Types of Reflexes, Instincts, and Learned Behaviors

Types of Behaviors

• Reflexes are inevitable and involuntary responses to stimuli.
• In-born behaviors are instinctive patterns triggered by specific environmental stimuli.
• Learned behaviors result from experience, causing a relatively permanent change in behavior.

Reflexes

• Withdrawal reflex is a lifelong and functional response (e.g., withdrawing from pain).
• Grasping reflex disappears over time.
• Pilomotor reflex (goosebumps) is no longer useful.

In-born Behavior (Instincts)

• Instincts are inborn patterns elicited by specific environmental stimuli
• Yawing is an example of a human instinct.

Learning

• Learning involves a relatively permanent change in behavior or the capacity for behavior due to experience.
• Associative learning occurs when a subject links certain events, behaviors, or stimuli together through conditioning, including classical and operant conditioning.
• Non-associative learning involves changes in the magnitude of responses to a single stimulus, with habituation and sensitization.
• Observational learning

Non-Associative Learning

• Involves changes in the magnitude of responses to a single stimulus rather than forming connections between stimuli.

Habituation

• This is a decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated exposure.
• Emotional responses to violent images may habituate, leading to tolerance for violent behavior with exposure to violent media.

Sensitization

• This is an increased responsiveness to a stimulus.
• Repeated trauma can cause increased anxiety with exposure to related cues.
• Repeated use of certain substances can cause sensitization, increasing susceptibility to their effects.
• Those with phobias may become more anxious when repeatedly exposed to their feared stimulus.
• People with anxiety can experience sensitization, where exposure to certain triggers results in an increased fear response.

Associative Learning

• A learning style where unrelated elements become connected in the brain through conditioning.
• Helps predict the future based on past experiences, for example: If A happens, B occurs.

Classical Conditioning

• This process pairs a neutral stimulus with one that elicits a natural response, creating a conditioned response to the neutral stimulus.
• It involves associating two stimuli that occur subsequentially in time
• Ivan Pavlov is the proposer

Classical Conditioning Elements

• UCS (Unconditioned Stimulus) is a stimulus that leads to an automatic response (e.g., food).
• CS (Conditioned Stimulus) is a stimulus that was once neutral but now leads to a response (e.g., a ringing bell leading to salivation).
• NS (Neutral Stimulus) is a stimulus that doesn't initially trigger a response (e.g., ringing bell).
• UCR (Unconditioned Response) is an automatic response that occurs without thought when an unconditioned stimulus is present (e.g., salivation after seeing food).
• CR (Conditioned Response) is a learned response created where no response existed before (e.g., salivation after hearing the bell).

Classical Conditioning Phases

• Acquisition: the initial learning stage where a response is established and strengthened by pairing a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus. Contiguity (closeness in time) and contingency (correlation between the CS and the UCS) are important.
• Extinction: the decrease or disappearance of a conditioned response when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
• Spontaneous Recovery: the reemergence of a learned behavior after extinction. Extinction will rapidly return after spontaneous recovery if the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli are not re-associated.

Classical Conditioning of Inhibition

• A conditioned stimulus predicts the nonoccurrence of an unconditioned stimulus.
• In Jon B Watson's experiment, a child initially showed no fear toward a white rat, but after pairing the rat with loud sounds, the child cried in its presence.
• Classical conditioning can be applied to drug addiction recovery by repeatedly exposing an individual to triggers without the substance to weaken the cue-craving connection.

Generalization

• This is the tendency for a conditioned stimulus to evoke similar responses after conditioning.
• A dog conditioned to salivate at a bell sound may also salivate at similar sounds.
• A child conditioned to fear a white rat may also fear other fuzzy white objects, which can have a negative impact.

Discrimination

• This is the learned ability to distinguish between stimuli.
• A dog may receive food after a high tone but nothing after a low tone.

Higher-Order Conditioning

• This process allows for more distant predictions about significant events; for instance, a dog bite victim may fear the sight of the dog and related stimuli like the dog's yard or bark.

Latent Inhibition

• Slower learning occurs when a conditioned stimulus is already familiar compared to when it is unfamiliar.
• Example: Getting sick after eating pizza is less likely to cause taste aversion than getting sick after eating chocolate-covered ants.

Taste Aversion

• This involves avoiding a certain food following a period of illness after consuming it.
• According to Garcia and Koelling (1966), the types of stimuli used as CSs and UCSs matter.

Overcoming Phobias by Classical Conditioning

• Exposure theory involves exposing the patient to the anxiety's source to extinguish conditioned responses.
• Counterconditioning involves associating positive actions with the stimulus. It can be applied through aversion therapy, where a pleasurable stimulus is paired with an unpleasant one, or systematic desensitization, where people relax while being exposed to fear stimuli.

Addiction

• Classical conditioning can contribute to dependence on a drug or behavior.

Attitudes & Prejudice

• Attitudes are formed by associating products with stimuli like celebrities, influencing customer's attitudes toward the product
• Prejudice is a negative attitude about a group of people. Latent inhibition is a key factor where children with less exposure to other races may form stronger associations between unfamiliar races and negative stimuli like crime.

Creativity and Schizophrenia

• A symptom of schizophrenia is when patients make odd connections between ideas
• Reduced latent inhibition might account for a creative person's ability to see familiar things in new ways

Operant (Instrumental) Conditioning

• Formation of association between behaviour and consequences
• Targets voluntary behaviours

Types of Consequences

• Reinforcement increases behaviour frequency.
• Punishment decreases behaviour frequency.
• Positive involves the addition of stimuli.
• Negative involves the removal of stimuli.

Positive Reinforcement

• Increases behaviour frequency by adding a stimulus like praise or a bonus.
• Primary reinforcers motivate behavior by satisfying basic survival needs like food.
• Conditioned (secondary) reinforcers become effective through association with primary reinforcers, such as money or praise.

Negative Reinforcement

• This increases behaviour frequency by removing an unpleasant stimulus, like taking aspirin to escape a headache.

Positive Punishment

• A consequence that eliminates or reduces the frequency of a behavior by applying an aversive stimulus, for example electric shock.

Negative Punishment

• Reducing behavior by removing something desirable when the target behavior occurs, such as taking away a child's video game.

Limitations of Punishment

• Required conditions: significance, immediacy, and consistency. A weak punishment or lack of interest can lead to no behaviour change. Delays reduce effectiveness.

Schedules of Reinforcement

• Continuous reinforcement involves reinforcing a behavior every time it occurs.
• Partial reinforcement involves reinforcing a behavior some of the time

Types of Partial Reinforcement

• Fixed Ratio (FR) Schedules: Reinforcement occurs after a set number of behaviors, producing a steady response rate.
• Variable Ratio (VR) Schedules: Reinforcement follows a variable number of behaviors, leading to a high response rate and slow extinction. An example of this is slot machines.
• Fixed Interval (FI) Schedules: The first response following a specified interval is reinforced; response rates increase as the reinforcement time nears.
• Variable Interval (VI) Schedule: The first response following a varying period is reinforced, resulting in a fast response rate and slow extinction rate.

Partial Reinforcement Effect in Extinction

• Continuous reinforcement (FR) leads to rapid extinction. Partial reinforcement leads to slower extinction.

Method of Successive Approximation (Shaping)

• This increases the frequency of behaviors that rarely occur by rewarding similar behaviors.

Cognitive, Biological, and Social Influences on Operant Conditioning

Cognitive Influence

• Latent learning occurs without reinforcement.
• Rats can form cognitive maps of mazes, choosing paths that directly lead to their goal even without prior reinforcement

Biological Influence

• Instinct can hinder learning through conditioning known as "instinctive drift."

Application of Operant Conditioning

• Token economies use tokens exchanged for reinforcers to increase desirable behaviors.
• Behavioral therapy

Observational Learning

• This involves acquiring new skills or changed behaviors by watching others.
• Model: Is a person performing the action that the observational learner replicates
• Consists of attentional, retentive, reproductive, and motivational processes.
• Vicarious learning is experienced through the experiences of another.

Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

• Conducted with the aim of investigating if social behaviors can be acquired by observation and imitation.
• Children who observed an aggressive model made more imitative aggressive responses.
• Concluded that boys were more likely to imitate same-sex models than girls, with boys also imitating more physically aggressive acts.

Four Components of Observational Learning

• Attention: Observers must pay attention to their environment and are more likely to pay attention to models that are high-status or similar to them.
• Retention: Observers must retain or remember the behavior so they can reproduce the behaviour later.
• Motor Reproduction: The behaviour must be able to be reproduced depending on physical capacity.
• Motivation: An observer must be motivated to produce the desired behavior, learning the consequence by observing the model (vicarious punishment/reinforcement).