Learning

Learning a relatively permanent behavior due to experience

Associative learning linking two events that are close together to help predict the
immediate future
o The process of learning associations is called conditioning

Classical conditioning learning to associate two stimuli to thereby anticipate events

Ivan Pavlov:
1. Because salivation in response to food in the mouth was unlearned, Pavlov called it an
unconditioned response (UR)
o Food in the mouth unconditionally (automatically) triggers a dogs salivary reflex
this also means that food is an unconditioned stimulus (US).
2. Salivation in response to the tone is conditional upon the dog learning the association
between the tone and the food. This learned response is a conditioned response (CR).
o The tone started out as a neutral stimulus (NS) but became a conditioned stimulus
(CS).
3. Overview: US (food) UR (salivation)
Introduce an NS (tone) + US (food) UR (salivation)
Repeat several times
CS (tone) + no US (food) CR (salivation)
o The initial learning of the stimulus/response relationship is called acquisition
Types of Conditioning
o Delayed conditioning the CS (tone) precedes the US (food), but they overlap a
little bit.
This produced the best and quickest conditioning.
o Trace conditioning the CS precedes the US but there is no overlap (tone sounds,
tone stops, food is presented)
The longer the time delay, the less likely conditioning is to occur.
o Simultaneous Conditioning CS occurs at the same time as US
Poor conditioning
The CS does not predict the US
o Backwards Conditioning CS comes after the US
No conditioning
o Higher Order Conditioning Once a conditioned stimulus has been acquired, if
you associate a new neutral stimulus with this original CS, that new neutral
stimulus may also become a CS.
Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery
o After conditioning, what happens if the CS occurs repeatedly without the US?
The dogs salivated less and less.
This is extinction the diminishing responding that occurs when a CS no
longer signals an impending US

o Pavlov found, however, that if he waited several hours before sounding the tone
again, the salivation to the tone would reappear.
This is spontaneous recovery the reappearance of a CR after a pause in
time
Generalization
o Pavlov also discovered that a dog conditioned to the sound of one tone also
responded somewhat to the sound of a different tone that had never been paired
with food.
This is generalization the tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the
CS
Discrimination
o Pavlovs dogs also learned to respond to the sound of a particular tone and NOT
to other tones
This is discrimination the learned ability to distinguish between a CS
(which predicts the US) and other irrelevant stimuli.
Extending Pavlovs Understanding
o Pavlov did not believe that cognition was involved in classical conditioning
o Robert Rescorla and Allen Wagner (1972) Rescorla-Wagner Model of
Conditioning a.k.a. contingency theory.
Showed that cognition does play a role in conditioning
An animal learns an expectation that some predictors (potential
conditioned stimuli) are better than others.
The strength of the CS-US association is determined by the extent to
which the US is unexpected or surprising.
The greater the surprise of the US, the more effort the organism
puts in to trying to discover its occurrence so that it can predict
future occurrences
An animal will more easily associate a US with a novel stimulus than with
a familiar stimulus
Familiar stimuli already have expectations associated with them,
making new conditioning difficult.
Once a conditioned stimulus is learned, it can prevent the acquisition of a
new conditioned stimulus blocking effect.
Leon Kamin if an electric shock given to dogs was always
preceded by a tone, and then may be preceded by a light that
accompanies the tone, a dog will react with fear to the tone but not
to the light the tone is a better predictor
o Pavlov believed that the laws of learning were the same for all animals he also
believed that any natural response could be conditioned to any neutral stimulus.
However, we now know that an animals capacity for conditioning is
constrained by its biology species are naturally predisposed to learn
associations that enhance survival biological preparedness
John Garcia

Group 1 rats exposed to a novel flavor

Group 2 rats exposed to a novel tone
Group 3 rats exposed to a novel sight
o Even if sickened as late as several hours after tasting a
particular novel flavor, the rat thereafter avoided that
flavor.
This contradicted the idea that for conditioning to
occur, the US must immediately follow the CS
o The sickened rats developed aversions to tastes but not
sights or sounds this contradicted the idea that any
stimulus could serve as a CS

Applications of Classical Conditioning

John B. Watson showed how human emotions could be conditioned responses

o Little Albert
Bell and Pad for Bedwetting
o Children sleep on a special pad that has been placed on the mattress
o When the child urinates, it closes a circuit in the pad, causing a loud bell to go off
o The bell is the US (wakes the child).
o Waking up is the UR by means of repeated pairings, stimuli that precede the
bell become associated with the bell and gain the capacity to wake the child
What stimuli? The sensation of a full bladder
Dealing with Phobias
o Flooding client is expose to the fear-evoking stimulus until the fear response is
extinguished
o Systematic desensitization client is exposed gradually to fear-evoking stimulus
under circumstances in which they feel fully relaxed
o Counterconditioning
Mary Cover-Jones
A pleasant stimulus is paired repeatedly with a fear-evoking stimulus to
counteract the fear response

Operant conditioning learning to associate a response and its consequences. Behavior that
operates on the environment to produce rewarding or punishing stimuli.

Edward L. Thorndike
o Law of Effect a response (such a string pulling) is strengthened by a particular
situation (being in a puzzle box) by a reward (escaping and eating)
Rewards strengthen stimulus/response relationships
Punishments stamp out/weaken stimulus/response relationships

B.F. Skinner:
Reinforcement

Shaping guiding an organism into performing a desired response

Chaining teaching a subject to perform a number of responses successively to get a
reward
Discriminative stimulus a stimulus that signals that a response will be reinforced
o Discriminative stimuli act as cues
Any event that strengthens (increases the frequency of) a preceding response is a
reinforcer
o Premack Principle a more valued activity can be used to reinforce a less valued
activity
Primary Reinforcers - unlearned, basic human needs (food, water, shelter, etc)
Conditioned/Secondary Reinforcers - get their power through learned association with
primary reinforcers
Immediate and Delayed Reinforcers
o Humans respond well to delayed reinforcement
Reinforcement Schedules
o Continuous Reinforcement - reinforcing the desired response every time that it
occurs
Learning occurs rapidly, but extinction occurs rapidly too
o Partial/Intermittent Reinforcement - responses are sometimes reinforced, and
sometimes not
Initial learning is slower but it produces greater resistance to extinction
Four Types of Partial Reinforcement
Fixed Ratio Schedules - reinforce behavior after a set number of
responses
1. maintains a high response rate
2. ex. Dunkin Donuts, punching cards and getting free drinks
Variable Ratio Schedules - providing reinforcement after an
unpredictable number of responses
1. maintains a very high response rate
2. ex. any lottery system
Fixed Interval Schedules - reinforce the first response after a fixed
time period
1. maintain a good response rate
2. ex. Paychecks
Variable Interval Schedules - reinforce the first response after
varying time intervals
1. slow, steady response rate
2. ex. pop quizzes

Punishment

Positive Punishment - applying an unpleasant stimulus after the performance of a certain

behavior goal is to reduce that behavior
o Potential drawbacks:
punishment teaches discrimination children quickly learn not to engage
in punishable behavior in front of certain people, but will still engage in
that behavior in other situations
can teach fear child may overgeneralize and associate fear not only
with undesirable behavior but also with the person who delivered the
punishment and the place where the punishment was delivered
physical punishment can increase aggressiveness by modeling aggression
as a way to deal with problems
punishment can create anger and hostility, especially if the person does not
know why they are being punished or if the person feels the punishment is
too severe
Negative Punishment - removing a pleasant stimulus after a person performs a certain
behavior

Extending Skinners Understanding

Skinner and other behaviorists believed that organisms acquire only those responses for
which they have been reinforced
o Edward Chace Tolman showed that rats could learn about their environments
even in the absence of reinforcement
The rats had developed a cognitive map (mental representation of the
maze), this map/learning could remain hidden until the rat was motivated
to run the maze as quickly as possible (latent learning)
o Insight Learning a sudden realization of how to solve a problem
Not acquired gradually due to the strengthening of a stimulus/response
relationship.
Wolfgang Kohler and his chimpanzee Sultan
o Biological Predispositions an animals natural predispositions can constrain its
capacity for operant conditioning
Hamsters can be conditioned to dig or stand on its hind legs because it
uses those skills to get food. However, it is hard to condition them to wash
their face. Raccoons, on the other hand, can be conditioned to wash their
face because they wash their food in the wild.
Instinctive drift an animal reverting back to biologically predisposed
patterns

Applications of Operant Conditioning

Token Economics Organism given a token for desired behaviors, tokens can later be
exchanged for rewards

Observational Learning/Social Learning The acquisition or modification of a behavior after

exposure to at least one performance of that behavior.

Albert Bandura Bobo Doll Experiment

o Kid sees angry adult beat up bobo doll
o Kid becomes angry and is placed in a room with a bobo doll
o Kid beats up bobo doll
Phobias can be acquired via social learning
The imitation of observed behavior is called modeling
o We are more likely to imitate actions of models who are attractive, have a high
status, admired, and/or similar to ourselves
Vicarious Learning
o Learning about an actions consequences by watching others be rewarded or
punished for those actions
Mirror Neurons
o Every time you observe another person engaging in an action, similar neural
circuits fire in your brain as are firing in the other persons brain.
o Mirror neurons appear to be the basis of observational learning
o Help explain and predict the behavior of others
o May be neural basis for empathy
o NOT a new type of neuron motor neurons that seem to exhibit this behavior