Learning

1. Learning Unit 6 Myers

2. How do we Learn? • Habituation: An organism’s decreasing response to a stimulus with repeated exposure to it • Sea slug withdraws its gills when disturbed by a squirt of water. Overtime the sea slug will withdrawal the response • Learned associations feed our habitual behaviors • Behavior associated with context

3. How do we learn? • Associative: Learning that certain events occur together • Observational learning • Classical conditioning: may be two stimuli • Lightening example • Operate conditioning: response + consequence • Seal: ball, food

4. How do we learn? • We learn to expect and prepare for significant events such as food or pain ___________. We learn to repeat acts that bring good results to avoid acts that bring bad results___________. By watching others we learn new behaviors______________.

5. Classical Conditioning • Ivan Pavlov and John B. Watson shared both a disdain for “mentalisitic” concepts (such as consciousness) and a belief that the basic laws of learning were the same for all animals • Basic form of learning • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZvCI-gNK_y4 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq6pekM6sZQ

6. Pavlov’s Experiments • Read page 218-219 (Pavlov’s Experiments) • Unconditioned response-salvation in response to food in the mouth • Unconditioned stimulus-food • Conditioned response-salvation is in response to the tone • Conditioned stimulus- tone (previously neutral) • *UR and CR are almost always the same response it’s the stimulus the elicits the response that is different • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nE8pFWP5QDM (Office-Altoid experiment)

7. Test yourself • IF the aroma of cake baking sets your mouth to watering, what is the US? The CS? The CR?

8. Acquisition • Classical Conditioning: When one links the neutral stimulus (US) so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the CR. • The CS must procede the US by about ½ to 1 sec in order to bring about the CR • Girlfriend and onion example

9. Acquisition and Classical Conditioning • Conditioning helps up survive and reproduce-by responding to cues that help it gain food, avoid dangers, locate mates, and produce offspring • Higher-ordering conditioning: a new neutral stimulus can become a CS. Just needs to be associated with previously neutral stimulus

10. Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery • The diminished responding (CR-salvia) that occurs when the CS (tone) no longer signals an impending US (food) • Pavlo found that if he allowed several hours to elapse before sounding the tone again, the salivation to the tone would reapper spontaneously. • This proves that extinction suppresses the CR rather than eliminating it • Girlfriend and onion example

11. Generalization • Quite automatic • Tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the CS (Pavlo the closer a stimulated spot was to the thigh, the stronger the CR) • Can be adaptive • Food poisoning example

12. Discrimination • Result of overtraining • Learned ability to distinguish between a CS and other irrelevant stimuli • Being able to recognize differences is adaptive because of vastly different consequences

13. Extending Pavlov’s Understanding • Cognitive Processes (thoughts, perceptions, expectations) • Biological Constraints on an organism’s learning capacity

14. Cognitive Processes • An animal can learn the predictability of an event • The more predictable the association, the stronger the conditioned response (ex: tone before light before shock) • The animal learns an expectancy, an awareness • Learned helplessness: hopelessness an animal or human learns when unable to avoid traumatic events • Classical conditioning treatments that ignore cognition often have limited success

15. Biological Predispositions • Animal’s capacity for conditioning is constrained by its biology • Each species predisposition prepare it to learn the associations that enhance its survival • John Garcia challenged the idea that all association can be learned equally well • Taste aversion

16. Biological Predispositions • Taste aversion: examples? Food poisoning? • Secondary disgust: reminds disgusting in its own right • Our ancestors who learned taste aversion were unlikely to eat toxic food and therefore survive and reproduce • Nausea, anxiety pain and other bad feelings serves as a good purpose (alerts the body to a threat) • Learning enables an animals to adapt to their environment

17. Pavlov’s Legacy • Many other responses to many other stimuli can be classically conditioned in many other organisms • Showed us how a process such as learning can be studied objectively • Set the stage for behaviorism to emerge • WWII article

18. Applications for Classical Conditioning • Former drug users and drug-using context • Body’s disease-fighting immune system (taste accompanies a drug that influences response) • Watson’s and “Little Albert” operate conditioning (provided a basis)

19. Operate Conditioning • Organisms associate their own actions with consequences. Actions followed by reinforces increase; those followed by punishers decrease • Behavior that operates on the environment to produce rewarding or punishing stimuli is operant behavior • Hot and Cold Example

20. STOP! Review • Operant vs. Classical • Is the organism learning associations between events it does not control • Is it learning associations between its behavior and resulting events

21. Skinner’s Experiment • Law of effect: rewarding behavior is likely to recur • Skinner designed an operant chamber, where an animal hits a bar or key to release a reward of food or water and the device records these responses • Skinner: WWII and pigeons

22. Shaping Behavior • Reinforcers such as food guide desired behavior • First build on existing behaviors • Successive approximations-reward responses that are ever-closer to the desired behavior

23. Shaping behavior • Helps us understand what nonverbal organisms perceive • Reward/shape unintentionally (kid example-whining) • Shaping is important because animals rarely performed desired behaviors • Discrimination is used to show which type of stimulus gets the reaction that is reinforced (red vs. green light)

24. Types of Reinforces • Any event that strengthens a preceding response • May tangible reward such as food or money or praise or attention or an activity (study breaks) • What’s reinforcing in one situation may not be in another (like…..)

25. Types of Reinforcers • Positive Reinforcement-strengthens a response by presenting a pleasurable stimulus • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2lXh2n0aPyw (paino) • Negative Reinforcement-strengthens a response by reducing or removing something undesirable or unpleasant • Snooze bottom, aspirin • Negative removes a punishing event (not punishment!!!!!!) • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=euINCrDbbD4 (big bang theory-operate conditioning)

26. Primary and Conditioned Reinforces • Primary-getting food when hungry are unlearned • Conditioned-learned through association • Money, good grades, pleasant tone of voice, rat example of light in skinner box

27. Immediate and Delayed Reinforcers • If the delay last longer than 30 seconds of the act and the reinforcement, the rat will not learn to press the bar to receive the food • Humans can respond to delayed reinforces • Example??? • Learning to control our impulses (maturity) (marshmellow video) • However, small but immediate consequences are more alluring than big but delayed consequences (EX??)

28. Reinforcement Schedules • Continuous Reinforcement: reinforcing the desired behavior every time it occurs • Until a behavior is mastered (quick results) • Problem of extinction • Partial reinforcement: responses are sometimes reinforced sometimes not • Slot machines • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLD17r0U2D0 • Even occasionally giving in: tantrums

29. Partial Reinforcement Schedules • Fixed-ratio: reinforce behavior after a set number of responses • Reward us with free drink after every 10 purchased • Variable-ratio: provide reinforcers after an unpredictable number of responses (slot machines) • Fixed-interval: reinforce the first response after a fixed time period (checking mail on delivery day) (anticipation) • Variable-interval: reinforce the first response after varying time intervals (email)

30. STOP! Review • __________schedule involve a time element. Time must pass before reinforcement will occur • __________schedule are dependent on the behavior itself. A certain number of behaviors are needed before reinforcement will occur.

31. Punishment • Reinforcement increase a behavior; punishment does the opposite • It decreases the frequency of a preceding behavior • Studies show that criminal behavior is not deterred by threat of severe consequences

32. Punishment: Four drawbacks • Punished behavior is suppressed not forgotten • Spanking • Punishment teaches discrimination • Effective? Children learn to swear elsewhere • Punishment can teach fear • Physical punishment may increase aggressiveness by modeling aggression as a way to cope with problems • Spanked children are at increased risk for aggression

33. Punishment • Positive (adding) punishment Negative (subtracting) punishment: • Spanking________ • Time-out________ • Parking ticket_____ • Parents: reframe threats to positive incentives • Examples?

34. Extending Skinner’s Understanding • Cognition and Operate Condition • Animals and people develop a cognitive map, a mental representation of the maze. • Rat/maze, freshmen/high school • Latent Learning: learning that becomes apparent only when there is some incentive to demonstrate it

35. Extending Skinner’s Understanding • Some learning occurs after little or no systematic interaction with our environment (insight: sudden novel realization) • Intrinsic motivation: a desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake • Extrinsic motivation: a desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid punishment

36. Intrinsic vs Extrinsic • Excessive rewards can undermine intrinsic motivation • Promising a reward can backfire • Rewards can be effective if used neither to bribe nor to control but to signal a job well done (most improved awards) • Cognitive dissonance-reconcile a conflict between attitudes and actions. Change their attitudes to support the actions

37. Extending Skinner’s Understanding • Biological Understanding • Biological constraints predispose organism to learn association that are naturally adaptive • Instinctive drift: even trained animals act naturally

38. Skinner’s Legacy • Applications of Operant Conditioning • School: students must be told immediately what they did right or wrong and must be directed to the step to be taken next • Sports: reinforce small successes and then gradually increase the challenge • Shooting/basketball

39. Skinner’s Legacy • Applications of Operate Conditioning • Work: Partial ownership (benefits from rewards and potential risks), rewards to increase productivity • Home: Give children attention and praise for behaving well!!! (target specific, reward it, watch it increase) • Self: state goals, monitor, reinforce, & reduce rewards gradually

40. Classical vs. Operate ConditioningTable 6.4 • Forms of associative learning • Involve acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination • Cognitive processes and biological predispositions • Classical: organism associates different stimuli that it does not control and responds automatically • Operate: organism associates it operant behaviors (those that produce a reward or punishing stimuli) with their consequences Both/Same Differ

41. Learning by Observation • Higher animals can learn without direct experience through observational learning (social learning) • We learn all kinds of specific behavior by observing and imitating models (modeling)

42. Mirrors in the Brain • Mirror neurons: A neural basis for imitation and observational learning • When monkey sees, these neurons mirror what another monkey does • Imitation shapes our human behavior

43. Mirrors in the Brain • PET scans of different brain areas reveal that humans have a mirror neuron system that supports empathy and imitation • Helps children to infer another mental state • We grasps others’ state of mind-often feeling what they feel-by mental stimulation

44. Mirrors in the Brain • We find ourselves yawning after observing another’s yawn • Harder to frown when viewing a smile • Seeing a loved one’s pain, our faces mirror their emotion

45. Bandura’s Experiments • Bobo doll experiment • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHHdovKHDNU • Those who viewed the model’s actions were much more likely to lash out at the doll • By watching, we learn to anticipate a behavior’s consequences in situation like those we are observing. We are likely to imitate people we perceive as similar to ourselves, as successful, or as admirable

46. Applications of Observational Learning-Prosocial effects • Prosocial models can have prosocial effects • MLK drew on the power of modeling (nonviolent action for social change) • Observational learning of morality begins early • They are most effective when their actions and words are consistent

47. Anti-social effects • Observational learning may have antisocial effects (absusive parents-aggressive children, men who beat their wives and wife-battering fathers) • Research suggests that exposure to media violence tends to lead to more expressions of aggression • However, it does not mean that EVERY person exposed to media violence will become more aggressive

48. Media-Violence • Violence viewing effect stems from: • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrHFB2KP8fc (Marlin Mason) • Imitation-observed a sevenfold increase in violent play immediately after children viewed a more violent show (power rangers) • Imitated/modeled violent acts • Pro-longed exposure desensitizes viewers • Become more indifferent (brawl, sexual violence)