What is learning

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What is learning?

• A relatively permanent change in organisms
  behavior due to experience provided that the
  behavior is not due to a native response tendency
  or temporary state
• Learned association are an important part of
  learning theories
• associate stimuli together anticipate events
• associate responses and consequences
• Observation and experience are another key part
  of learning

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Classical Conditioning

• Who was Pavlov and his dogs?
• Experiments on salivary conditioning
• Observed that dogs salivate when presented with
  food
• Noticed that dogs would also begin to salivate
  when items were associated with food
• Classic experiments with bells/tone

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Key Terms in Classical Conditioning

• Unconditioned stimulus
• e.g., food
• Unconditioned response
• e.g., salivation
• Conditioned stimulus
• e.g., tone
• Conditioned response
• e.g., salivation to bell

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Example 1 This camper makes me sick!

• UCS
• UCR
• CS
• CR

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Key Processes

• Acquisition-initial learning
• Extinction and spontaneous recovery
• neutral stimulus will go back to not having an
  effect if repeatedly presented without UCS
• suppression rather than elimination of response
• Generalization-responding to a similar stimuli
• Discrimination

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Idealized Curve of Acquisition, Extinction, and
Spontaneous Recovery
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Example 3 Nausea Conditioning Among Cancer
Patients
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Example

• UCS
• UCR
• CS
• CR

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Operant Conditioning

• Who is Skinner and what is a Skinner box?
• Focus on associations between behavior and
  consequences
• Process includes shaping
• reinforces approximations of appropriate behaviors

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Key Terms

• Reinforcement-any event that increases frequency
  of response
• Positive Reinforcement adds something positive
• Negative reinforcement takes away something
  aversive
• Punishment an event intended to decrease the
  behavior

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Reinforcement Increases a behavior

• Is it negative reinforcement?
• Taking an aspirin to relieve a headache
• Giving in to your toddlers whining for candy
• Putting a child in time out for whining
• Turning down the volume of a very loud radio
• Giving your child dessert for eating a good
  dinner
• Smoking to relieve anxiety
• Not having to take a final because of good
  performance

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Reinforcement schedules

• Continuous vs partial reinforcement
• Types of Schedules
• Fixed ratio
• Variable ratio
• Fixed interval
• Variable interval

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Intermittent Reinforcement Schedules
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Punishment

• How is punishment different than negative
  reinforcement?
• Punishment decreases in a behavior
• What are some problems with punishment?
• Behavior may continue when punisher is not
  present
• May be related to increased aggression levels
• Does not guide people towards desired behavior

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Role of cognition in association theories

• To a strict behaviorist-expectations (or thinking
  about events) to not have an effect
• To those who consider a cognitive perceptive,
  there is evidence that we do think about
  associations
• over justification effect
• More likely to learn associations that help us
  survive

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Observation Learning

• Bandura suggested that we learn through direct
  experience as well as associations
• Modeling observing and imitating others
  behaviors
• Experiments with the Booboo Dolls

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