William G. Huitt Educational Psychology Interactive

1. Behavioral Learning Theories William G. Huitt Educational Psychology Interactive Last rev: June 2012

2. Behavioral Learning Theory Focus: Direct connection of environmental stimuli to overt behavior of organism Biological Maturation: Recognized as existing, but not considered relevant to describe learning.

3. Behavioral Learning Theory Learning: defined as “the relatively permanent change in behavior brought about as a result of experience or practice.” While learning is an internal event, it is not recognized as learning until it is displayed by overt behavior.

4. Organism (O) Stimulus (S) Response (R) Behavioral Learning Theory Represented as an S-R paradigm; organism is treated as a “black box.”

5. Behavioral Learning Theory Assumption: Direct connection between stimuli and overt behavior • Contiguity: association learning • Classical conditioning: involuntary behavior • Operant conditioning: voluntary behavior

6. Contiguity Theory Major theorist: E. R. Guthrie Basic principle: any stimulus and response connected in time and/or space will tend to be associated.

7. Contiguity Theory Examples: Baseball player associates particular wrist band with hitting home runs

8. Contiguity Theory Examples: Student associates study technique with making good grades

9. Contiguity Theory Guthrie’s theory: one of the foundations for the development of more cognitively-oriented neural network theory

10. Classical Conditioning Theory First type of learning discovered within behaviorist tradition (hence the name classical) Major theorist: Ivan Pavlov—Russian scientist trained in biology and medicine (as was his Austrian contemporary, Sigmund Freud)

11. Classical Conditioning Theory Pavlov studied digestive system of dogs

12. Classical Conditioning Theory Pavlov studied digestive system of dogs Became intrigued with the observation that dogs deprived of food began to salivate when one of his assistants walked into the room

13. Classical Conditioning Theory Pavlov studied digestive system of dogs Found that dogs were learning to associate two stimuli: • One that automatically and reflexively elicited a response • One that was attended to by the organism

14. Operant Conditioning The study of the impact of consequences on voluntary behavior. Major theorists • Edward Thorndike • John Watson • B. F. Skinner Dominant learning paradigm in USA psychology from the 1930s to the 1950s

15. Organism (O) Response (R) Stimulus (S) Operant Conditioning Classical conditioning: S-R paradigm Operant conditioning: R-S paradigm In both cases, organism is treated as a “black box.”

16. Behavioral Learning Theories Contiguity theory: stimuli and responses are associated, sometimes in somewhat random ways Classical conditioning: stimulus “elicits” the response. Operant conditioning: “emitted” response followed by stimulus that changes the likelihood the response will occur again (i.e., increases or decreases)

17. Behavioral Learning Theories To learn more about classical conditioning. To learn more about operant conditioning.