Chapter 8: Learning

Learning:
a relatively permanent change in an
organisms behavior due to
experience.

Q: How do we learn?
A: By association &
experience!

Our minds naturally connect events that

occur in sequence we associate them
and we then use these associations when
we experience similar situations.
Ex. You are walking quickly on a icy
sidewalk and you slip and fall. The next
time you see an icy sidewalk you are going
to walk more slowly and carefully.

Associative Learning:
Learning that certain events occur
together.
The events may be two stimuli (as in classical
conditioning) or a response and its
consequences (as in operant conditioning).

Why does it matter?

Humans & animals placed in new environments

will have trouble succeeding until they learn
appropriate associations and experiences.

Successful adaptation requires both nature (the

right genetic disposition) and nurture (a history
of appropriate learning).

Some humans and animals will never learn the

appropriate associations needed and will fail in
their environment.

In one study information was

collected from the Ontario Teachers
Pension Plan showing that from 1993
to 1999 20-30% of new teachers
withdrew from the pension plan with
less than three years of teaching
experience.

3 Types of Associative Learning

Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov & John Watson)

Learn

to expect and prepare for significant events like food and pain

Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner & Edward

Thorndike)
Learn to repeat acts that bring rewards and to
avoid acts that bring unwanted results

Observational Learning (Albert Bandura)

Learn

new behaviours by observing events

and watching others

Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)

Trained in animal physiology

He focused his work on 3 problems during his career;
-nerve functions of the heart
- primary digestive gland function (earned him a 1904
noble prize)
-conditioned reflexes

Pavlovs work provided the foundation for John B. Watsons

theory on human behavior.

Behaviorism: The view that psychology should

objective science, that studies behavior
reference to mental processes.

be an
without

Classical Conditioning
Definition
: A type of learning in which an organism
comes to associate stimuli.

Pavlovs Famous Experiment

Originated from his work in dogs and their

digestive glands.
Frustration

with psychic secretions

The dogs would begin to salivate when a

stimulus associated with food was present i.e.
the food dish, the assistant who usually
brought in the food, and their footsteps.
The salivating dogs disrupted his research, so
he decided to look into how the dogs learned
the associations.

Pavlovs Famous Experiment

continued

To

understand why this happened, Pavlov:

1)Gave the dog the food. The dog salivated.
2)Produced a tone. The dog did not salivate.
The tone was therefore neutral no response from
dog.
3)Produced tone before giving food. Dog salivated
because of food. (repeated many times).
4) Produced tone with no food. Dog salivated.

Outcome:
The dog now associated the tone with
food learned association between the

Pavlovs Terminology
To describe his observations, Pavlov used the following terms:

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): a stimulus that

unconditionally naturally & automaticallytriggers a response.
i.e. dog salivating to food in mouth (the stimulus).
Unconditioned response (UCR): the unlearned naturally
occurring response to the unconditional stimulus (UCS).
i.e. dog salivating (the response) to food in mouth.

Pavlovs Terminology
Conditioned Stimulus (CS): an originally irrelevant
stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned
stimulus (UCS) comes to trigger a conditioned response.
i.e. dog salivating to the tone (stimulus).

Conditioned Response (CR): the learned

response
to a previously neutral conditioned stimulus
(CS).
i.e. dog salivating (the response) to the tone.

Neutral stimuli

Neutral stimuli are those events or

items that produce no response
before conditioning

Check your understanding

Check for understanding - identify the UCS,

UCR, CS and CR.
Every time someone flushes the toilet
in my house, the shower gets very hot
and I have to jump out of the way.
Over time I learned to jump back as
soon as I hear the toilet flush before
the water temperature changes.

Every time someone flushes the toilet in my

house, the shower gets very hot and I have
to jump out of the way. Over time I learned
to jump back as soon as I hear the toilet
flush before the water temperature changed.

Unconditioned
UCS hot
stimulus:
water
Unconditioned
UCR jump
response:
back
Conditioned stimulus: CS toilet
Conditioned
flush
response:

Causes & Effects of C.C.

Pavlov found that there are 5 processes
that influence Classical Conditioning.

1) Acquisition initial learning of the stimulusresponse relationship.

The timing of the neutral stimulus to the

unconditioned stimulus is extremely important.
If the time delay is too long between stimuli,
the association will not happen.

Causes & Effects of C.C.

2) Extinction diminished responding that occurs
when the CS no longer signals an impending
UCS.
This means that associations can be unlearned.

3) Spontaneous Recovery reappearances of

a
weakened CR after a rest period.
Suggests that extinction sometimes only
suppresses instead of eliminates.

Causes & Effects of C.C.

4) Generalization once a response has been
conditioned for a stimulus, similar stimuli
elicit the same response.
Shows that C.C. is adaptive in nature.
5) Discrimination learned ability to
distinguish
between a conditioned stimulus and other
irrelevant stimuli.
Survival value.

Higher-Order
Conditioning

Here, a neutral stimulus (NS) can

become a new conditioned stimulus
(CS)
All

you need is to pair it with a previously

conditioned stimulus

A cranky teacher is associated with humiliation

in front of the class, the student is conditioned
to fear the teacher, later the classroom itself
will provoke the fear response

Famous Quote

Give me a dozen healthy infants, wellformed, and my own specified world to bring
them up in and I'll guarantee to take any
one at random and train him to become any
type of specialist I might select doctor,
lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes, even
beggar-man and thief, regardless of his
talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities,
vocations, and race of his ancestors.
-John B. Watson (1878-1958)

Watsons Little Albert Study

Albert was 11 months old and feared loud noises.

Watson presented him with a rat to play with.
And struck a hammer on steel rod every time
Albert reached for the rat.
Albert would soon burst into tears at the sight of a
rat.
Albert generalized this fear to other small animals
(rabbits, dogs).
Showed that humans are just as easily conditioned
as animals.

Really though, why does

Pavlovs work matter?

1) Many responses to many stimuli can

be classically conditioned in many
organisms (humans included); virtually
all organisms learn to adapt to their
environment

2)Pavlov showed us how learning can be

studied objectively

B. F. Skinner 1904-1990
Never took a university
psychology course before
enrolling in Harvards
graduate psychology school.
Behavioral Psychologist.
Famous for Operant
Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

Definition: Type of learning in which

behavior is strengthened if followed by a
reinforcer or diminished if followed by a
punishment.

Skinners work

Skinner used Edward Thorndikes Law of effect

as a basis for his work.
Law of effect: rewarded behavior is likely to
recur.

Skinner developed the Operant Chamber

(Skinner Box) to conduct his work in.
Skinner Box soundproof box, with a bar or
key that an animal presses to release a
reward of food or water.

Skinner Box

Skinners Work

Skinner put pigeons or rats in his operant

chamber.

Inside the box, the animal had to learn to

press a bar for food or water.
The 1st time the animal pressed the bar, it
was probably an accident, but received the
food.
Gradually the animal learned that the bar
was the source of food.

Operant Conditioning
Hunger
Rat

Stimulus

Receives Food
Reinforcer of behavior

Presses
Bar
Response
to Stimulus

Timing is very
important as after
30 seconds you
will not be
reinforcing the
behaviour you
want to affect

Skinner & Shaping

Skinners

work explored the conditions

that foster efficient and enduring learning.
He used shaping to achieve his results.

Shaping (aka successive approximation)

reinforcers guide behavior toward closer approximations of

a desired goal.

Psychologists can use shaping to see

what animals perceive.
Ex. Pigeons have been trained to distinguish
between Bach & Stravinsky.

https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=2HNn0wgZG0A

Reinforcement
Reinforcement: any event that strengthens the
behavior.

Positive Reinforcement: innately reinforcing

stimulus, such as one that satisfies a
biological need think of it as adding a
positive.
Negative reinforcement: a reinforcement
strategy where an aversive stimulus is
removed and this increases a desired
behaviour think of it as taking away a
negative

Punishment
Punishment: an event that decreases the behavior that it follows. Usually by administering an
undesirable consequence (positive punishment) or withdrawing a desirable one (negative
punishment).
Think of it in terms of adding something you dont like like writing lines, or taking away something good, like your
phone

Which is it?

Reinforcement
Conditioned reinforcement: a stimulus that
gains its reinforcing power through its
association with a primary reinforcer or
secondary reinforcer.
hyperlink

Which is the primary reinforcer

and which is the secondary
reinforcer?

Reinforcement
Conditioned reinforcement: a stimulus that
gains its reinforcing power through its
association with a primary reinforcer or
secondary reinforcer.
Primary is biological ex. food, drink, and
pleasure
Secondary is conditioned ex. money, grades
in schools, and tokens

hyperlink

Reinforcement Schedules
1)

Continuous reinforcement: desired

response is rewarded every time it occurs

2) Partial (intermittent) reinforcement:

responses are only sometimes reinforced
and results in slower acquisition but has
greater resistance to extinction
There

are four types of partial reinforcement

Types of Partial
Reinforcement
1) Fixed-ratio schedules: reinforced behavior
after a set number of responses.
i.e. Piece work.

Types of Partial
Reinforcement
2) Variable ratio schedules: provides reinforcer
with an unpredictable number of responses.
i.e. gambling

Types of Partial Reinforcement

3) Fixed-interval schedules: reinforces
the first response after a fixed
time period.
i.e. weekly quizzes

4) Variable-interval schedules:
reinforces the first response
after a varying time period.
i.e. pop quizzes

Name it!

Add desirable
Positive reinforcement

Remove desirable
Negative punishment

Remove aversive
Negative reinforcement

Add aversive
Positive punishment

Punishment Should you

spank your children?

Punished behavior is not forgotten, it is only

suppressed
The suppression reinforces the punishers
behavior
The punished behavior usually reappears in a
safe setting, away from the punisher
Physical Punishment may increase
aggressiveness by demonstrating that
aggression is a way to cope with problems

Crash course

Skinner
Died believing that cognitive processes thoughts,
perceptions, expectations do not have a place in
psychology.
He believed that thoughts and emotions are behaviors
that followed the same laws as other behaviors.
He is criticized for his dehumanized view but added a
great deal to psychology.

Applying Psychology: Token

Economy

A token economy is an operant

conditioning procedure that rewards
a desired behaviour in order to
create behavioural change
Earn

tokens that can later be exchanged

for privileges or treats

Applying Psychology:
Systematic Desensitization

Applying Psychology:
Flooding

Seen in terms of phobia treatment

a

phobia is an unreasoning fear to a nondangerous thing or situation

Somehow this non-dangerous thing has

become associated with the panic response
usually associated with mortal danger. The
idea is that by forcing the phobic to confront
their fear individuals will learn that there is
nothing dangerous about it.

Flooding

Major Assignment #2 (3)

Decide upon a behaviour you want to

change and create a token economy
for yourself.

Set the reinforcement schedule,

choose the reinforcer and set the
goal

Overjustification where
reinforcement falls down
Overjustification effect: promising a reward for
doing what one already likes to do.
The person then sees the reward, rather than
intrinsic motivation for performing the task.

Motivation
Intrinsic motivation: desire to perform a behavior
for its own sake and to be effective.

Extrinsic motivation: desire to perform a behavior

due to promised rewards or threats of punishment.

Albert Bandura

Canadian.
Born 1925 in Northern Alberta.
B.A. in Psychology from UBC 1949.
Continues to work at Stanford U.
Was president of the APA 1973.
Behavioral Psychologist.

Learning by Observation
Definition: Learning by observing others.

Modeling: process of observing and

imitating a specific behavior.

Banduras View
Learning would be exceedingly
laborious not to mention hazardous,
if people had to rely solely on the
effect of their own actions to inform
them what to do

Brain & Observation

Mirror Neurons: frontal lobe neurons
that fire when performing certain
actions or when observing another
doing so.
The Brains mirroring of anothers
action may enable imitation,
language learning and empathy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=zerCK0lRjp8

The Good
Prosocial behavior: positive
constructive, helpful behavior. The
opposite of antisocial behavior.
Ex. Charity, volunteering, helping &
general good behavior & deeds.

The Bad Television

Television is blamed for being a bad
role model for people.
This is mostly because of the amount
of violence and loose morals.

Television
How do they study the effects of T.V. on Children?
One way is for researchers go to remote places without
T.V., observe the children and return again once they
receive TV

These studies have huge problems with their methodology.

Problems in population size, recruiting factors, cultural
differences, socioeconomic factors etc.

Researchers also do correlational research looking at

time spent watching tv and behavioural/social outcomes

Longitudinal studies are always problematic and the actual

amount of T.V. watched is normally unknown.

Television is bad..

TV raises the aggression levels in children (Josephson,

1987)

Women who watched violent TV as children were found to

have punched, beaten, or choked another adult over
four times the rate of other women (Huesmann et al.,
2003 )

Television violence is as strongly correlated with

aggressive behavior as any other behavioral variable that
has been measured (Murray, 2003 )

Television is not so bad . . .

there is little evidence to suggest that a heavier

diet of TV violence is linked to concurrent levels of
antisocial behavior (Gunter, 2000)
in only rare and artificial circumstances that a
stimulus such as television would modify ones
behavior (Ashworth et al., 1985).
70% of the subjects felt that television broadens
the minds of children and exposes them to new
ideas and concepts and generally increases their
overall knowledge (Bybee et al. 1985).

Some critical considerations:

Television
Think about certain research issues:
Researchers are selecting the violent content
shown to participants and the children are
watching something they may would not
pick for themselves.
As a result it creates an artificial form of aggression.

Television violence may momentarily

increase aggression, but long term effects
have not been found when it has been
introduced to a new population.

Some critical considerations:

Television
Think about certain research issues:
This outcome was not expected as the idea of
television creating aggressive children is both
widespread and common.
Like all people, some children are prone to being
aggressive and violent naturally and factors
such as society, socioeconomic class and
relationships with parents should be examined
before placing all of the blame on television.