Psychology: learning

Latent Learning 

Introduction to Latent learning and cognitive maps

 

Tolman - Latent Learning 

Information on Latent learning from Simply Psychology website

 

What Is Operant Conditioning and How Does It Work? 

How Reinforcement and Punishment Modify Behavior

 

NIH Public Access Author Manuscript 

Information on operant conditioning and other psychology topic article from the National Institute of Health

 

Pavlov's Dog 

A game demonstrating Pavlov's theory of conditioning

Learning

A relatively permanent change in behavior that arises from practice and experience

Behaviorist believe that learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior that results from experience

cognitive theorist believe learning is the process by which organisms make relative permanent changes in the way they represent the environment because of experience

Classical Conditioning

A simple form of learning in which a neutral stimulus comes to evoke the response usually evoked by another stimulus by being paired repeatedly with the other stimulus

 

Ivan Pavlov:

Found Classical Conditioning by accident when studying digestive processes in dogs. He made this discovery when he observed that dogs would salivate to sounds in his laboratory that had become associated with food, such as the sound of metal food carts being wheeled into his laboratory or when his assistance entered the room. His initial experiments he used a bell to train dogs to salivate. 

Reflex: a simple unlearned response to stimulus

Stimulus: an environmental condition that elicits a response

 

Principles of Classical Conditioning:

Classical conditioning is learning by association

unconditioned response (UCR): An unlearned response to a stimulus.

unconditioned stimulus (UCS): A stimulus that elicits an unlearned response.

neutral stimulus (NS): A stimulus that before conditioning does not produce a particular response.

conditioned response (CR): An acquired or learned response to a conditioned stimulus.

conditioned stimulus (CS): A previously neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a conditioned response after it has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus. 

orienting reflex: an unlearned response which an organism attends to a stimulus

extinction: The gradual weakening and eventual disappearance of a conditioned response.

spontaneous recovery: The spontaneous return of a conditioned response following extinction.

reconditioning: The process of relearning a conditioned response following extinction.

stimulus generalization: The tendency for stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response.

stimulus discrimination: The tendency to differentiate among stimuli so that stimuli that are related to the original conditioned stimulus, but not identical to it, fail to elicit a conditioned response.

The strength of a classically conditioned response depends on the frequency of pairings and the timing of the stimuli, as well as the intensity of the unconditioned stimulus.

 

Psychologist Robert Rescorla view:

classical conditioning involves a cognitive process by which organisms learn to anticipate events based on cues, called conditioned stimuli, that come to reliably predict the occurrence of these events.

 

Conditioning of Fear:

John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner selected an 11-month-old boy known as Little Albert.  Albert had previously shown no fear of a white rat that was placed near him. In the experimental procedure, the rat was placed close to Albert, and as he reached for it, the experimenters banged a steel bar with a hammer just behind his head, creating a loud gong. Watson believed that loud sounds naturally make infants cringe and shudder with fear. Albert began to show signs of fear when the bar was struck—crying and burying his face in the mattress. Watson and Rayner then repeatedly paired the rat and the loud sound, which resulted in Albert developing a fear response to the sight of the rat alone.

 

conditioned emotional reaction (CER): An emotional response to a particular stimulus acquired through classical conditioning.

Phobias: Excessive fears of particular objects or situations

Biological preparedness: readiness to acquire a certain kind of CR due to the biological makeup of the organism

 

Behavior therapy:

A form of therapy that involves the systematic application of the principles of learning.
 

Counterconditioning: a functional analytic principle that is part of behavior analysis, and involves the conditioning of an unwanted behavior or response to a stimulus into a wanted behavior or response by the association of positive actions with the stimulus.

Flooding: A technique in behavior therapy in which the individual is exposed directly to a maximum-intensity anxiety-producing situation or stimulus, either described or real, without any attempt made to lessen or avoid anxiety or fear during the exposure.

systematic desensitization: A type of behavioral therapy based on the principle of classical conditioning. This therapy aims to remove the fear response of a phobia, and substitute a relaxation response to the conditional stimulus gradually using counter conditioning.

conditioned taste aversion:  An aversion to a particular food or beverage acquired through classical conditioning.

Operant Conditioning

The process of learning in which the consequences of a response determine the probability that the response will be repeated.

 

Edward Thorndike and the Law of Effect:

The principle that responses that have satisfying effects are more likely to recur, whereas those that have unpleasant effects are less likely to recur. 

Cats placed in Thorndike’s puzzle box learned to make their escape through a random process of trial and error.

 

B. F. Skinner and Operant Conditioning:

Radical behaviorism: The philosophical position that free will is an illusion or myth and that human and animal behavior is completely determined by environmental and genetic influences.

Skinner box: An experimental apparatus developed by B. F. Skinner for studying relationships between reinforcement and behavior.

operant response: A response that operates on the environment to produce certain consequences.

reinforcer: A stimulus or event that increases the probability that the response it follows will be repeated.

superstitious behavior: In Skinner’s  view, behavior acquired through coincidental association of a response and a reinforcement.

 

Reinforcers:

positive reinforcement: The strengthening of a response through the introduction of a stimulus after the response occurs.

negative reinforcement: The strengthening of a response through the removal of a stimulus after the response occurs.

primary reinforcers: Reinforcers, such as food or sexual stimulation, that are naturally rewarding because they satisfy basic biological needs or drives.

secondary reinforcers: Learned reinforcers, such as money, that develop their reinforcing properties because of their association with primary reinforcers. 

discriminative stimulus: A cue that signals that reinforcement is available if the subject makes a particular response.

shaping: A process of learning that involves the reinforcement of increasingly closer approximations of the desired response.

escape learning: The learning of behaviors that allow an organism to escape from an aversive stimulus.

avoidance learning: The learning of behaviors that allow an organism to avoid an aversive stimulus.

punishment: The introduction of an aversive stimulus or the removal of a reinforcing stimulus after a response occurs, which leads to the weakening or suppression of the response.
 

schedules of reinforcement:

Predetermined plans for timing the delivery of reinforcement.

schedule of continuous reinforcement: A system of dispensing a reinforcement each time a response is produced.

schedule of partial reinforcement: A system of reinforcement in which only a portion of responses is reinforced.

Fixed-interval: a schedule in which a fixed amount of time must elapse between the previous and subsequent times that reinforcement is available

Variable-interval: a schedule in which a variable amount of time must elapse between the previous and subsequent times that reinforcement is available

Fixed-ratio: a schedule in which reinforcement is provided after a fixed number of correct responses.

Variable-ratio: a schedule in which reinforcement is provided after a variable number of correct responses

Cognitive Learning

Learning that occurs without the opportunity of first performing the learned response or being reinforced for it.

latent learning: Learning that occurs without apparent reinforcement and that is not displayed until reinforcement is provided.

• Edward Tolman and C. H. Honzik trained rats to run a maze. Some rats were rewarded with food; others went unrewarded for their efforts. Each day for 10 days, the rats were put in the maze and the experimenters counted the number of wrong turns they made. The rewarded rats quickly learned the maze, but the unrewarded rats did not. The experimenters noticed something that didn’t fit classical notions of conditioning. On the 11th day, food was placed in the goal boxes of some of the previously unrewarded rats.  The very next day, these rats ran the maze with even fewer errors than the rats that had been rewarded during the previous 10 days.

Cognitive maps: a mental representation of the layout of one's environment

•  Discovered by Edward Tolman

 

Contingency theory: the view that learning occurs when stimuli provide information about the likelihood of the occurrence of other stimuli

 

insight learning: The process of mentally working through a problem until the sudden realization of a solution occurs.

• In an early experiment with a chimp named Sultan, German psychologist Wolfgang Köhler, placed a bunch of bananas outside the chimp's cage beyond its reach. The chimp was hungry but couldn't reach the bananas, it needed to use something around him to reach them. After several tries, the chimp succeeded in using a stick to pull in the bananas. Köhler then moved the bananas farther away from Sultan, beyond the reach of the stick. Köhler gave Sultan two sticks this time. The chimp looked at the two sticks and tried both sticks to reach the bananas.  The bananas were too far away. He again held the two sticks, tinkered with them a bit, then attached one to the other to form a longer stick. Sultan used the longer stick to pull the bananas into the cage.  Köhler believed Sultan had solved the problem on the basis of insight, the sudden flash of inspiration that reveals the solution to a problem. 

 

observational learning: Learning by observing and imitating the behavior of others (also called vicarious learning or modeling).
 

Model: an organism who's engaged response is imitated by another organism