Learning and Behaviour Study Guide PDF

LEARNING AND BEHAVIOUR - A likert scale is the scale that asks you to measure something on a scale of something like 1-10 (note: it does not have to be from 1-10) example: how much do you like this week’s crumble cookies from a scale of 1-10? The problem with this is that people have...

LEARNING AND BEHAVIOUR - A likert scale is the scale that asks you to measure something on a scale of something like 1-10 (note: it does not have to be from 1-10) example: how much do you like this week’s crumble cookies from a scale of 1-10? The problem with this is that people have different concepts of what each number means. If one person rates a cookie a 7 it could mean something different than if another individual were to rate it a 7 - Behaviorism says behavior can be studied by itself. It sees behavior as caused by natural things, like genetics and the environment. It’s about how science should work, not about what the mind or consciousness is - Reflexes are something that is found in all members of a species.It is a connection between an event and a basic response to it - There are three primary laws of the reflex, 1) Law of Threshold: Nothing happens below a certain point, but above it, there’s always a response. 2) Law of Intensity-Magnitude: increase in stimulus intensity will also result in an increase in intensity of the response. 3) Law of Latency: the more intense a stimulus, the faster a response is elicited - Habituation is a reflex gets weaker or less likely when the same thing happens again and again, the simplest form of learning, like getting used to a ticking clock so you stop reacting to it - Fixed action pattern is a phylogenetic (evolved) behaviour, fixed action pattern is a series of behaviors that happen the same way in almost all members of a species when the right trigger is present. It is also called modal action patterns or species-specific behaviour - General behaviour traits are another kind of phylogenetic behaviour, this is any general behavioral tendency that is strongly influenced by genes - There are limits for natural selection, like it’s really really slow - Learning is when there is a change in behaviour due to the environment (enviroment is where stimuli is being encountered). There are some types of learning: habituation, respondent (classical/pavlovian) conditioning, and operant conditioning Respondent conditioning - Unconditional stimulus (US) is an antecedent stimulus that elicits the behaviour called the unconditional response (UR) without the need of any prior learning. For example the tap of the knee (US) leads to the kick of the leg (UR) - Unconditional response (UR) is the behaviour elicited by the antecedent stimulus without the need for any prior learning - The conditional stimulus (CS) is a previously neutral stimulus that acquires the ability to elicit a conditioned response when it is contingently paired with a unconditioned stimulus. For example in Pavlov’s dogs, the bell is the CS as it was rung before food (US) to produce saliva (UR), after a while the bell (CS) itself can produce saliva - The conditional response (CR) is the behaviour elicited by the antecedent stimulus called the CS. for example, the saliva produced by the bell (not the food) would be the CR - Generally speaking, more exposure to a stimulus will result in greater conditioning response, early exposure produces more learning than later exposure, and  conditioning/learning can occur at different rates; as food aversion can occur after only 1 exposure, whereas salivation of the dogs require numerous exposures - Delayed conditioning is a temporal relationship that occurs when the CS begins first and then the US overlap partially. An example would be when a dog sees a leash it knows that it is time for a walk and starts to get excited - Trace conditioning is a temporal relationship where the CS begins and ends before the US. for example when a bell is rung, it stops ringing before food is presented to them - Simultaneous conditioning is a temporal relationship where the CS and the US begin and end at the same time. Dog hears a bell and food is being delivered at the same time, the two are associated with each other - Backwards conditioning is a temporal relationship where the CS follows the US. an example of this would be a dog receiving food and then hearing a bell, it may not be effective - Respondent extinction is the presentation of a CS in the absence of the US. an example of this would be a bell being repeated rung without the presence of food, after a while the dog may stop salivating because there is no more food after the bell is rung - Spontaneous recovery is an increase in the intensity of the CR after respondent extinction has occurred and time has passed, it demonstrates that extinction is not simply forgetting what was learned. An example of this would be after the dog has stopped salivating when the bell is rung, randomly starts to salivate again after the bell is rung randomly - respondent/stimulus generalization is when an organism shows a conditioned response to a CS that it was not trained to do so. for example a dog who was trained to salivate when a bell is rung may salivate to other sounds like a a different bell, or something that sounds similar to it - respondent/stimulus discrimination is when an organism shows little to no response when the values of the CS are changed. For example a dog trained to salivate to a certain bell will not salivate to the sound of another bell - Higher order conditioning is when a neutral stimulus is paired with an already effective CS and then the neutral stimulus becomes CS2. an example of this would be pairing a flashing light with the bell that already produces salvation in dogs. First the light would flash, then the bell would ring (which has already been conditioned to produce salvation) and soon just the flash of the light would produce salvation - Aversion therapy is when a stimulus is paired with an aversive stimulus, an example of this would be to give medication to an individual suffering with alcohol addiction that makes alcohol have adverse effects on the body when consumed so they will develope an aversion to alcohol Operant conditioning - Operant conditioning to a behavior done to create or stop something. Stimuli following the response (giving dog a treat after he sits) - Reinforcement is the procedure of providing consequences for a behavior that increase or maintain the probability of that behavior occurring in the future - Reinforcer is any event of stimulus that follows an operant response and increases or maintains its future probabilty - There are two kinds of reinforcements, positive and negative. Positive and negative does not mean good or bad but rather to add or subtract (think positive and negative mathematically). positive reinforcement is the addition of a stimulus, for example if you get beat up (adding stimulus) walking home you will be less likely to walk down that road again. In negative reinforcement, a stimulus is being removed, a bad child getting the internet removed would be an example of this, once the internet is removed the child will be less likely to display behaviours that got the internet taken away - There are also two types of punishments, positive and negative punishments (which should also be thought of mathematically instead of good and bad), adding a stimulus is positive and removing a stimulus is negative punishment - Punishment is trying to DECREASE a behavior, if it does not decrease the behavior it is not a punishment - Discriminative stimulus is a stimulus or event that signals a reward is available. - Discrimination is the response happening more often when the stimulus is there than when it isn’t, like my dog is more likely to roll over when there is a treat for him then when there is no treat for him - operant/stimulus generalization is when an organism responds to values of the discriminative stimulus that are different than te originally trained values, dog learns to sit to the sound of one person’s voice but will begin to sit to the voices of other people - Operant extinction is when you stop giving rewards that encourage a behavior - Spontaneous recovery is when a behavior that was stopped starts again in similar situations after a while, repeated sessions of extinction (usually in multiple settings) are required to prevent spontaneous recouvery - An extinction burst is a short lived rapid burst in responding following the initial exposure to extinction, extinction can also produce aggression and a variability of responding - The reason why in this class late assignments are not accepted is because the prof would rather give out negative reinforcement (no grade or a zero) is because docking points off per day is just positive reinforcement but a less effective version of it - The schedule of reinforcement is a rule that describes the delivery of reinforcement, different schedules produce unique schedule effects which are the particular pattern and rate of behaviour over time, this can make behaviors more resistant to extinction - Shaping is the differential reinforcement os successive approximations of a target behaviour, for example if one wanted to train a rat to press a lever they would start to reinforce the rat when it approaches the lever, then after it does that we would stop reinforcing the rat when it approaches the lever but would reinforce the rat when it sniffs the lever, after it does that we would stop reinforcing the rat when it sniffs and when it starts to touch the lever with a paw and after it does that we would stop reinforcing the rat when it touches the lever and wait for the rat to press the lever for a reinforcement