Introduction to Cognition: Learning 1

Introduction to Cognition: Learning 1 - Asynchronous

• The presentation covers classical and operant learning, exploring how associations are formed and strengthened or weakened.
• It includes examples of how buffaloes react to roads and how heroin addicts develop tolerance through learned associations.
• The topic also involves a discussion of how animals respond differently to repeated stimuli, such as the startle response of an animal to repeated loud noises, or the process of habituation.
• The presentation also includes the concept of how animals learn through repeated experiences, through responses to stimuli that appear to lead to a positive or negative event.

Habituation

• Habituation is a decline in response to a stimulus once it becomes familiar.
• The initial encounter with a new stimulus can result in a larger response than later encounters.
• This reduced response to a repeated stimulus allows an organism to focus on novel and more important stimuli.
• Repeated responses may lead to an ignored response to the stimulus.
• Memory plays a role in the habituation process.

Classical Conditioning

• Learning involves associations between stimuli.
• The presentation focuses on the work of Ivan Pavlov and his experiments with dogs.
• Pavlov demonstrated how dogs learned to associate a neutral stimulus (e.g., a bell) with a naturally occurring stimulus (e.g., food), eventually responding to the neutral stimulus alone.
• Unconditioned stimuli (US) triggers an unconditioned response (UR).
• Unconditioned response (UR) is a natural response to the unconditioned stimulus (US).
• Conditioned stimuli (CS) is a previously neutral stimulus.
• Conditioned response (CR) is a learned response to a conditioned stimulus (CS).

Varieties of Conditioned Responses

• Classical conditioning isn't limited to salivation in dogs.
• Other examples include crabs retracting their eyes, fish thrashing, octopuses changing colour, galvanic skin responses in humans, reflexive eye blinks, and associating words with sexual arousal.

Instrumental Conditioning

• Instrumental conditioning, also known as operant conditioning, focuses on how consequences shape behaviour.
• Edward Thorndike's work on instrumental conditioning is fundamental to this concept.
• The response is influenced by the behaviour of the animal.
• Reinforcement associated with the behavior strengthens the response.
• Behaviors not rewarded are weakened, or are punished.

BF Skinner

• B. F. Skinner, building on Thorndike's work, is a key figure in operant conditioning.
• Skinner emphasized that behaviours were voluntary and not simply reflexive.
• Operants influence the environment.
• Reinforcements influence the consequences that will follow the behaviour.

Law of Effect

• Reward strengthens a response
• Lack of reward or punishments weakens a response.
• The strength of the response is influenced by the consequences.

Cognitive Learning

• The presentation discussed the concept of "cognitive maps", which are internal mental representations of spaces.
• Tolman's experiments showed that animals can learn about spatial relationships without direct reinforcement.

###Contingency

• Contingency refers to the reliability of a stimulus in predicting an event.
• Meaningful learning only occurs when a stimulus reliably predicts the occurrence of other events.
• It's not just enough to link two events; one must reliably predict the other.

###Conditioned Fear

• The conditioning process can create complex emotional responses like fear.
• Initial presentation of a fear response can be followed by a fear response to a previously neutral stimuli, in a classical conditioning process.
• It means an emotional response is influenced by consequences in an operant conditioning way.
• The procedures discussed in the presentation can be associated to how people feel fear in certain scenarios.

Relevance of Conditioned Fear

• Fear responses can be applied to human behaviour
• Some fears are innate, not learned, but can be affected by conditioning.

Relations between CR and UR

• Conditioned Response (CR) and Unconditioned Response (UR) are similar, but differ in richer details of response.
• CR occurs in response to previously neutral stimuli, UR occurs in response to a natural stimulus.
• Both are responses to a stimulus

Conditioning and Drug Use

• Drug use can be understood through classical and operant conditioning.
• The body adapts to repeated drug use, anticipating the effects.
• Conditioning causes the body to prepare for the anticipated drug.
• A compensatory reaction is a response in anticipation of a stimulus.

Other Presentation Topics

• The presentation includes examples using real-world situations (e.g., a clip from "The Office").
• The presentation also covers different types of learning, such as extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination, with further examples using a wolf and various locations.

This quiz explores classical and operant learning, highlighting how associations form and how they can be strengthened or weakened. It covers concepts like habituation, and provides examples such as animal responses to repeated stimuli and the development of tolerance in addiction. Test your understanding of these fundamental cognitive processes.