Psychology Learning Theories

Learning

• Learning is the acquisition of knowledge, skills, or responses through experience, resulting in lasting changes in the learner.
• Learning is experience-based.
• Learning generates changes within the organism.
• These changes are relatively permanent.

Habituation and Sensitization

• Habituation: Gradual decrease in response to a repeated stimulus.
• Sensitization: Increased response to a stimulus following exposure to a strong stimulus.

Classical Conditioning

• Classical conditioning: Learning where a neutral stimulus triggers a response after being paired with a stimulus naturally producing that response.
• Unconditioned stimulus (US): Reliably produces a natural reaction.
• Unconditioned response (UR): Natural, reflexive reaction to the US.
• Conditioned stimulus (CS): Stimulus that produces a response similar to the UR but is learned.
• Second-order conditioning: A CS is paired with a stimulus associated with the original US.
• Acquisition: The phase where the CS and US are presented together.
• Extinction: Gradual disappearance of the learned response when the CS is presented without the US.
• Spontaneous recovery: Re-emergence of a learned response after a rest period following extinction.
• Generalization: Responding to similar stimuli as the CS.
• Discrimination: Distinguishing between similar but different stimuli.
• Example of classical conditioning: Pavlov's dogs, Little Albert experiment.

Rescorla-Wagner Model

• Introduces a cognitive component to classical conditioning.
• Accounts for features classical conditioning that are difficult to explain with a purely behavioral approach.

Biological Factors

• Biological preparedness: Predisposition to learn some associations more easily than others based on evolutionary history.
• Cerebellum: Critical for eyeblink conditioning.
• Amygdala: Critical for emotional conditioning.

Operant Conditioning

• Operant conditioning: Learning where consequences of an action influence whether the behavior is repeated.
• Law of effect: Behaviors followed by desirable consequences are more likely to be repeated.
• Operant behavior: Behaviors performed to effect changes in the environment.
• Skinner box: Controlled environment to study operant behavior.
• Reinforcer: Increases the likelihood of a behavior.
• Punisher: Decreases the likelihood of a behavior.
• Positive reinforcement: Presenting a desirable stimulus to increase behavior.
• Negative reinforcement: Removing an undesirable stimulus to increase behavior.
• Positive punishment: Presenting an undesirable stimulus to decrease behavior.
• Negative punishment: Removing a desirable stimulus to decrease behavior.
• Primary reinforcers: Satisfy basic needs/desires.
• Secondary reinforcers: Effectiveness from association with primary reinforcers.
• Reinforcement schedules: Rules that determine when reinforcement is delivered.
  • Fixed-interval (FI): Reinforcement after a specific time interval.
  • Variable-interval (VI): Reinforcement after an average time interval.
  • Fixed-ratio (FR): Reinforcement after a specific number of responses.
  • Variable-ratio (VR): Reinforcement after an average number of responses.
• Intermittent reinforcement: Reinforcement not delivered after every response.

Shaping

• Shaping: Learning through reinforcement of successive approximations to a desired behavior.

Cognitive Element of Operant Conditioning

• Latent learning: Learning that is not immediately obvious but becomes apparent later.
• Cognitive map: Mental representation of the environment.

Neural Elements of Operant Conditioning

• Pleasure centers: Regions in the brain associated with reward.

Observational Learning

• Observational learning: Learning by watching others.
• Mirror neurons: Cells that fire both when performing an action and watching another perform the same action.