain those
of its members who did not conform to civilised
standards. The criminal, the laz¥, the drifters, and
even the mentally ill could be turned into useful
members of society. It would not be left up to
them to choose that. And those few criminals
whose nervous systems were so askew that they
could not be conditioned into decent members of
society ought to be "etherized."
Ten gallons of rye and college
students?
• The first study of the affects of alcohol on
performance
Puzzle box
So what did he do?
• Psychology as the
behaviorists views it
• President of the APA
• Editor of the psych
bulliten
• And the most famous
experiment of them all
Contiguity
• - (Behaviorism)- One explanation for
learning in behaviorism; an association is
built between two events simply because
they occured simultaneously or overlapping
in time.For example, if food is presented
while some auditory signal is given, a dog
will "learn" to salivate when it hears the
auditory signal, even if no food is present.
Little Albert
• three basic
emotional
reactions: fear,
rage, and love.
• Prove he could
condition responses
The Psychological Care of the Infant and Child
• Children should be awakened at 6:30 A.M. for
orange juice and a pee. Play 'till 7:30. Breakfast
should be at 7:30 sharp; at 8:00 they should be
placed on the toilet for twenty minutes or less 'til
bowel movement is complete. Then follow up
with a verbal report. The child would then play
indoors 'till 10P00 A.M., after 10:00 outside, a
short nap after lunch, then "social play" with
others. In the evening a bath, quiet play until
bedtime at 8:00 sharp.=1928
• He argued that institutions like the Boy Scouts and
the YMCA could lead to homosexuality. Girls
were even in more danger because they held
hands, kissed, and slept in the same bed at pajama
parties. "Our whole social fabric is woven so as to
make all women slightly homosexual.”
• Mothering is a sexual act
• Kids should be removed 4 weeks after
Methodological Behaviorism –
•
•
•
•
All psychologists
can observe is behavior so that is all they should study.
Law of Parsimony – simpler explanations are preferred
“mental” events cannot be measured and so should not be studied
Deterministic Stimulus-Response (S-R)
• 6
• Watson’s Methodological
• Behaviorism
•
•
•
Extreme nurturist position
Believed everything of importance was
learnt – not innate
Scandal
• "I did not know anything
about industry, and above
all
• that I did not know the
habits and dwelling places
of that peculiar and widely
distributed animal we call
the "consumer."
Theoretically, I had been
studying this animal all
my days; practically, I did
not know how to get at
him."
Love letter
• I have been an awful sinner, I know.... Promise me your
heart and body will still be mine.... Every cell I have is
yours, individually and collectively. I can't be any more
yours than if a surgical operation made us one.... [I wish
we could go] to the North Pole where the days and nights
are six months long, [He implied that this would allow
record-breaking kissing.] Everything will be lovely and we
ought to play safe. Still, play we will.... My total reactiions
are positive toward you. So, likewise, each and every heart
reaction."
Coffee Break
• “good to the last drop”
Lucky stripe
• “Lucky Strike Means Fine
Tobacco.”
• "Since the time of the serpent in
the garden of Eden influenced
Eve and Eve in turn persuaded
Adam, the world has tried to
find out ways and means of
controlling human behavior. In
advertising, we call the process
selling."
"dispense with rational copy almost entirely."
From door to door to this
• "…tell him something
that will tie him up
with fear, something
that will stir up a mild
rage, that will call out
an affectionate or love
response, or strike at a
deep psychological or
habit need."
• Girls! Don't worry
anymore
• about smoke-stained teeth
• or tobaco tainted breath.
• You can smoke and still be
lovely
• if you'll just use Pebeco
twice a day.
Men want
• 1) she must be
healthy;
• 2) she must be
young;
• 3) she must be
receptive;
• 4) and she must be
impregnable
Women want
• So much more
complicated….
• Genes….
•
•
sex for what it can mean in the
future.
romance.
Personnel testing
• Unfortunately, there are many vocations in
life in which no form of testing is
applicable. Who would attempt today to
pick out by any form of general intelligence
or special performance tests a good business
executive—a good newspaper man—the
proper material to make an advertising
man—a good department store
buyer…(Watson, 1927, p. 9).
"If You're a Failure, Change Your Personality"
• If I can get this idea across to you of
studying yourself, inventorying yourself as
you would a business, writing a description
of yourself, shortly you would get into a
position to turn loose on the . . . fellow you
do business with . . . it is getting yourself in
a position where you can predict the other
fellow's behavior that puts you in command
in a selling situation (Watson, 1934, p. 3).
Behavior therapy
•
a. Thirty cases of simply removing children from the feared object (like Rabbit) and
having no such objects present for two weeks. No effect. It was not enough to do
nothing. Fears did not disappear by themselves.
•
b. Talking a child out of its fears. Another rabit case: They read her Beatrix Potter
stories; they explained that rabits were nice creatures; got her to make Plasticine
rabbites; they managed to get her to say that she liked rabbits and was not frightened of
them. But next time she saw rabbit, she jumped up, screamed, and stopped playing. So
much for words and positive thinking.
•
c. Social pressure: Boy called "fraidy cat" when showed self afraid of frongs.
•
Deconditioning: Only worked on children who were already afraid.
Behavior therapy
•
Peter: Dog and other animal fears. "Direct-un-conditioning."
•
"We secured permission to give him his mid-afternoon snack. Crackers and milk. Lunch
served in room 40 feet long. Just as he began to eat, rabbit displayed in a wire mesh
cage. We displayed it far enough away not to disturb eating.
•
Gradually rabbit brought closer and closer. Eventually, rabbit could be paced on table by
Peter and finally Peter would eat with one hand and play with the rabbit with the other.
•
Watson noted that they did not know circumstances in which Peter's fears first arose. If
they had, might have been able to spot "primary fear" and how this had been
"transferred" to other objects. Thought this knowledge would be centrally important.
•
When his son Billy developed a phobia of goldfish, Watson successfully treated it in
similar fashion. Unsuccessful with nail-biting.
And his kids
•
Billy became a respected, successful psychiatrist in New York. Became
Freudian and turned against his father's behaviorism. His first suicide attempt
was stopped by younger brother Jimmy. Second attempt, in mid-30s, was
successful.
•
d. Watson & Mary's son Little John was "a rather rootless person who often
sponged on his father." Plagued throughout life with stomach trouble and
intolerable headaches. Died in his early 50s of bleeding ulcers.
•
e. Jimmy also had chronic stomach problems for years, but after intensive
analysis is alive and doing well.
•
f. John & Mary's daughter Polly attempted suicide over and over and over and
over.
Even the grandkids
• "We couldn't talk about feelings, we couldn't talk
about affection, we couldn't talk about touching,
but we could talk about sex.
• Lesbian for crossing the street
The schools of behaviorism
Behaviorism
Classic
Methodological
Watson
Neobehaviorism
Hull
Cognitive
Tolman
Social
Bandura
Radical
Skinner
Hull’s Neobehaviorism
• Clark Hull (1884 – 1952)
• Other sciences use intervening
variables
• (gravity, gene) – why not
psychology?
• But intervening variables must
be
• operationalized – defined so
their effects can
• be measured.
Drive Reduction Theory
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Major influences : Pavlov, Darwin, Thorndike and Tolman.
theory attempts to synthesis of the theories of these researchers plus Newtonian physics.
interested in hypnosis, and wrote a book entitled Hypnosis and Suggestibility in 1933.
During the 1940's and 1950's Hull's work was much-cited in the psychological literature.
And the theory:
he notion that behavior occurs in reponse to "drives" such as hunger, thirst, sexual
interest, feeling cold, etc.
When the goal of the drive is attained (food, water, mating, warmth)
the drive is reduced, and
this constitutes reinforcement of the behaviors that lead to the drive reduction,
and ultimately learning.
Drive Reduction Theory
bonding of the drive with the goal of the drive
was a type of reinforcement
Drive Reduction Theory
Hunger
Food= survival
Hull’s Neobehaviorism
•
•
•
•
Still did not allow introspection and mental
terms
But permitted physiological intervening
variables
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Outside world
Interior world
Outside world
Environmental
events
Conscious thoughts & feelings
Unconscious drives
Observable
behavior
Hull’s Neobehaviorism
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Still an S – R theory
Still mechanistic approach
Rather like modern computer-inspired
cognitive psychology
Very influential in 40s and 50s
Very dry mathematical approach become
unwieldy and went out of fashion
The schools of behaviorism
Behaviorism
Classic
Methodological
Watson
Neobehaviorism
Hull
Cognitive
Tolman
Social
Bandura
Radical
Skinner