PSYCH104-Learning (1) PDF

Behaviorism - Taking the “psyche” of of psychology - Likert Scale: “On a scale of 1-10 rate ___” - Subjective to the individual - Friend may rate their happiness a 6 but their perception of happiness may be different from another -...

Behaviorism - Taking the “psyche” of of psychology - Likert Scale: “On a scale of 1-10 rate ___” - Subjective to the individual - Friend may rate their happiness a 6 but their perception of happiness may be different from another - Assumes behavior can be studied for its own sage and that the causes of behavior (a natural event) only include natural phenomena - Views behavior as a function of evolved genetic and environmental forces - It is a pragmatic argument about how a science of behavior should be conducted - It is not a metaphysical position about the nature of consciousness or the mind - Behavior=f (Organism, Environment) - Organism is a shorthand way of referring to physiology, genetics, prior learning, etc. - Environment refers to current environmental stimuli being encountered Phylogenetic (Evolved) Behavior Reflexes: a relationship between a specific event and simple response to that event - Found in all members of a species - Highly stereotypic - Ex: pupillary reflex, salivary reflex, peristalsis, etc. - Not all are useful - Ex: peanut allergies, flashing lights causing seizures - Primary Laws of the Reflex 1. Law of Threshold ○ There is a point (threshold) below which no response is elicited and above a response always occurs 2. Law of Intensity-Magnitude ○ Increases in stimulus intensity (or magnitude), also increase the intensity (or magnitude) of the response 3. Law of Latency ○ The more intense a stimulus, the faster the response is elicited - Habituation: decrease in the intensity or probability of a reflex response resulting from repeated exposes to a stimulus that evokes that response - Habituation is perhaps the simplest form of learning - Fixed Action Patterns - A series of related acts found in (nearly) all members of a species - Occurs when the appropriate releases stimulus (or stimuli) is present - Also called Modal Action Patterns - Species-specific behavior - General Behavioral Traits - Any general behavioral tendency that is strongly influenced by genes  - Introversion, general anxiety, activity levels aggressiveness, drug abuse - Ex: Aggression—amount of aggression varies depending on the person - Evidence: selective breeding, gene knockout, twin studies Limits of Natural selection Slow process - not good for sudden changes in environment Learning means change - Learning: a change in behavior due to the environment/experience - Behavior has numerous measurable/objective dimensions which could change: - Frequency, intensity, speed, form/topography - Types of learning: - Habituation - Respondent conditioning - Operant conditioning Respondent (Classical/Pavlovian) conditioning - Classical Conditioning (Pavlovian Conditioning or Respondent Conditioning) - Unconditional Stimulus (US): an antecedent stimulus that elicits the behavior called the unconditioned response without the need of an prior history of learning - Unconditional response (UR): the behavior elicited by the antecedent stimulus called the unconditional stimulus without the need of any prior history of learning - Ex: Hitting knee (US), leg kicking (UR) - Conditional Stimulus (CS): previously neutral stimulus that acquires the ability to elicit a conditioned response when it is contingently paired with a unconditioned stimulus - the CS’s function is literally “conditional” on its relationship with the US - Conditional Response (CR): the behavior elicited by the antecedent stimulus called the conditioned stimulus - Probe trial (test trial): present CS alone (no US) - In general: more exposure = greater conditional responding - Early exposure produces more learning than later exposure - non-linear - Conditional responding is “asymptotic” - Conditioning/learning can occur at different rates - Ex: taste aversion can occur after only 1 exposure - Ex: salivation requires numerous exposures - Temporal relationships - delayed conditioning - The CS begins and US overlaps partially - The CS begins first - Generally the most effective method when CS-US interval is short (0.4-1 second) - CS-US interval = Time between CS onset and US onset  - Common in the real world - Trace Conditioning - S begins and ends before the US - Generally longer intervals between the CS and US produce weaker responding - Caveat: depends on the response being learned - Common in the real world - Simultaneous conditioning: - The CS and US begin and end at the same time - Less common in the real world - Less effective than Delayed and Trace conditioning - Backwards conditioning - The CS follows the US - Not effective, but can be demonstrated in a lab - Respondent extinction: presenting the CS in the absence of the US - Spontaneous recovery: an increase in the magnitude of the CR after the respondent extinction has occurred and time have passed - Demonstrates that extinction is not simply “forgetting” what was learned - Respondent/Stimulus generalization: when an organism shows a conditioned response to values of the CS that were not trained during acquisition - Produces a generalization gradient - Ex: dog level of salivation when a similar tone is played depending on the similarity of the original tone - Respondent/Stimulus Discrimination: when values of the CS, other than what was originally trained, elicit little to no conditioned response - Higher-order conditioning: a type of conditioning in which neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus (CS2) because of its contingent relationship with an already effective conditional stimulus (CS) - Also called second-order conditioning, and third order, etc. - Ex: A person afraid of bees may also be anxious around flowers - Aversion therapy: a therapy in which a stimulus is contingently paired with a noxious (aversive) stimulus - Feels of disgust and illness are conditioned toward a stimulus that is associated with unwanted behaviors - Ex: Disulfiram(antabuse)--used to treat alcoholics, blocks enzyme to process alcohol and makes you violently sick when you consume alcohol Operant Conditioning Operant conditioning: the study of how consequences affect behavior - Established by Thorndike in late 1800s, made refined and advanced by B. F Skinner in 1930s - Development of operant condition chamber (skinner box) - Chambers where animal is placed, animal can make simple behavioural response, when the correct response is emitted they get food - Function: behavior is emitted to produce/remove a stimulus - Controlling event: stimulus following the response - Reinforce: increased behavior - Ex: food - Increase frequency, duration, intensity, quickness, variability - Researcher can control whatever they are contingent on - Ways of reinforcing: - Add a stimulus + positive reinforcement - Ex: rat pressing a level for food - Remove a stimulus - negative reinforcement - Ex: rat repeatedly getting shocked and can only remove the shock by pressing the lever - Just because you reward a behaviour that doesn't mean you have reinforced it - Ex: dog MUST roll over every time you ask it to, or the treat is just a reward - Must test it–increase probability = reward being reinforced - Punish: decrease behavior - Ex: electric shock - If the behavior doesn’t decrease the behavior its not a punishment - Can be highly effective and work over long term when used properly - Drawbacks: - Only decrease behavior (does not teach new behaviors) - Will usually foster undesirable emotional responses - Ex: Aggression, fear, anxiety, crying, apathy, depression - Can foster subversive practices to escape punishment - Ex: lying, cheating - Imitation of the punisher - Ex: child that is hit at home may hit classmates - Ways of punishing: - Add a stimulus + positive punishment - Ex: beaten up a street–you don’t walk down that street anymore - Remove a stimulus - negative punishment - Ex: removing internet privileges for child misbehaviour - Stimuli that gets removed must be reinforcing stimuli - Discriminative stimulus: a stimulus/event that sets the occasion for reinforcement - signals that a behavior will be reinforced when it occurs - Ex: When rat pressing lever for food, scientist decide that lever pressing is only going to be reinforced when a light in the chamber turn on–therefore rat only presses lever when light is on - Discrimination: the effect of response being more likely to occur in the presence of the discriminative stimulus or event than its absence - The rat is more likely to press the lever when the light is on than when it is off - Light is said to be controlling the rats behavior  - Operant/Stimulus generalization: when an organism responds to values of the discriminative stimulus that are different than the originally trained values - Produces a generalization gradient - Operant extinction: the procedure of withholding reinforcers that maintain a behavior - Spontaneous recovery: the tendency for extinguished behavior to occur again in situations similar to those it had been previously reinforced after time has elapsed - Repeated sessions of extinction (usually in multiple settings) are required to prevent spontaneous recovery - Demonstrates that extinction is not simply “forgetting” what was learned - Extinction burst: a short-lived rapid burst in responding following the initial exposure to extinction - Extinction produces: - Aggression - Variability of responding Giving less reinforcement for a behavior is not negative punishment—-it is just less effective form of positive reinforcement Negative punishment requires the removal of a reinforcing stimulus the organism is already in possession of or has access to - The removal of x% per day is not punishing the behavior of handing assignments in late because you are not removing a reinforcer the student already has - Schedule of reinforcement: - A rule describing the delivery of reinforcement - different schedules produce unique schedule effects - Schedule effect: particular pattern and rate of behavior over time - Over the long-term effects are very predictable - Can make behaviors more resistant to extinction - Occur in numerous species (humans included) - Shaping: differential reinforcement of successive approximations of a target behavior - Training a rat’s lever press - 1. Reinforce approaches to lever - 2. Reinforce sniffing the lever - 3. Reinforce touching with paw - 4. Reinforce a full depression of the lever - Extinction of earlier steps can aid shaping because of the increased variability of behavior extinction produces