Psychology 1115 Chapter 7: Learning – Flashcards
Unlock all answers in this set
Unlock answersquestion
Adaptability
answer
Our capacity to learn new behaviours that help us cope with changing circumstances.
question
Learning
answer
The process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviours. By learning, we humans are able to adapt to our environments.
question
Associative Learning
answer
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).
question
Stimulus
answer
Any event or situation that evokes a response.
question
Cognitive Learning
answer
The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others. i.e. We learn new behaviours by observing events and by watching others, and through language we learn things we have never experienced nor observed.
question
Classical Conditioning
answer
We learn to expect and prepare for significant events such as food or pain. We learn to associate two stimuli and thus anticipate events. We learn that a flash of lightening signals an impending crack of thunder; when lightening flashes nearby, we start to brace ourselves.
question
Operant Conditioning
answer
We typically learn to repeat acts that brings rewards and a avoid acts that bring unwanted results. We learn to associate a response (our behaviour) and its consequence. Thus we (and other animals) learn to repeat acts followed by good results and avoid acts followed by bad results.
question
We Learn by Association
answer
More than 200 years ago, philosophers such as John Locke and David Hume echoed Aristotle's conclusion from 2000 years earlier: We learn by association. Our minds naturally connect events that occur in sequence. Suppose you see and smell freshly baked bread, eat some, and find it satisfying. The next time you see and smell fresh bread, you will expects that eating it again will be satisfying. So, too, with sounds. If you associate a sound with a frightening consequence, hearing the sound alone may trigger your fear.
question
Learned Associations
answer
Learned associations often operate subtly. Give people a red pen (associated with error marking) rather than a black pen and, when correcting essays, they will spot more errors that result in lower grades. When voting people are more likely to support taxes to aid education if their assigned voting place is in a school. If it is in a church in the conservative south america, they are more supportive of a same-sex marriage ban.
question
Learned associations and habitual behaviours
answer
Learned associations also feed our habitual behaviours. As we repeat behaviours in a given context- sleeping in a certain posture in bed, walking certain routes on campus, eating popcorn in a movie theatre- the behaviours become associated with the contexts. Our next experience of the context then invokes our habitual response.
question
How long does it take to form habitual associations?
answer
To find out, one British research team asked 96 university students to choose some healthy behaviour, to do it daily for 84 days, and to record whether their behaviour felt automatic (something they did without thinking or finding it hard to do). On average, behaviours became habitual after about 66 days (2 months).
question
Other Animals And Association
answer
Other animals also learn by association. Disturbed by a squirt of water, the sea slug Aplasia protectively withdrawals its gill. If the squirts continue, as happens naturally in choppy water, the response withdrawal diminishes. But if the sea slug repeatedly receives an electric shock just after being squirted, its response to the squirt grows stronger. The animal has associated the squirt with the impending shock.
question
Complex animals and Association of Behaviour with Outcomes
answer
Complex animals can learn to associate their own behaviour with its outcomes. An aquarium seal will repeat behaviours, such as slapping or barking, that promote people to toss it a herring.
question
Animals and Associative Learning
answer
By linking two events that occur close together, both animals are exhibiting associative learning. The sea slug associates the squirt with an impending shock; the seal associates slapping and barking with a herring treat. Each animal has learned something important to its survival: predicting the immediate future.
question
Conditioning
answer
The process of learning associations is conditioning, and it takes two main forms: Classical conditioning and Operant conditioning.
question
Classical and Operant Conditioning Occurring Together
answer
To simplify, we explore these two types of associative learning separately. Often though, they occur together, as on one Japanese cattle ranch, where the clever rancher outfitted his heard with electronic pagers, which he calls from his cellphone. After a week of training, the animals learn to associate the two stimuli- the beep on their pager and the arrival of food (classical conditioning). But they also learn to associate their hustling to the food through with the pleasure of eating (Operant conditioning).
question
Cognitive Learning
answer
Conditioning is not the only form of learning. Through Cognitive learning we acquire mental information that guides our behaviours.
question
Observational Learning
answer
One form of cognitive learning, lets us learn from others experiences. Chimpanzees, for example, sometimes learn behaviours merely by watching others perform them. If one animal sees another solve a puzzle and gain a food reward, the observer may perform the trick more quickly. So, too, in humans: We look and we learn.
question
Why are habits, such as having something sweet with that cup of coffee, so hard to break?
answer
Habits form when we repeat behaviours in a given context and, as a result, learn associations- often without our awareness. For example, we may have eaten a sweet pastry with a cup of coffee often enough to associate the flavour of the coffee with the treat, so that the coffee alone doesn't just seem right anymore.
question
What are the basic components of Classical Conditioning?
answer
Ivan Pavlov and his early 20th century experiments are classics, and the phenomenon he explored we justly call classical conditioning. Pavlov's work laid the foundation for many of physiologists John B. Watson's ideas. In searching for laws underlying learning, Watson urged his colleagues to discard reference to inner thoughts, feelings, and motives. The science of psychology should instead study how organisms respond to stimuli in their environments. Simply said. psychology should be an objective science based on observable behaviour.
question
Behaviourism
answer
The view that psychology should be an objective science and that studies behaviour without reference to mental processes. Pavlov and Watson shared both a disdain for "mentalistic" concepts (such as consciousness) and a belief that the basic laws of learning were the same for all animals. Few researchers today propose that psychology should ignore mental processes, but most now agree that classical conditioning is a basic form of learning by which all organisms adapt to their environment.
question
Neutral Stimulus (NS)
answer
In classical conditioning, a stimulus elicits no response before conditioning.
question
Unconditioned Response (UR)
answer
In classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salvation) to an unconditioned stimulus (US) (such as food in the mouth).
question
Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
answer
In classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally- naturally or automatically- triggers a response (UR).
question
Conditioned Response (CR)
answer
In classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (CS).
question
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
answer
In classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), come to trigger a conditioned response (CR).
question
Pavlov's Experiment
answer
Pavlov's direction in research came from an incidental observation. Without fail, putting food in a dogs mouth caused the animal to salivate. Moreover, the dog began to salivate not only to the taste of the food, but also at the mere sight of the food, or the food dish, or the person delivering the food, or event he sound of that persons approaching footsteps. At first, Pavlov considered these psychic secretions an annoyance- until he realized they pointed to a simple but important form of learning. To eliminate possible influences they isolated the dog in a small room, secured it in a harness, and attached a device to divert its saliva to a measuring instrument. From the next room, they presented food- first by sliding in a bowl, altering by blowing meat powder into the dogs mouth at a precise moment. They then paired various natural stimuli (NS)- the events the dog could see or hear but didn't associate with food- with food in the dogs mouth. Just before placing food in the dogs mouth to produce salvation, Pavlov sounded a tone. After several pairings of tone and food, the dog, now anticipating the meat powder, began salvaging to the tone alone. In later experiments, a buzzer, a light, a touch on the leg, even the sight of a circle set off the drooling.
question
Pavlov's Experimental Findings
answer
A dog doesn't learn to salivate in response to food in its mouth. Food in the mouth automatically, unconditionally, triggers a dogs salivary reflex. Thus, Pavlov called the drooling an *unconditional response (UR)*. And he called the food the *uncontrolled stimulus (US)*. Salvation in response to the tone, however, is learned. Because it is conditional upon the dogs associating the tone and the food, we call this response the *conditioned response (CR)*. The stimulus that used to be neutral (in this case, a previously meaningless tone that now triggers the salvation) is the *conditioned stimulus (CS)*. Distinguishing these two kinds of stimuli and response it easy: Conditioned=learned; unconditioned=unlearned. He and his associates explored five major conditioning processes: acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination.
question
Acquisition
answer
In classical conditioning, the initial stage, when unlinks a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response. To understand that acquisition, or initial learning, of the stimulus-response relationship, Pavlov and his associates lad to confront he question of timing: How much time should elapse between presenting the NS (tone, light, touch) and the US (the food)? In most cases not much- half a second usually works well. Classical conditioning is biologically adaptive because it helps human and other animals prepare for good or bad events.
question
Higher-Order Conditioning
answer
A procedure in which the conditioned stimulus is one conditioning experience paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus. For example, an animal that has learned that a tone predicts food might then learn that a light predicts the tone and then begin responding to the light alone (Also called second-order conditioning). A new neutral stimulus can become a new controlled stimulus. All that required is for it to become associated with a previously conditioned stimulus. Although this higher-order conditioning tends to be weaker than first-order conditioning, it influences our everyday lives. Imagine that something makes us very afraid (perhaps a guard dog associated with a previous dog bite). If something else, such as the sound of a dog barking, brings to mind that guard dog, the bark alone may make us feel a little afraid.
question
Extinction
answer
The diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (US) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced.
question
Spontaneous Recovery
answer
The reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response.
question
Acquisition and the Japanese Quail
answer
Recent research on the male Japanese Quail hows how a conditioned stimulus can signal another biological event. Just before presenting a sexually approachable female quail, the researchers turned on a red light. Over time, as the red light continued to herald the females arrival, the light caused the male quail to become excited. They developed a preference for their cages red-light district, and when a female appeared, they mated with her more quickly and released more semen and sperm. All in all, the quails capacity for classical conditioning gives it a reproductive edge.
question
Acquisition and Humans
answer
Objects, smells, and sights associated with sexual pleasure- even a geometric figure in one experiment- can become conditioned stimuli for sexual arousal. Onion breath does not usually produce sexual arousal. But when repeatedly paired with a passionate kiss, it can become a conditioned stimulus and do just that. The larger lesson: Conditioning helps animals survive and reproduce- by responding to cues that help gain food, avoid dangers, locate mates, and produce offspring.
question
If the aroma of cake baking sets your mouth to watering, what is the US? CS? CR?
answer
The cake (and its taste) are the US. The associated aroma is the CS. Salvation to the response is the CR.
question
Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery
answer
What would happen, Pavlov wondered, if after conditioning, the controlled stimulus (CS) occurred repeatedly without the uncontrolled stimulus (US). If the tone sounded again and again, but no food appeared, would the tone still trigger salvation? The answer was mixed. The dogs salvaged less and less, a reaction known as extinction, the dished response that occurs when the CS (tone) no longer signals an impending US (food). But a different picture emerged when Pavlov allowed several hours to elapse before sounding the tone again. After the delay, the dogs would begin salivating to the tone. This spontaneous recovery-the reappearance of a (weakened) CR after a pause- suggested to Pavlov that extinction was suppressing the CR rather than eliminating it.
question
Idealized curve of acquisition, extinction, and spontaneous recovery
answer
The rising curve shows that the CR rapidly grows stronger as the NS becomes a CS as it is repeatedly paired with the US (acquisition), then weakens as the CS is presented alone (extinction). After a pause, the CR reappears (spontaneous recovery).
question
Generalization
answer
Pavlov and his students noticed that a dog conditioned to the sound of tone alone so responded somewhat to the sound of a new and different tone. Likewise, a dog conditioned to salivate when rubbed would also drool a bit when scratched or when touched on a different body part. This tendency to respond ;bike-wise to a stoma similar to the CS is called generalization. Generalization can be adaptive, as when toddlers taught to fear moving cars also become afraid of moving trucks and motorcycles. And generalized fears can linger. One Argentine writer who underwent torture still recoils with fear when he sees black shoes- his first glimpse of his tortures as they approached his cell.
question
Generalized Anxiety Reactions
answer
Generalized anxiety reactions have been demonstrated in laboratory studies comparing abused with non-abused children. When an angry face appears on a computer screen, abused children brain waves are dramatically stronger and longer lasting. This generalized anxiety response may help explain greater risk of psychological disorder.
question
Stimuli similar to naturally disgusting objects
answer
Stimuli similar to naturally disgusting objects will, by association, also evoke some disgust, as otherwise desirable fudge does when shaped to resemble dog feces. Researchers have also found that we like unfamiliar people more if they look somewhat like someone we have learned to like rather than someone we have learned to dislike. (They find this by subtly morphing facial features of someone we've learned to like or dislike onto a novel face). In each of these human examples, peoples emotional reactions to one stimuli have generalized to similar stimuli.
question
Pavlov's Experiment with Generalization
answer
Pavlov demonstrated generalization by attaching miniature vibrators to various parts of a dogs body. After conditioning salvation to stimulation of the thigh, he stimulated other areas. The closer a stimulated spot was to the dogs thigh, the stronger the conditioned response.
question
Child Abuse Leaves Tracks in the Brain
answer
Abused children's sensitized brains react more strongly to angry faces. This generalized anxiety response may help explain their greater risk of physiological disorder.
question
Discrimination
answer
Pavlov's dogs also learned to respond to the sound of a particular tone and not to other tones. This learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus (which predicts the uncontrolled stimulus) and other irrelevant stimuli is called discrimination. Being able to recognize differences is adaptive. Confronted by a guard dog, your heart may race; confronted by a guide dog, it probably will not.
question
Pavlov's Legacy
answer
Most psychologists agree that classical conditioning is basic form of learning. Judged by todays knowledge of the interplay of our biology, psychology, and social-culteral environment, Pavlov's ideas were incomplete.
question
Why does Pavlov's work remain so important?
answer
If he had merely taught us that old dogs can learn new tricks, his experiments would have long ago been forgotten. The importance lies in his findings: Many other responses to many other stimuli can be classically conditioned in many other organisms- in fact, in every species tested, from earthworms to fish to dogs to monkeys to people. Thus, classical conditioning is one way that virtually all organisms learn to adapt to their environment.
question
Pavlov's Legacy and objective learning
answer
Pavlov showed us how a process such as learning can be studied objectively. he was proud that his method involved virtually no subjective judgements or guesses about what went on in a dog's mind. The salivary response is a behaviour measurable in cubic centimetres of saliva. Pavlov's success therefore suggested a scientific model for how the young discipline of psychology might proceed- by isolating the basic building blocks of complex behaviours and studying them with objective laboratory procedures.
question
Applications of Classical Conditioning: Drug Users
answer
Former drug users often feel a craving when they are again in drug-using context- with people or in places they associate with previous highs. Thus, drug counsellors advise addicts to steer clear of people and settings that may trigger these cravings.
question
In slasher movies, sexually arousing images of women are sometimes paired with violence against women. Based on classical conditioning principles, what might be an effect of this pairing?
answer
If viewing an attractive nude, or semi-nude women (and uncontrolled stimulus) elicits sexual arousal (an uncontrolled response), then pairing the uncontrolled stimulus with a new stimulus (violence) could turn the violence into a conditioned stimulus that also becomes sexually arousing, a conditioned response.
question
Applications of Classical Conditioning: Body's Immune System
answer
Classical conditioning even works on the body's disease-fighting immune system. When a particular taste accompanies a drug that influences immune responses, the taste by itself may come to produce an immune response.
question
John B. Watson And Little Albert Experiment
answer
Pavlov's work also provided a basis for Watson's (1913) idea that human emotions and behaviours, though biologically influenced, are mainly a bundle of conditioned responses. Working with an 11 month old, Watson and Rosalie Rayner showed how specific fears might be conditioned. Like most infants "little Albert" feared loud noises but not white rats. Watson and Rayner presented a white rat and, as Little Albert reached out to touch it, struck a hammer against a steel bar just behind his head. After seven repeats of seeing the rat and hearing the noise, Albert burst into tears at just the mere sight of the rat. Five days later he had generalized this startled fear reaction to the sight of a rabbit, a dog, a sealskin coat, but not to dissimilar objects such as toys.
question
What became of Little Albert and Watson?
answer
For years, people wondered what became of little Albert. Not until 2009 did some psychologist-sleuths identify him as Douglas Merritte, the son of a campus hospital nurse who received 1$ a day fro her tot's participation. Sadly, Albert died at age 6, apparently from meningitis. People also wondered what became of Watson. After joining the J. Walker Thompson Agency as their resident psychologist, he used his knowledge of associative learning to conceive many successful advertising campaigns, including one for Maxwell House that helped make the "coffee break" an American custom.
question
Treatment of Little Albert
answer
The treatment of little Albert would be unacceptable by todays ethical standards. Also, some psychologists, noting that the infants fear wasn't learned quickly, had difficulty repeating Watson and Rayner's findings with other children. Nevertheless, Little Alberts learned fears led many psychologists to wonder whether echoed us right be a walking repository of conditioned emotions.
question
In Watson and Rayner's experiments, "Little Albert" learned to fear a white rat after repeatedly experiencing a loud noise as the rat was presented. In this experiment, what was the US? UR? NS? CS? CR?
answer
The US was the loud noise. The UR was the fear response. The NS was the rat before it was paired with the noise. The CS was the rat after pairing. The CR was fear.
question
Classical Conditioning and Operant Conditioning
answer
Classical conditioning and operant conditioning are both forms of associative learning, yet their difference is straight forward
question
Classical Conditioning
answer
Forms associations between stimuli (a CS and the US it signals). It also involves respondent behaviour - actions that are automatic responses to a stimulus (such as salivating in response to meat powder and later in response to a tone).
question
Operant Conditioning
answer
A type of learning in which behaviour is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if flooded by a punisher. Organisms associate their own actions with consequences. Actions followed by reinforcers increase; those followed by punishers decrease. Behaviour that operates on the environment to produce rewarding or punishing stimuli is called operant behaviour.
question
Law of Effect
answer
Thorndike's principle that behaviours followed by favourable consequences become more likely, and that behaviours followed by unfavourable consequences become less likely.
question
Operant Chamber
answer
In operant conditioning research, a chamber (also known as a Skinner box) containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animals rate of bar pressing or key pecking.
question
Skinner's Experiments
answer
Using Thorndike's law of effect as a starting point, Skinner developed a behaviour technology that revealed principles of behaviour control. These principles also enabled him to teach pigeons such unpigeonlike behaviours. For his pioneering studies, Skinner designed operant chamber, popularly known as a Skinner Box. Th box has a bar (a lever) that an animal presses- or a key (a disk) the animal pecks- to release the reward of food or water. It also has a device that records these responses. This design creates a stage on which rats and other animals act out Skinner's concept of reinforcement: any event that strengthens (increases the frequency of) a preceding response. What is reinforcing depends on the animal and the conditions. For people, it may be praise, attention, or a paycheque. For hungry and thirsty rats, food and water work well. Skinner's experiments have done far more than teach us how to pull habits out of a rat. They have explored the precise conditions that foster efficient and enduring learning.
question
Shaping Behaviour of a rat with successive approximations
answer
Imagine you wanted to condition a hungry rat to press a bar. Like Skinner, you could tease this action out with shaping, gradually guiding the rats actions towards the desired behaviour. First, you would watch how the animal natural behaves, so then you could build on existing behaviours. You might give the rat a bit of food every time is approaches the bar. Once the rat is approaching regularly, you would give the food only when it moves close to the bar, then closer still. Finally you would require it to touch the bar to get food.
question
Successive Approximations
answer
Reward responses that are ever-closer to the final desired behaviour, and ignore all other responses. By making rewards contingent on desired behaviours, researchers and animal trainers gradually shape complex behaviours.
question
Shaping and Discriminative Stimulus
answer
Shaping can also help us understand what nonverbal organisms perceive. If we can shape an organism to respond to one stimulus and not to another, then we know they can perceive the difference. Such experiments have shown that animals can form concepts. When experimenters reinforced pigeons for pecking after seeing a human face, but not after seeing other images, the pigeons behaviour showed that it could recognize human faces. In this experiment, the human face was a discriminative stimulus. Like a green traffic light, discriminative stimuli signal that a response will be reinforced. After being trained to discriminate among classes of events or objects- pigeons can usually identify the category in which a new pictured object belongs. They have been trained to discriminate.
question
Reinforcement example of Billy and his shoes
answer
Billy's whining is reinforced, because he gets something desirable- his dads attention. Dad's response is reinforced because it gets ride of something aversive- Billy's whining.
question
Reinforcement Example of teacher
answer
A teacher who pastes gold stars on a wall chart after the names of children scoring 100 percent on spelling tests. As everyone can then see, some children consistently do perfect work. The others, who take the same test may have worked harder than the academic all-stars, get no rewards. The teacher would be better advised to apply the principles of operant conditioning - to reinforce all spellers for gradual improvements (successive approximations toward perfect spelling of words they find challenging).
question
Reinforcement
answer
In operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behaviour it follows.
question
Shaping
answer
An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behaviour toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behaviour.
question
Positive Reinforcement
answer
Increasing behaviours by presenting positive reinforcers. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response. Billy's whining was positively reinforced because he got something desirable- his fathers attention.
question
Negative Reinforcements
answer
Increasing behaviours by stopping or reducing negative stimuli. A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response. (Note: Negative reinforcement is not punishment). Strengthens a response by by reducing or removing something negative. Billy's dads response to his whining was negatively reinforced, because it ended an adverse event- Billy's whining. Similarly, taking an aspirin may relieve your headache, and pushing the snooze button will silence your annoying alarm. These welcome responses results provide negative reinforcement and increase the odds that you will repeat these behaviours. For drug addicts, the negative reinforcement of ending withdrawal pangs can be a compelling reason to resume using. Negative reinforcement removes a punishing (aversive) event.
question
Positive and Negative Reinforcement Coinciding
answer
Sometimes negative and positive reinforcement coincide. Imagine a worried student who, after goofing off and getting a bad exam grade, studies harder for the next exam. This increased effort may be negatively reinforced by reduced anxiety, and positively reinforced by a better grade. Whether it works by reducing something aversive, or by giving something desirable, reinforcement is any consequence that strengthens behaviour.
question
Primary Reinforcer
answer
An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.
question
Conditioned Reinforcer
answer
A stimulus that gains it reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer; also known as a secondary reinforcer.
question
Reinforcement Schedule
answer
A pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforced.
question
Continuous Reinforcement
answer
Reinforcing a desired response every time it occurs.
question
Partial (Intermittent) Reinforcement
answer
Reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement.
question
Primary and Conditioned Reinforcers
answer
Getting food when hungry or having a painful headache going away is innately satisfying. These primary reinforcers are unlearned. Conditioned reinforcers, also called secondary reinforcers, get their power through learned association with primary reinforcers. If a rat in a Skinner box learns that a light reliably signals a food delivery, the rat will work to turn on the light. Th light has become a conditioned reinforcer. Our lives are filled with conditioned reinforcers- money, good grades, a pleasant tone of voice- each of which has been linked with more basic rewards. If money is a conditioned reinforcer, if peoples desire for money is derived from their desire for food- then hunger should also make people more money-hungry. In European research experiments, people were less likely to donate to charity when food deprived, and less likely to share money with fellow participants when in a room with hunger arousing aromas.
question
Immediate and delayed Reinforcers
answer
The imaginary shaping experiment in which you were conditioning a rat to press a bar. Before performing this "wanted" behaviour, the hungry rat will engage in a sequence of "unwanted" behaviours- scratching, sniffing, and moving around. If you present food immediately after one of these behaviours, the rat will more likely repeat the rewarded behaviour. But what if the rat presses the bar while you are distracted, and you delay giving the reinforcer? If the delay lasts longer than about 30 seconds, the rat will not learn to press the bar. You will have reinforced other incidental behaviours- more sniffing and moving- that inverted after the bar press.
question
Humans and Delayed Reinforcers
answer
Unlike rats, humans do not respond to relayed reinforcers: The paycheque at the end of the week, the good grade at the end of the semester, the trophy at the end of the season. Indeed, to function effectively we must learn to delay gratification. In laboratory testing, some 4 year olds shows this ability. In choosing a candy, they prefer having a big reward tomorrow to munching on a small one right now. Learning to control our impulses in order to achieve more valued rewards is a big step towards maturity. No wonder children who make such choices have tended to become socially competent and higher-achieving adults. To our determent, small but immediate consequences (the enjoyment of watching late night tv for example) are sometimes more alluring than big but delayed consequences (feeling alert tomorrow). For many teens, the immediate gratification of risky, unprotected sex in passionate moments prevails over the delayed gratification of safe sex or saved sex. And for many people, the immediate rewards of today's gas-guzzling vehicles, air travel, and air conditioning prevail over the bigger future consequences of global climate change, rising seas, and extreme weather.
question
How do different reinforcement schedules affect behaviour?
answer
In most of our examples, the desired response has been reinforced every time it occurs. But reinforcement schedules vary. With conditioned reinforcement, learning occurs rapidly, which makes this the best choice for mastering a behaviour. But extinction also occurs rapidly. When reinforcement stops- when we stop delivering food after the rat presses the bar- the behaviour soon stops. If a normally dependable candy machine fails to deliver chocolate bar twice in a row, we stop putting money into it (although a week later we may exhibit spontaneous recovery by trying again).
question
Real Life and Continuous Reinforcement
answer
Real life rarely provides continuous reinforcement. Salespeople do not make a sale with every pitch. But they persist because their efforts are occasionally rewarded. This persistence is typical with partial (intermittent) reinforcement schedules, in which responses are sometimes reinforced, sometimes not. Learning is slower to appear, but resistance to extinction is greater than with continuous reinforcement. Imagine a pigeon has learned to peck a key to obtain food. If you gradually phase out the food delivery until it occurs only rarely, in no predictable pattern, the pigeon may peck 150,000 times without a reward. Slot machines reward gamblers in much the same way- occasionally and unpredictably. And like pigeons, slot players keep trying, time and time again. With intermittent reinforcement, hope springs eternal.
question
Lesson for parents: partial reinforcement and children
answer
Partial reinforcement also works with children. Occasionally giving in to children's tantrums for the sake of peace and quiet intermittently reinforces the tantrums. This is the very best behaviour for making a behaviour persist.
question
Fixed-Ratio Schedules
answer
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses. Coffee shops may reward us with a free drink every 10 purchased. In the laboratory, rats may be reinforced on a fixed ratio of, say, one food pellet for every 30 responses. Once conditioned, animals will pause only briefly after a reinforcer before returning to a high rate of responding.
question
Variable-Ratio Schedules
answer
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses. That is what slot machine players and fly-casting anglers experience- unpredictable reinforcement- and what makes gambling and fly fishing so hard to extinguish when both are getting nothing from something. because reinforcers increase as the number of responses increases, variable-ratio schedules produce high rates of responding.
question
Fixed-Interval Schedule
answer
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed. Animals on this type of schedule tend to respond more frequently as the anticipated time for reward draws near. People check more frequently for mail as the delivery time approaches. A hungry child jiggles the Jell-O more often to see if it has set. Pigeons peck keys more rapidly as the time for reinforcement draws nearer. This produces a choppy stop-start pattern rather than a steady rate of response.
question
Variable-Interval Schedule
answer
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals. Like the message that finally rewards persistence in rechecking for email or Facebook response, variable interval schedules tend to produce slow, steady responding. This makes sense, because there is no knowing when the waiting will be over.
question
General Response Rates
answer
In general, response rates are higher when reinforcement is linked to the number of responses (a ratio schedule) rather than to time (an interval schedule). But responding is more consistent when reinforcement is unpredictable (a variable schedule) than when is predictable (a fixed schedule). Animal behaviours differ, yet Skinner (1956) contended that the reinforcement principles of operant conditioning are universal. It matters little, he said, what response, what reinforcer, or what species you use. The effect of a given reinforcement schedule is pretty much the same, Behaviour shows astonishingly similar properties.
question
Punishment
answer
An event that tends to decrease the behaviour that it follows.
question
How does punishment differ from negative reinforcement, and how does punishment affect behaviour?
answer
Reinforcement increases behaviour; punishment does the opposite. A punisher is an consequence that decreases the frequency of a preceding behaviour. Swift and sure punishers can powerfully restrain unwanted behaviour. The rat the is shocked after touching a forbidden object ad the child who is burned when touching a hot stove will learn not to repeat those behaviours. Some punishments, though unintentional, are nevertheless quite effective: A dig that has learned to come running at the sound of an electric can opener will stop coming if its owner runs the machine to attract the dog and banish it to the basement.
question
Criminal Behaviour and Punishment
answer
Criminal behaviour, much f it impulsive, is also influenced by swift and sure punishers than by the threat of severe sentences. Thus, when Arizona introduced an exceptionally harsh sentence for first time drunk drivers, the drunk driving rat4e changed very little. But when Kansas city police started a high crime area to increase the sureness and swiftness of punishment, the cities crime rate dropped dramatically.
question
Punished behaviour is Suppressed
answer
Punished behaviour is suppressed, not forgotten. This temporary state may (negatively) reinforce parents punishing behaviour. The child swears, the parent swats, the parent hears no more swearing and feels that the punishment successfully stopped the behaviour. No wonder spanking us a hit with so many U.S. parents of 3 and 4 year olds - more than 9 in 10 who acknowledged spanking their children.
question
Punishment and Discrimination in situations
answer
Punishments teaches discrimination among situations. In operant conditioning, discrimination occurs when an organism learns that certain responses, but not others, will be reinforced. Did the punishment effectively end the child's swearing? Or did the child simply learn that its not kay to swear around the house, though okay elsewhere?
question
Punishment and Fear
answer
Punishment can teach fear. In operant conditioning, generalization occurs when an organism's response to similar stimuli is also reinforced. A punished child may associate fear not only with the undesirable behaviour but also with the person who delivered the punishment or the place it occurred. Thus, children may learn to fear a punishing teacher and try to avoid school, or may become more anxious. For such reasons, most European countries and most U.S. states now ban hitting children in schools and child care institutions. Eleven countries, including those of including those in Scandinavia, further outlaw hitting by parents, providing children the same legal protection given to spouses.
question
Physical Punishment and Increased Aggression
answer
Physical punishment may increase aggression by modelling aggression as a way to cope with problems. Studies find that spanked children are at increase risk or aggression (and depression and low self-esteem). We know, for example, that many aggressive delinquents and abusive parents come from abusive families. Some researchers not a problem. Yes they say, physically punished children may be more aggressive, for the same reason that people who have undergone psychotherapy are more likely to suffer depression- because they had preexisting problems that triggered the treatments.
question
Parents of Delinquent Youths
answer
Parents of delinquent youths are often unaware of how to achieve desirable behaviours without screaming or hitting their children. Training programs help transform dire threats into positive incentives. Aren't many threats of punishment just as forceful, and perhaps more effective, when rephrased positively. Punishment tells you what not to do, reinforcement tells you what to do..
question
What punishment teaches
answer
What punishment often teaches, said skinner, is how to avoid it. Most psychologists now favour an emphasis on reinforcement: Notice people doing something right and affirm them for doing it.
question
Skinner's Legacy
answer
He repeatedly insisted that external influences (not internal thoughts or feelings) shape behaviour. And he urged people to use operant principles to influence others behaviours at school, work, and home. Knowing that behaviour is shaped by its result, he said we should use rewards to evoke for desirable behaviour. Skinners critics objected, saying that he dehumanized people by neglecting their personal freedom and by seeking to control their actions. Skinners reply: External consequences already haphazardly control peoples behaviour. Why not administer those consequences toward human betterment? Wouldn't reinforcers be more humane than the punishments used in homes, schools and prisons? And if it is humbling to think that our history has shaped us, doesn't this very idea give us hope that we can shape our future?
question
Operant Conditioning at School
answer
Computers have helped realize Skinner's goal of individually paced instruction with immediate feedback.
question
Operant Conditioning in Sports
answer
The key to shaping behaviour in athletic performance, as elsewhere, is first reinforcing small success then gradually increasing the challenge. Golf students can learn putting by starting with very short putts, and then, as they build mastery eventually stepping back farther and farther. Novice batters can begin with half swings at an oversized ball pitched from 10 feet away, giving them the immediate pleasure of smacking the ball. As the hitters confidence builds with their success and they achieve mastery at each level, the pitcher gradually takes steps farther away. Compared with children taught by conventional methods, those trained by this behavioural method have shown faster skill improvement.
question
Operant Conditioning at Work
answer
Knowing that reinforcers influence productivity, many organizations have invited employees to share the risks and rewards of company ownership. Others focus on reinforcing a job well done. Rewards are most likely to increase productivity if the desired performance has been well defined and is achievable. Operant conditioning also reminds us that reinforcement should be immediate.
question
Operant Conditioning at Home
answer
Notice people doing something right and affirm them for it. Give children attention and other reinforcers when they are behaving well. Target a specific behaviour, reward it, and watch it increase. When children misbehave or are defiant, don't yell at them or hit them. Simply explain the behaviour and give them a time out. Finally we can use operant conditioning in our own lives. To reinforce your own desired behaviour and extinguish the undesired ones there are 4 suggested steps: 1. State your goal in measurable term and announce it. 2. Monitor how often you engage in you desired behaviour. 3. Reinforce the desired behaviour. 4. Reduce the rewards gradually.
question
Respondent Behaviour
answer
Behaviour that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus.
question
Operant Behaviour
answer
Behaviour that operates on the environment, producing consequences.
question
How does Classical Conditioning differ from Operant Conditioning?
answer
Both classical and operant conditioning are forms of associative learning. Both involve acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination. But these two forms of learning also differ. Through classical (Pavlovian) conditioning, we associate different stimuli we do not control, and we respond automatically (respondent behaviours). Through operant conditioning, we associate our own behaviours that act on the environment producing rewarding or punishing stimuli (operant behaviours) with their consequences.
question
Classical Conditioning Summary
answer
Basic idea is that organisms associate events. Response in involuntary and automatic. Acquisition is associating events; NS is paired with US and becomes CS. In extinction the CR decrease when the CS is repeatedly presented alone. Spontaneous recovery: the reappearance, after a rest period, ofter an extinguished CR. Generalization: The tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the CS. Discrimination: The learned ability to distinguish between CS and other stimuli that do not signal a US.
question
Operant Conditioning Summary
answer
Basic idea is that organism associates behaviour and resulting events. Response is voluntary, operates on environment. Acquisition: Associating response with consequence (reinforcer or punisher). Extinction: Responding decreases when reinforcement stops. Spontaneous recovery: The reappearance, after a rest period, of an extinguished response. Generalization: organisms response to similar stimuli is also reinforced. Discrimination: Organism learns that certain responses, but not others, will be reinforced.
question
Biology, Cognition, and Learning
answer
From drooling dog, running rats, and pecking pigeons we have learned so much about the basic processes of learning. Biological influences include genetic predispositions, unconditioned responses, adaptive responses. Psychological Influences include previous experiences predictability of associations, generalizations and discrimination. Social-culteral influences include culturally leaned preferences, motivation affected by presence of others.
question
Biopsychosocial influences on learning
answer
Our learning results not only from our environmental experiences, but also from cognitive and biological influences.
question
Taste Aversion
answer
If you became violently ill after eating mussels, you probably would have a hard time eating them again. Their smell and taste would have become a CS fro nausea. This learning occurs rapidly because our biology prepares us to learn taste aversions to toxic foods. In contrast, birds, which hunt by sight, appear biologically primed to develop aversions to the sight of tainted food. This supports Darwin's principle that natural selection favours traits that aid survival. Our ancestors who readily learned taste aversions were unlikely to eat the same toxic food again and were more likely to survive and leave descendants.
question
Ecological Relevancy
answer
Something similar to stimuli associated with sexual activity in the natural environment, such as the stiffed head of a female quail. In the real world, conditioned stimuli have a natural association with the con conditioned stimuli the predict.
question
Learned Behaviours and Natural Selection
answer
the tendency to learn behaviours favoured by natural selection may help explain why we humans seem to be naturally disposed to learn associations between the colour red and sexuality. Female primates display red when nearing ovulation. In human females, enhanced blood flow produces the red blush of flirtation and sexual excitation. In an experiment men who viewed a supposed female conversation partner in a red rather than green shirt chose to sit closer to where they expected her to sit and to ask her more intimate questions. Women ted to perceive men as more attractive when seen on a red background or in red clothing.
question
Genetic Predispositions
answer
A genetic predisposition to associate a CS with an US that follows predictably and immediately is adaptive: Causes often immediately precede effects. Often but not always, as we saw in the taste aversion findings.
question
Limits on Operant Conditioning
answer
As with classical conditioning, nature sets limits on each species capacity for operant conditioning. We most easily learn and retain behaviours that reflect our biological predispositions. Thus, using food as a reinforcer, you could easily condition a hamster to dig or to rear up, because these are among the animals natural food-searching behaviours. The principle: Biological constraints predispose organisms to learn associations that are naturally adaptive.
question
Animals are Natural Athletes
answer
Animals can most easily learn and retain behaviours that draw on their biological predispositions, such as dog's inborn tendency to rely on all four feet for mobility and balance.
question
Cognitive Map
answer
A mental representation of the layout of ones environment. For example, after exploring a maze, rats act as if they have learned a cognitive map of it.
question
Latent Learning
answer
Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.
question
Intrinsic Motivation
answer
A desire to perform a behaviour effectively for its own sake.
question
Extrinsic Motivation
answer
A desier to perform a behaviour to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment.
question
Cognitive Processes and Classical Conditioning
answer
The early behaviourists believed that rats and dogs learned behaviours could be reduced to mindless mechanisms, so there was no need to consider condition. The more predictable the association, the stronger the conditioned response. Its as if the animal learns an expectancy, an awareness of how likely it is that the US will occur. Follow-up studies indicate tat conditioned likes and dislikes are even stronger when people notice and are aware of the associations they have learned. Cognition matters. Such experiments explain why classical conditioning treatments that ignore cognition often have limited success. In classical conditioning, it is (especially with humans) not simply the CS-US association but also the thought that counts.
question
Cognitive Processes and Operant Conditioning
answer
Children learn from watching a parent but demonstrate the learning only much later. There is more to learning than associating a response with a consequence; there is also cognition. The cognitive perspective has also shown us the limits of rewards: Promising people a reward for a task they already enjoy can backfire. Excessive rewards can destroy intrinsic motivation- the desire to perform a behaviour effectively and for its own sake. To sense the difference between intrinsic motivation and extrinsic motivation (behaving in certain ways to gain external rewards or avoid threatened punishment). Giving people choices enhances their intrinsic motivation.
question
Observational Learning
answer
Learning by observing others.
question
Modelling
answer
The process of observing and imitating a specific behaviour.
question
Mirror Neurons
answer
Frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. The brains mirroring of another's action may enable imitation and empathy.
question
Learning by Observation
answer
Cognition is certainly a factor is observational learning, in which higher animals. especially humans, learn without direct experience, by watching and imitating others. We learn our native language and various other specific behaviours by observing and imitating others, a process called modelling. By watching a model, we experience vicarious reinforcement or vicarious punishment, and we learn to anticipate a behaviours consequences in situations like those we are observing. We are especially likely to learn from people we perceive as similar to ourselves, as successful, or as admirable.
question
Theory of Mind and Brain Activity
answer
Children's brains enable their empathy and their ability to infer another mental state, and ability known as theory of mind. The brains response to observing others makes emotions contagious. Through its neurological echo, our brain simulates and vicariously experiences what we observe. So real are these mental instant replays that we may misremember an action we have observed as an action we have performed. But through these reenactments, we grasp others' state of mind. Observing postures, pass, voices, and writing styles we unconsciously synchronize our own with theirs- which helps us feel what they are feeling. Brain activity underlies our intensely social nature.
question
Prosocial Behaviour
answer
Positive, constructive, helpful behaviour. The opposite on antisocial behaviour.
question
Prosocial Effects
answer
People who exemplify nonviolent, helpful behaviour can also prompt similar behaviour in others. The observational learning of morality begins early. Socially responsive toddlers who readily imitate their parents tend to become preschoolers with a strong internalized conscience. Models are most effective when their actions and words are consistent. Sometimes, however, models say one thing and do another. To encourage children to read, read to them and surround them with books and people who read.
question
Antisocial Effects
answer
The bad news is that observational learning may have antisocial effects. This helps us understand why abusive parents might have aggressive children, and why many men who beat their wives had wife-battering fathers. Critics note that being aggressive could be passed along y parents genes. But with monkeys we know that it can be environmental. In study after study, young monkeys separated from their mothers and subjected to high levels or aggression grew up to be aggressive themselves. The lessons we learn as children are not easily replaced as adults, and they re sometimes visited on future generations.
