Chapter 2

1. Chapter 2 Learning: Principles & Applications

2. Objectives • Describe the principles and techniques of classical conditioning • Outline the principles, techniques, and applications of operant conditioning • Cite the factors involved in the process of learning • Apply the principles of learning to human and animal behavior

3. Key terms • Aversive control • Avoidance conditioning • Behavior modification • Classical conditioning • Conditioned response (CR) • Conditioned stimulus (CS) • Discrimination • Escape conditioning • Extinction • Feedback • Fixed-interval schedule • Fixed-ratio schedule • Generalization • Learning • Negative reinforcement • Neutral stimulus • Operant conditioning • Primary reinforcers • Reinforcement • Response chains • Secondary reinforcer • Shaping • Token economy • Transfer • Unconditioned response (UCR) • Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) • Variable-interval schedule • Variable-ratio schedule

4. Superstitions • What do you have? • What do others have? • What myths caused this? • Was it the stimuli- Breaking the mirror caused the bad luck? OR was other factors that caused the bad luck • Superstition: Is the result of pairing an unrelated event (walking under a ladder) with a related event (breaking an ankle)

5. Superstitions • Read example • Dumb and Dumber

6. Conditioning • What is conditioning? Hair or working out? • Process by which we learn superstitions and other behavior in our lives

7. …basic understanding of behavior • Infant • Hold yourself upright • To walk • To use your hands • Pre-teen • Run • Ride a bike • Operate a TV • Adolescent • Read • Write • Study • Teenage • Get what you want by: • Asking • Bargaining • Being nice • Pouting • Fears & how to overcome • Learned how to learn

8. Learning • Learning: A lasting change in behavior that results from experience • Why have you learned to fear the dentist? • Fear of pain • OR because every time you expressed your fears, your parents or friends gave you special attention and comfort. • OR you may never have gone to the dentist, but may have learned to fear him or her by watching someone else’s reaction. • These examples represent the 3 basic types of learning that psychologist have studied • Classical conditioning • Operant conditioning • Modeling

9. Classical Conditioning • Ivan Pavlov • Discovery of the principle of classical conditioning was accidental. • Was studying the process of digestion • Wanted to understand how a dog’s stomach prepares to digest food when something is placed in its mouth. • Notice that the mere sight or smell of food was enough to start a dog salivating • Fascination with what he called “psychic secretions” • Occurred before the food was presented

10. Pavlov’s Experiment • Pavlov (1927) • Began experiments by ringing tuning fork and then immediately placing some meat powder on the dog’s tongue • Why did he choose the tuning fork? • It was a neutral stimulus • Neutral stimulus: A stimulus that does not initially elicit a response • It had nothing to do with the response to meat (salivation) prior to conditioning. • Only after a few times, the dog started salivating as soon as it heard the sound, even if food was not placed in its mouth • Went on to demonstrate that a neutral stimulus will cause a formerly unrelated response if it is presented regularly just before the stimulus (here, food) that normally induces the response (salivation)

11. Pavlov’s Experiment • Pavlov used term unconditioned to refer to stimuli and to the automatic, involuntary responses they caused. • Ex: Blushing, shivering, being startled, or salivating • Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): An event that elicits a certain predictable response without previous training • In the experiment what was the unconditioned stimulus? • FOOD

12. Pavlov’s Experiment • Does the dog have to be taught to salivate when it smells meat? • Unconditioned response (UCR): A reaction that occurs naturally and automatically when the unconditioned stimulus is presented. • In the experiment what was the unconditioned response? • Salivation • Under normal conditions, would the tuning fork cause salivation? • NO, the dog had to be taught, or conditioned, to associate this sound with food

13. Pavlov’s Experiment • An ordinarily neutral event that, after training, leads to a response such as salivation • Conditioned stimulus (CS): In classical conditioning, a once-neutral event that has come to elicit a given response after a period of training in which it has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS) • The salivation it causes is a conditioned response (CR) • Conditioned response (CR): In classical conditioning, a learned reaction to a conditioned stimulus

14. Pavlov’s Experiment • A wide variety of events may serve as a conditioned stimuli for salivation. What events could make the dog salivate? • Sight of food • Experimenter entering the room • Sound of a tone • Flash of light • Controlling an animal’s or person’s responses in this way so that an old response becomes attached to a new stimulus is called classical conditioning

15. Pavlov’s Experiment • Classical conditioning: A learning procedure in which a stimulus that normally elicits a given response is repeatedly preceded by a neutral stimulus (one that usually does not elicit the response). Eventually, the neutral stimulus will evoke a similar response when presented by itself. • Reflex responses • Occur automatically following a UCS can be conditioned to occur whenever the correct CS occurs • Glands=salivation or weeping • Internal muscles=stomach • Controlled by the automatic nervous system and very much involved in your emotions

16. Stimulus and Response • Worksheet page 23-24

17. Zimbardo discusses Pavlov • Video

18. Rover’s Response • Hey Doggie

19. Pavlov Dogs • Handout (gray)

20. The Office (Classical Conditioning) • The Office (Jim and Dwight • Before conditioning, what was the… • Neutral stimulus • Computer tone • Response • Dwight’s mouth did not taste like nastiness • Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) • Altoids • Response • Nastiness taste in mouth

21. The Office (Classical Conditioning) • During conditioning • Conditioned stimulus • Computer tone paired with • Unconditioned stimulus • Altoids • Response • Nastiness in mouth

22. The Office (Classical Conditioning) • After conditioning • Conditioned stimulus • Computer tone • Conditioned response • Nastiness in mouth

23. General Principles of classical conditioning • Occurs gradually • With each pairing of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus, the learned response, or CR, is strengthened • In Pavlov’s experiment, the more frequently the tuning fork was paired with the food, the more often the tone elicited salivation-the conditioned response • Does the timing between the conditioned stimulus (tone) & the unconditioned stimulus (food) matter? • Yes, the timing influences learning

24. General Principles of classical conditioning • Timing: • Pavlov tried several different conditioning stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus. Sometimes he presented the tone before the food. Other times, he presented the tone at the same time as the food, called simultaneous conditioning. • He found that classical conditioning was most reliable and effective when the conditioned stimulus was presented just before the unconditioned stimulus. He found that presenting the CS about half a second before the UCS gave the best results

25. General Principles of classical conditioning • Pavlov also explored generalization & discrimination • Generalization: Responding similarly to a range of similar stimuli • In this experiment, the dog would respond to a second stimulus similar to the original CS, without prior training • Pavlov conditioned a dog to salivate at the sight of a circle (CS), he found that the dog would salivate when it saw an oval as well. • Why did the dog salivate with a circle and an oval? • The dog had generalized its response to include a similar stimulus

26. General Principles of classical conditioning • Pavlov was later able to do the opposite, to teach the dog to respond only to the circle by always pairing meat powder with the circle but never pairing it with the oval. • Pavlov taught the dog to discriminate • Discrimination: The ability to respond differently to similar but distinct stimuli • Generalization and discrimination are complementary processes and are part of your everyday life. • Ex: Your friend has come to associate the sound of a dentist’s drill (CS) with a fearful reaction (CR). After several exposures to a dentist’s drill, your friend may find that she has generalized this uncomfortable feeling to the sound of other non-dental drills. • Later, your friend may learn to discriminate between the sound of a dentist’s drill and other drills

27. General Principles of classical conditioning • Do you think that a classically conditioned response is subject to change? • What if Pavlov (Jim) stopped presenting the food (Altoids) after the sound of the tuning fork (computer tone)? • What type of effect would the sound have on the dog/Dwight? • The dog/Dwight would no longer associate the sound with the arrival of the food/Altoids • No longer elicited the same response • Pavlov called this effect extinction because the CR had gradually died out • Extinction: The gradual disappearance of a conditioned response because the reinforcement is withheld or because the conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the UCS (unconditioned stimulus)

28. General Principles of classical conditioning • Can a spontaneous recoveryoccur when the CR reappears when the CS is presented? • UHHHHHH OOOOOOHHHH • What’s the CS & CR again? • CS: Tone of tuning fork • CR: Salivation • Yes spontaneous recovery can occur but does not bring the CR back to its original strength • Pavlov’s dogs produced much less saliva during spontaneous recovery than they did during original conditioning

29. Shower time! • Example of extinction and spontaneous recovery • Every time you are in the shower and the water pressure drops, the water suddenly turns very hot. You learn to associate the normally neutral stimulus of a drop in water presser with your automatic startle reaction to the hot water surge. Even after you finally repair your plumbing so hot water no longer follows a drop in water pressure. It may take several showers before you no longer react to a water pressure change. You eventually extinguish the startle reaction. • You go away on vacation and when you return, you again react with a startle whenever the water pressure changes. You have had a spontaneous recovery of your conditioned startle reaction. After several showers without any hot water assaults, you no longer have a reaction; it is extinguished.

30. Classical Conditioning • Classical Conditioning worksheet page 30

31. The case of little albert • Can a 9-month old child be conditioned to fear objects? • The Little Albert Experiment

32. What ever happened to Baby Albert? • Handout (blue)

33. Baby Albert Conditioning • Worksheet

34. Classical conditioning & human behavior • Children and bed wetting • 1938 O. Hobart Mowrer 7 wife Mollie developed a device called the bell and pad • 2 metallic sheets, perforated with small holes attached with wires to a battery-run alarm • Full bladder (CS) • Alarm (UCS)

35. Classical conditioning & human behavior • Taste aversion • You have eaten something and became ill, now you can no longer eat or look at the food without becoming nauseated • John Garcia & R.A. Koelling (1966) first demonstrated this phenomenon with rats. The rats were placed in a cage with a tube containing flavored water. Whenever a rat took a drink, lights flashed and clicks sounded. Then, some of the rats were given an electric shock after they drank. All the rats showed traditional classical conditioning; the lights and the sounds became conditioned stimuli, and they tried to avoid them in order to avoid shock. The other rats were not shocked, but were injected with a drug that made them sick after they drank and the lights and sounds occurred. These rats developed an aversion not to the lights or the sounds but only to the taste of the flavored water

36. Operant conditioning • Why are people told never to feed a stray cat? • Operant conditioning: A form of learning in which a certain action is reinforced or punished, resulting in corresponding increases or decreases in the likelihood that similar actions will occur again • YOUR BRO! • Suppose you have a younger brother who is unhappy because you seem to be capturing your mother’s attention. He begins to pout and act aggressively toward you. Right away your mother stops attending to you to reprimand him. Even though your mother’s attention is negative, your brother seems to like it. A short time later, he is back again harassing you and earning another reprimand from your mother. • This is an example of operant conditioning!!

37. Operant conditioning • The term operant is used because the subject (brother) operates on or causes some change in the environment • This produces a result that influences whether they will operate or respond in the same way in the future • Depending on the effect of the operant behaviors, the learner will repeat or eliminate these behaviors- to get rewards or avoid punishment

38. Operant conditioning vs. classical conditioning • How experimenter conducts the experiment? • Classical conditioning: The experimenter presents the CS and UCS independent of the subject’s behavior. • Reactions to the CS are then observed • Operant conditioning: The subject must engage in a behavior in order for the programmed outcome to occur • In other words, operant conditioning is the study of how behavior is affected by its consequences

39. Operant Conditioning • Worksheet: 29 & 43

40. Skinner Box • What psychologist is most closely associated with operant conditioning? • B.F. Skinner • Believed that most behavior is influenced by one’s history of rewards and punishments. • Rat • A rat presses a bar in a Skinner box. The Skinner box is an artificial environment in which lights, sounds, rewards, and punishments can be delivered and controlled. Some of the animal’s behaviors, such as bar pressing, can be recorded by automatic switches • Pigeon and box

41. Using Operant Conditioning Principles • Gray worksheet with groups

42. Reinforcement • EX: Yo what’s up dog, shake hands! • Every time the the dog lifts its paw up to you, it is given a treat. • The treat is called positive reinforcement • Reinforcement: Immediately following a particular response with a reward in order to strengthen that response • What type of reinforcers do people respond to? • Social approval, money, & extra privileges

43. Schedules of Reinforcement • Important factor of Operant conditioning • Timing and frequency • Behavior that is reinforced every time it occurs is on a • Continuous schedule of reinforcement • Surprisingly in the long run, the best results are not obtained through continuous schedule but when positive reinforcement occurs on a partial schedule. Responses are more stable and last longer

44. An Example of Reinforcement • Big Bang Theory?

45. 4 basic schedules • Fixed-ratio schedule: A schedule of reinforcement in which a specific number of correct responses is required before reinforcement can be obtained • Ex: Rewarding every 4th response • The student who receives a good grade after completing a specified amount of work. • People tend to work hard on fixed-ration schedules • Low morale and few responses at the beginning of each new cycle because there is such a long way to go before the next reinforcement

46. 4 basic schedules • Variable-ratio schedule: A schedule of reinforcement in which a different number of responses are required before reinforcement can be obtained each time • EX: Slot machines, set to pay off after a varying number of attempts • Gamblers often n overlook this feature and continue to deposit coins at a high rate • Believe the more they do, the sooner they will hit the jackpot • Ratio must be set so casino operators can make a profit

47. 4 basic schedules • Fixed-interval schedule: A schedule of reinforcement in which a specific amount of time must elapse before a response will elicit reinforcement • The time interval- whether it is seconds, minutes, hours or days- is always the same

48. 4 basic schedules • Variable-interval schedule: A schedule of reinforcement in which changing amount of time must elapse before a response will obtain reinforcement each time • Ex: Trying to reach a friend and goes straight to voicemail. The number of times you continue to try and call will determine roughly how often you try the phone again…and again • Pigeon

49. Student worksheet • Schedule worksheet

50. Stimulus Control • Wolfe 1936 • Demonstrated this chimpanzees that poker chips have no value for chimps • They are not edible and they aren’t very much fun to play with • Operant conditioning was used to teach chimps to value poker chips as much as humans