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Understanding Learning: Psychology and Behavior Change

Explore classical and operant conditioning, observational learning, and Pavlov's legacy to understand how humans and animals acquire new behaviors and responses. Discover the processes of acquisition, extinction, and generalization in learning.

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Understanding Learning: Psychology and Behavior Change

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  1. LearningChapter 6

  2. Objectives:

  3. Do Now • Think of something you have learned how to do……ride a bike, dance, etc • How did you learn how to do it? List each step that occurred in the process.

  4. Definition: Learning • “Learning” is defined in psychology as ‘a relatively permanent behavior changeas a result of experience.

  5. Learning How Do We Learn? Classical Conditioning • Pavlov’s Experiments • Pavlov’s Legacy

  6. Learning Operant Conditioning • Skinner’s Experiments • Skinner’s Legacy • Contrasting Classical & Operant Conditioning

  7. Learning Observational Learning • Modeling

  8. How Do We Learn? • By linking events that occur close together, humans and other animals exhibit associative learning. • This process of learning associations is called conditioning. • There is also cognitive learning, the acquisition of mental information by observing events, watching others, or through language.

  9. Classical Conditioning • A stimulus is an event or situation that evokes a response. • In classical conditioning, we learn to associate two stimuli; the unconditioned response to one stimulus becomes the conditioned response to the other.

  10. Classical Conditioning This woman has now been conditioned to have a negative response to the flash of light, even before or without the loud noise.

  11. Classical Conditioning: Pavlov’s Classic Experiment

  12. Classical Conditioning • The neutral stimulus (NS) elicits no response before conditioning. • The unconditioned stimulus (US) is a stimulus which triggers a reflex (automatic response, UR) without conditioning. • The conditioned stimulus (CS) is an originally neutral stimulus that, after association with a US, comes to trigger a CR.

  13. Classical Conditioning • The unconditioned response (UR) is an unlearned, natural response to a US • The conditioned response (CR) is a learned response to a previously neutral stimulus (CS). It is the same action as the unconditioned response, except that it is now triggered by the formerly neutral stimulus (now CS).

  14. Conditioning Processes • Pavlov and his associates identified five major conditioning processes: • Acquisition • Extinction • Spontaneous recovery • Generalization • Discrimination

  15. Acquisition • Acquisition is the first stage in classical conditioning – where a NS is linked with a US that the NS begins triggering the CS Why are our bodies set up to be conditioned? Classical conditioning helps us prepare for good and bad events. This is why the neutral stimulus must happen first for conditioning to occur; it is the event we use as a warning for the bad, a clue that helps us find the good!

  16. Acquisition

  17. Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery • If, following acquisition, the CS occurs repeatedly without the US, it can lead to extinction, the weakening of the CR. • After a delay (a few hours more), however, the CS may elicit a spontaneous recovery of a (weakened) CR

  18. Generalization • Generalization: after conditioning, an organism may respond similarly to stimuli that resemble the CS • This can be adaptive, but also have lingering effects • A child scared by a red car learns to avoid stepping in front of all vehicles.

  19. Generalization • Child abuse can lead to general hypersensitivity to the faces of any angry person, not just their abusers.

  20. Discrimination • Organisms also learn to discriminate, or distinguish, between a CS and other stimuli. • Consider your responses to a guard dog and a guide dog: would they both make your heart pound with fear?”

  21. Pavlov’s Legacy • Many other responses to many other stimuli can be classically conditioned in many other creatures • This is one way that virtually all animals learn to adapt to their environment • A process such as learning can be studied objectively

  22. Can Pavlov’s work help us understand emotions? • Little Albert • John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner (1920) worked with 11-month old boy • Initially feared loud noises but not white rats • Presented him with white rat, and just as he reached out to touch it, made a very loud noise just behind his head • After 7 repeats, burst into tears at sight of rat • 5 days later, he had generalized this fear to a rabbit, a dog, and a sealskin coat

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