Classical Conditioning

• Learning can be difficult, while other things are easy, like the fear of needles.
• Classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and cognitive learning are three principles underlying the learning process.

Learning and Habituation

• Learning: A relatively permanent change in behavior resulting from experience.
• Habituation: The decrease in behavioral response to a stimulus after repeated presentation.

Classical Conditioning

• In the early 1900s, Ivan Pavlov conducted an experiment on reflexes related to digestion with a dog in Russia.
• Before placing food in the dog's mouth, a bell was rung.
• After a few trials, the dog salivated upon hearing the bell.
• Classical conditioning: A type of learning in which a neutral stimulus acquires the ability to produce a response that is normally triggered by another stimulus.

Basic Concepts

• Neutral (Unrelated) Stimulus: A stimulus that initially does not trigger a response in the organism (e.g., the initial "bell" before being paired with meat).
• Unconditioned (Natural) Stimulus: A stimulus that naturally triggers a response in an organism (e.g., "meat").
• Unconditioned (Natural) Response: Response that an organism naturally gives to an unconditioned stimulus (e.g., "salivation" triggered by meat).
• Conditioned Stimulus: A stimulus that after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus, triggers a response even when presented alone (e.g., the "bell" paired with meat).
• Conditioned Response: The response given to the conditioned stimulus (e.g., "salivation" that occurs when only the bell rings).
• Learning occurs through the association of two stimuli that are brought together over time.
• Example:
  • Neutral (Unrelated) Stimulus (NS) / Conditioned Stimulus (CS): Seeing the dog
  • Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): Bite experience
  • Unconditioned Response (UCR) / Conditioned Response (CR): A phobia for dogs!

Examples of Conditioned Stimulus and Response

• Conditioned Stimulus and the corresponding Conditioned Response:
  • Seeing a spider elicits jumping in place
  • Seeing money elicits feeling happy
  • Hearing a bell elicits moving towards the classroom
  • Seeing a red light elicits stopping
  • Seeing a flag elicits showing respect
  • Seeing a syringe elicits crying
  • Seeing a teacher elicits nausea
  • Seeing a bus elicits feeing happy
  • Seeing a lemon elicits salivating
  • Seeing blood elicits fainting
  • Thinking of an exam elicits nausea
  • Seeing a dentist elicits heart palpitations

Classical Conditioning Examples

• When a mother puts her baby in the stroller to take him outside, the stroller becomes a conditioned stimulus
• When a father with a beard kisses his baby, the father is the conditioned stimulus.
• When a person's knee is struck, and their foot rises, the whistle is the conditioned stimulus.
• When an individual feels nauseous after eating at a restaurant, the restaurant becomes the conditioned stimulus.

Emotions and the Little Albert Experiment

• Some emotional responses result from conditioned stimuli.
• In 1920, Watson and Rayner conducted an experiment where they conditioned a 9-month-old baby, Albert, to develop a fear response to a white rat.
• Watson and Rayner caused Albert to become fearful by producing a loud noise when he came into contact with the rat.
• The effects of conditioning can extend further.
• Following the Little Albert experiment, further observations gauged the permanence and generalization of Albert’s fear response.
• Albert began to express fear not only towards the rat, but also towards similar objects like rabbits, monkeys, and even wool sweaters.
• Generalization: A stimulus resembling the real conditioned stimulus triggers a response similar to the real conditioned response.
• Extinction: A learning phenomenon characterized by the decrease in the frequency of a conditioned response and its eventual disappearance.
• In the Little Albert experiment, if the loud noise ceases to pair with the rat, Albert's fear gradually decreases, leading to the extinction of the response.
• Discrimination: Occurs when an organism learns to respond to only one specific stimulus during classical conditioning.
• Spontaneous recovery: The tendency for a conditioned response to reappear after extinction, even without further conditioning trials.

Adaptive Value and Its Use

• Adaptive value: The usefulness of certain skills and traits, such as food and mate-finding, that increase the chances of survival in both humans and animals.
• Conditioning has adaptive value, supporting behaviors that protect organisms from harm or ensure essential functions, like feeding.

Operant Conditioning

• In the late 1800s, American psychologist Thorndike studied cats and the "law of effect."
• A cat is placed in a box that can be opened with a simple pedal to reach food placed outside.
• Over time the cat learns how operate the simple pedal to reach the food
• The Law of Effect states that behaviors followed by positive outcomes are reinforced, while those followed by negative outcomes are weakened.
• Operant conditioning is a type of learning in which the consequence following a behavior either decreases or increases the likelihood of that behavior being repeated in the future.
• Thorndike's work was further developed by B.F. Skinner.

Examples of Operant Conditioning

• Operant conditioning is used to teach animals tricks, help children develop toilet habits, teach children with intellectual disabilities, and teach social behaviors to children with autism.
• Examples: Putting money in a music box, running a red light, studying hard, or giving flowers to a partner.

Real World Applications

• The target behavior is for the child to taste, chew, and eat a food they persistently refuse to eat (typically vegetables or fruits).
• Preparation: Researchers and mothers would shape and reinforce target behaviors
• Reinforcers: Each time the child performed the target behavior, the mother reinforced it by praising, showing interest, or smiling.
• Shaping: The shaping procedure involved the child noticing the food, allowing it to be placed in their mouth, tasting it, chewing it, and swallowing it.

Skinner’s Operant Conditioning

• In the 1930s, Skinner studied ongoing behaviors of animals, examining how outcomes influence behavior
• A form of learning he developed, examines how the outcomes (rewards or punishments) influence behavior.
• If pressing a lever results in food being delivered, the outcome increases the likelihood that the rat will press the lever again.
• As the rat presses the lever repeatedly, more food is provided.

Operant Conditioning: Reinforcement and Punishment

• Reinforcement: Occurs after a behavior and increases the likelihood of that behavior being repeated.
• Punishment: Occurs after a behavior and decreases the likelihood of that behavior being repeated.

Reinforcement Types

• Positive reinforcement: The presentation of a stimulus that increases the likelihood of a behavior being repeated.
• Negative reinforcement: An aversive (unpleasant) stimulus that, when removed, increases the likelihood of the response that preceded it being repeated.
• Continuous reinforcement is when a reinforcer occurs every time the operant response is made.
• Intermittent reinforcement refers to the situation where the response is reinforced only occasionally.

Punishment Types

• Positive punishment: Presentation of an aversive stimulus (e.g., spanking) following a response.
• Negative punishment: Removal of a reinforcing stimulus (e.g., child's allowance) following a response.
• Negative (time-out) punishment should generally be preferred over positive (spanking) punishment

Key Differences and Processes

• Both positive and negative reinforcement increases the likelihood of behavior being repeated
• Both positive and negative punishment decrease the likelihood of behavior being repeated
• Classical conditioning: learning through association of one stimulus with another
• Operant conditioning: A learning process shaped by the consequences of behaviors.
• Classical conditioning, the stimulus comes first, followed by the response.
• Operant conditioning, the response comes first, followed by the stimulus.

Cognitive Learning

• Cognitive learning traces back to Wundt's work in the late 1800s and the studies of psychologist Edward Tolman in the 1930s.

Tolman’s Rat Maze

• Cognitive learning declined in the 1950s, was revived in the 1960s, and became popular in the 1990s.
• Tolman's rat experiment helped uncover mental processes; rats quickly learned to take the shortest path to the food in a maze.

Cognitive Learning: Bandura

• In the 1960s, Albert Bandura found that children watching a film with aggressive behavior played more aggressively.
• Social cognitive learning occurs by observing, imitating and modeling.
• Social cognitive learning does not require any exhibitable behavior or reward.
• Bandura’s Theory states that children learn to hate spiders by observing someone who has a fear of them.
• The learning-application distinction is when learning is not always immediately visible

Social Cognitive Learning Processes

• Attention
• Memory
• Imitation
• Motivation

Biological Factors

• Biological factors refer to innate tendencies or predispositions that can either constrain or facilitate various types of learning.
• Animals have innate tendencies, such as playing games.
• Babies' brains are biologically prepared to recognize and distinguish the sounds necessary for learning speech.