Psychology 3306

1. Psychology 3306 Dr. D. Brodbeck

2. Introduction • You knew it would start this way…. • What is learning? • Many people think of things like: • Kids in school • Studying • Disabilities etc • The study of Learning certainly has things to say about some of these things

3. What is learning? • Talks about other things too: • What cognitive constants there are across species • What cognitive differences there are across species • How do you make good rat poison • Do you only learn by doing or can you learn by observing? • Lots of other stuff

4. What is learning • OK, Dave, you have convinced us that there are a lot of issues, and lots of stuff that isn’t boring (?) but…. • WHAT IS LEARNING? • OK, stop shouting • Change resulting from experience • Some event at time 1 affects behaviour at time 2

5. What it is • Both are pretty broad definitions • Pretty reasonable though • OK, so, specifically, what do psychologists that study learning study? • Basically there are two broad types of questions • Those about process and those about the product

6. Process • How it happens • What at time 1 leads to change at time 2 • How time 1 affect time 2 mechanistically • Under what conditions do you get learning • Interval between stimuli for example • Long for a taste aversion, short for eyeblink for example

7. Product • What are the long term changes in behaviour • What are the short term changes in behaviour • For example, what is the form of the CR in drug conditioning? • Why does a pigeon peck at a key in a classical conditioning paradigm?

8. Types of questions • There are, of course, sub areas too • Acquisition • Learning versus performance • Different types of conditioning and learning

9. Hold on… • Different types of learning? • Well maybe • The search for general laws or a general process theory has been going on for almost 100 years, maybe a tad more • Driven by physics envy • F=ma • E=mc2 • 6.02 x 1023

10. Umm, maybe this is crazy • Think of biology • There is an overriding principle (evolution) • Many commonalities in how systems work • However, each species is different • Perhaps it should be the same thing with learning, and in psychology in general • Correlations between events are important, could be the key thing in learning

11. Welcome to my laboratory..(Insert evil laugh here) • What about the notion that the lab is an artificial environment? • “Well sure, species X behaves like Y in the lab, and so does species Z, but, that’s in the lab, so it is not real behaviour” • Oh shut up • Looking at effects in isolation is the essence of experimentation • In order to control conditons

12. There is nothing wrong with looking at stuff in the real world, let’s be clear on that • It is a great place to test the generality of your finding • Indeed, if something only happens in the lab, is it that interesting? • It is a great place to get ideas • Still, testing theories (which tend to be statements about cause and effect relationships) is best done under controlled conditions

13. Causation • To make causal inferences you need three things: • 1) Covariation • 2) Temporal Precedence • 3) Elimination of alternative explanations • Unless you satisfy all three of these you cannot say that X causes Y

14. Judging Theories • Theories must be falsifiable • Must make precise enough predictions to be shown false • The simpler the theory the better • The more general the theory the better • Fruitful theories are good theories • Theories make predictions

15. Judging Theories • That was not an exhaustive list • Beware the Einstein syndrome • So, how do we test theories? • Well, we have to collect data

16. How do we collect data • Anecdotes • Can be useful for generating hypotheses • Lousy for testing theories • I know a guy who…. • Observational approaches • Need for operationism • Example, Imprinting studies

17. More ways to test theories • Correlation • Still not causation • Which direction? • Experimentation • Vary one variable • Observe the other • Hold all others constant • Watch out for confounds • Placebo effects • expectation

18. More key points about experimentation • Double blind procedures • Comparing groups • Looking at change over time • Systematic replication • Statistical methods are used to see if group differences are ‘real’

19. Different approaches to learning • Behaviourist vs. Cognitivist • The true behaviourist deals only with the observable • Behaviourists rarely use intervening variables stimulus Intervening variable behaviour

20. However…. • Cognitive psychologists do not just toss intervening variables around carelessly • Cognitive psychologists study representations • Explain Suzuki et al, 1980 without any reference to a spatial representation • You can’t

21. Cognition and behaviour • Both cognitive and behaviourist psychologists study humans and non humans • We are animals • Each species is different, though there are some overriding commonalities

22. Ethics • There are potential ethical issues • You can’t test animal learning with a tissue culture • Rules are strict • Some are actually ridiculous • CCAC • IACC • A – E rating

23. Who pays for it? • You do • NSERC • They pay between 10 and 60 K or so to qualified researchers • VERY competitive • Pay for grad school for some • Postdocs

24. Determinism and free will • Many scientists are determinists • Me for example • With enough data I can predict the future • Hard to get all the date • So, it feels like you have free will