AP Psychology Chapter 6 Learning

Chapter 6: Learning ● Learning: A long lasting change in behavior resulting from experience ● Classical Conditioning: Ivan Pavlov found that dogs learn to salivate to the sounds that they regularly hear before being fed even without the food, purely due to association o Developed classical conditioning: neutral stimuli associated with stimuli such as food will produce similar responses as the old stimuli o Classical Conditioning Process: 1. unconditioned stimulus (US or UCS) is presented (the natural thing) 2. it is presented with the neutral stimulus 3. the unconditioned response (UR or UCR) occurs naturally 4. if the UCS is continually paired with a neutral stimulus, they will be associated o Conditioned stimulus (CS): a neutral stimulus that is paired with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response (CR), even in the absence of the US o Acquisition: learning has occurred once the animals respond to the CS without the US; repeated pairings of CS and US yield a stronger CR o Ineffective learning methods: ▪ trace conditioning: presentation of CS, short break, presentation of US ▪ simultaneous conditioning: CS and US presented at same time ▪ backward conditioning: presentation of US, presentation of CS o Extinction: the CS no longer elicits the CR; achieved by presenting the CS without the US repeatedly o Spontaneous Recovery: after extinction, the CR briefly reappears upon presentation of the CS sometimes o Generalization: the tendency to respond to stimuli that is similar in some way to the CS, but the subjects can be trained to discriminate o Discrimination: learned ability to distinguish CS o Little Albert Experiment: John Watson and Rosalie Rayner conditioned Albert (a little boy) to fear a white rat by pairing the rat with a loud noise that made him cry ▪ Albert generalized to other fluffy white things; fluffy white things also elicited the conditioned response (fear/crying) ▪ Illustrates aversive conditioning ▪ Inspired/founded on Ian Pavlov’s experiment with dogs/classical conditioning o Biology: we are biologically prepared to make certain connections more easily than others such as taste aversions (pairing nausea with a new food, helped for survival) ▪ Salient (strong/obvious) stimuli create a more powerful CR ▪ Garcia and Koelling’s Experiment: illustrated that rats more easily make some connections than others, such as noise with shock ● Higher-Order Conditioning: second order conditioning, the CS acts as a US in order to condition a response to a new stimulus ● Operant Conditioning: learning based on the association of consequences with one’s behavior o Edward Thorndike conducted an experiment where he locked a cat in a puzzle cage and it had to get out to get food ▪ time required decreased over trials (meaning the rat got better) ▪ concluded that the cat learned new behavior without mental activity o Law of effect: if the consequences of a behavior are pleasant, the stimulusresponse (S-R) connection will be strengthened and the frequency of the behavior will increase (and vice-versa) o Instrumental learning: the consequence was instrumental in shaping future behaviors o B.F. Skinner: coined the term operant conditioning ▪ Skinner box: delivers food to an animal and a lever to press or disk to peck in order to get the food ▪ The food acts as a reinforcer, as is anything that makes an event more likely to occur o Escape learning: allows one to terminate an aversive stimulus o Avoidance learning: enables one to avoid the aversive stimulus all together o Reinforcement: Increasing behavior by using pleasant consequences ▪ Positive reinforcement: the addition of something pleasant ▪ Negative reinforcement: the removal of something unpleasant o Punishment: Decreasing behavior by using unpleasant consequences ▪ Positive punishment: the addition of something unpleasant ▪ Negative punishment: the removal of something pleasant ▪ Punishment is most effective if delivered immediately after unwanted behavior ▪ Harsh punishment is more effective b/c it may result in anger or fear ▪ Learned helplessness: possible result of punishment, the belief that all actions will result in punishment (giving up) ● Martin Selgman’s experiment showed that dogs with a series of inescapable shocks stopped trying to escape even when they could ▪ Learning due to punishment: ● Escape learning: allows one to terminate a bad stimulus (ex: dropping out of school) ● Avoidance learning: avoiding stressful stimulus (ex: skipping class on test day) o Shaping: rewarding approximations of the desired behavior (closer and closer) ▪ increases the likelihood and speed of the subject stumbling upon the desired behavior for the first time o Chaining: teaching subjects to perform a number of responses successively in order to get a reward ▪ Example: a rat named Barnabus who learned to run through a veritable obstacle course to get food o Discriminative stimulus: in discrimination, the special conditions under which the subject learns to perform the desired behavior o Primary reinforcers: are rewarding in and of themselves (such as food, water, rest) o Secondary reinforcers: things we have learned to value or things that lead to primary reinforcers ▪ Ex: praise, money ▪ Token economy: every time people perform a desired behavior, they are given a token that can be traded in for a reinforcer a practical application of generalized reinforcers (used in prisons, mental institutions, schools) o Premack principle: the reinforcing properties of something depend on the situation, whichever of two activities is preferred can be used to reinforce the other activity (“You can hang out with your friends (reinforcement) once you finish washing the dishes”) o Reinforcement Schedules ▪ Continuous reinforcement: rewarding the behavior each time, best when first teaching a new behavior ▪ Partial-reinforcement effect: behaviors will be more resistant to extinction if the animal has not been reinforced continuously; they yield higher response rates than continuous ▪ When reinforcement is delivered: ● Ratio schedule: number of responses made (ex: after doing it 2x) ● Interval schedule: the passage of time (ex: weekly) ▪ The pattern of reinforcement: ● Fixed schedule: constant ● Variable schedule: changing (more resistant to extinction than fixed schedules) ▪ Fixed-ratio (FR) schedule: provides reinforcement after a set number of responses (ex: FR-5 schedule: subject will be rewarded after the fifth response) ▪ Variable-ratio (VR) schedule: provides reinforcement based on a varying number of responses (ex: VR-5 schedule: average number of responses required to get a reward is five) ▪ Fixed-interval (FI) schedule: requires that a set amount of time elapse before a response results in a reward (FI-3 minute schedule: rewards the first response that occurs after three minutes) ▪ Variable-interval (VI) schedule: varies the amount of time required to elapse before a response will result in reinforcement (VI-3 minute schedule: subject will be rewarded for the first response made after an average of three minutes) o Biology ▪ Instinctive drift: the tendency for animals to forgo rewards to pursue their typical patterns of behavior ▪ Animals won’t perform certain behaviors that go against their natural inclinations Ways to Learn ● Observational Learning (Modeling): learning by seeing others’ actions o Basic components: observation, imitation, a mental representation of the observed behavior must exist to enable imitation o Albert Bandura studied modeling helped him formulate social-learning theory & showed that children learn violent behavior through observation o Bobo doll experiment: children exposed to adults who modeled aggressive behavior against Bobo doll vs children left alone with a bobo doll, they exhibited almost identical aggressive behavior o Mirror neurons: neurons that activate during observational learning/triggers empathy, sympathy, and second-hand embarrassment ● Latent Learning: subconsciously acquiring information, becomes obvious only once a reinforcement is given for demonstrating it o Edward Tolman’s experiment had three groups of rats: 1. always got a reward for completing the maze 2. never got a reward 3. not rewarded during the first half of trials, rewarded in second half (during the first half their performance was very similar to the group that never got a reward but performance improved dramatically and suddenly once they began to be rewarded for finishing the maze) ▪ conclusion: the rats must have learned their way around the maze in the first half, the dramatic improvement in the second half resulted from latent learning ● Abstract Learning: understanding concepts in order to secure a reward o Studies show that pigeons can ● Insight Learning: when one suddenly realizes how to solve a problem o Wolfgang Kohler’s Experiment: suspended a banana from the ceiling out of reach of a group of chimpanzees in a room with many boxes; chimps spent most time running around in frustration but suddenly they piled up the boxes, climbed up, and grabbed the banana