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What Is Psychology? Foundations, Applications, and Integration, 5e

Chapter 6: Learning

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Icebreaker: Discussion Activity

What do you think is the relationship between learning and memory?

Can you have one without the other? Why or why not?

What experiences lead to learning, or to memory, and what do you think the role of cognition, language, and intelligence play in our daily lives, if any?

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Chapter Objectives (1 of 4)

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

06.01 Define learning

06.02 Define and give examples of orienting reflexes, habituation, and dishabituation.

06.03 Describe Pavlov’s studies of classical conditioning.

06.04 Define classical conditioning and describe the factors that affect it.

06.05 Explain how classical conditioning occurs in humans.

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Chapter Objectives (2 of 4)

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

06.06 Describe the process through which classically conditioned responses are removed.

06.07 Describe how classical conditioning can be used to help people.

06.08 Explain Thorndike’s law of effect and the experiments that led to its discovery.

06.09 Describe the contributions that B. F. Skinner made to the study of operant conditioning.

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Chapter Objectives (3 of 4)

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

06.10 Describe the phases of operant conditioning, including acquisition and extinction.

06.11 Describe the factors that affect the process of operant conditioning, including schedules of reinforcement.

06.12 Describe discrimination, generalization, and shaping as they relate to operate conditioning.

06.13 Describe the decisions that must be made when applying operant conditioning in the real world.

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Chapter Objectives (4 of 4)

By the end of this chapter, you should be able to:

06.14 Describe the evidence supporting the idea that cognition plays an important role in learning.

06.15 Describe Albert Bandura’s Bobo doll experiments and their implications for real-world behavior.

06.16 Describe the process of observational learning and the role that cognition plays in observational learning.

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Section 6.1

Learning from the First Days of Life: Habituation

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Learning to Ignore: Orienting Reflexes and Habituation

Learning: A relatively permanent change in behavior, or behavior potential, as a result of experience.

Orienting reflex: The tendency of an organism to orient its senses toward unexpected stimuli. Example: the sound of a book being dropped.

Habituation: As the stimulus persists over time, we tend to respond less and less to it. Example: the sound of the air conditioner.

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Possible Benefits of Habituation: Protecting the Brain

Without habituation, we would reflexively respond to every stimulus we encounter, every time we encounter it.

Benefits of habituation

Respond to novel stimuli that may pose a danger, ignore stimuli that has been deemed harmless.

Protects our brain from overstimulation.

Protects nervous system from sensory overload.

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Dishabituation and Practical Applications of Habituation

Dishabituation occurs when an organism begins to reponed more intensely to a stimulus to which it has previous habituated.

Practical applications of habituation:

Can help people overcome chronic motion sickness.

Prolonged exposure therapy to treat those with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Enhanced habituation in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical axis through mindfulness-based stress reduction and cognitive behavioral therapies.

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Knowledge Check Activity 1

Which common type of learning enables you to respond to the potential dangers of novel stimuli while ignoring the stimuli you do not perceive as a danger?

Habituation

Classical conditioning

Operant conditioning

Observational learning

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Knowledge Check Activity 1: Answer

Which common type of learning enables you to respond to the potential dangers of novel stimuli while ignoring the stimuli you do not perceive as a danger?

a. Habituation

Without habituation, you would reflexively respond to every stimulus you encountered, every time you encountered it. You can respond to novel stimuli that may pose a danger, and you can also ignore stimuli that have been checked out and deemed to be harmless. Habituation gives you flexibility in that you don’t have to continue to respond to a stimulus.

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Section 6.2

Classical Conditioning: Learning Through the Association of Stimuli

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The Elements of Classical Conditioning (1 of 2)

Unconditioned stimulus (US)

Reflects an environmental event that elicits a reaction in an unlearned way

Neutral stimulus (NS)

An environmental event that does not produce the reaction being studied.

Conditioned stimulus (CS)

Involves an environmental event eliciting a reaction after learning has occurred.

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The Elements of Classical Conditioning (2 of 2)

Conditioned stimulus: Has the power to produce the conditioned response.

Classical conditioning: Occurs when a neutral stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus that reliably causes an unconditioned response.

Because of this association, the neutral stimulus takes on the same power as the unconditioned stimulus to cause the response.

Pavlov’s Classical Conditioning Procedure

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Factors Affecting Classical Conditioning

Many factors influence how well a neutral stimulus can be conditioned to elicit a response and for how long response will persist.

Contiguity: The time delay between the NS and the UCS. The shorter the delay, the stronger the conditioning.

Possible placements of the CS and the US in Classical Conditioning

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Consistency and Reliability: Contingency

Contingency: If the NS/CS reliably predicts the coming of the UCS, conditioning will be stronger. If not, it can undermine conditioning and lead to extinction.

Both continuity and contingency are necessary for strong classical conditioning.

Starting point for classical conditioning is a preexisting US-UR relationship.

First-order level: Naturally and reliably evoke unconditioned response without prior training.

Higher-order classical conditioning occurs when two stimuli are associated, resulting in a new, conditioned response.

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Classical Conditioning of Emotional Responses

Watson and Raynor used Little Albert experiment to show that classical conditioning could be used to condition fear responses.

Stimulus generalization: Occurs when stimuli that are similar to the CS can elicit the CR even though they have never been paired with the US.

Stimulus discrimination: Occurs when the CR occurs in response to a particular CS, but does not occur in response to other stimuli that are similar to the CS.

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Classical Conditioning of Physiological Reponses: Taste Aversion

Emotions are not the only responses that can be classically conditioned.

Taste aversion: Occurs when nausea is paired with a certain food and one becomes conditioned to feel ill at the sight, smell, or idea of the food.

Biological preparedness: Some psychologist believe genes give us the ability to learn taste aversion easily, to avoid poisonous plants and substances.

Aversion therapy uses classical conditioning to condition people to avoid certain stimuli. Can be used to control problems in human behavior, such as alcoholism.

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Discussion Activity 1: Pair-Share

Students pair up to discuss the following questions.

Do you know someone with a strong taste aversion? What may have caused it? How can this person learn to tolerate that taste again?

How does classical conditioning support the idea of taste aversion and aversion therapy?

Student pairs then share their answers with the class.

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Responses will vary by student. Conder the following example:

Psychologists have classically conditioned children to like healthful vegetables by pairing new vegetable flavors with the flavor of sugar to produce liking. After repeated pairings of the vegetables (NS/CS) with pleasant-tasting sugar (US), the children were conditioned to also like the vegetables (UR/CR). After conditioning, the children exhibited liking for the vegetables even when sugar was not present (Havermans & Jansen, 2007).

Similar approaches have also been shown to work in children with autism spectrum disorder, getting them to accept foods that they had refused to eat in the past (Meier, Fryling, & Wallace, 2012). So, if you ever find yourself struggling with a child who

doesn’t want to eat healthy foods, try pairing them with a food that they do like— perhaps even a little sugar!

Removal of Classically Conditioned Responses: Extinction and Counterconditioning (1 of 2)

Extinction: the removal of the conditioned response.

Can be brought about by presenting the CS to the participant without also presenting the US.

The degree to which a CR can be extinguished is affected by factors such as the context in which extinction takes place.

The Phases of Classical Conditioning

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Removal of Classically Conditioned Responses: Extinction and Counterconditioning (2 of 2)

Acquisition: The learning curve for the CR and the extinction curve for the CR.

Spontaneous recovery: A response that has been extinguished may be temporarily increase in the CR.

Counterconditioning: The process of conditioning the participant to have a different, incompatible response to the US.

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Knowledge Check Activity 2

Which of the following is an environmental event that does not produce the reaction being studied?

Unconditioned stimulus

Conditioned response

Neutral stimulus

Aversion

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Knowledge Check Activity 2: Answer

Which of the following is an environmental event that does not produce the reaction being studied?

c. Neutral stimulus

The unconditioned stimulus and response reflects an environmental event that elicits a reaction in an automatic, or unlearned, fashion.

Another important component is the neutral stimulus, which is an environmental event that does not produce the reaction being studied.

The conditioned stimulus and response involves an environmental event eliciting a reaction only after learning has occurred.

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Section 6.3

Operant Conditioning: Learning from the Consequences of Our Actions

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E. L. Thorndike’s Law of Effect

Operant conditioning: Our voluntary behaviors and how they come to be controlled by the outcomes they produce.

E. L. Thorndike proposed the law of effect.

Noted that behaviors that lead to positive outcomes will be strengthened while behaviors that lead to negative outcomes will be weakened.

Leads to the concept of reinforcement, which is a process by which actions are strengthened, as well as the opposite process of punishment, which is the weakening of an action.

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Four Consequences of Behavior

Reinforcement

Positive reinforcement: The behavior leads to the addition of something pleasant.

Negative reinforcement: The behavior is rewarded by the removal of something unpleasant.

Punishment

Positive punishment: Occurs when a behavior results in the addition of something unpleasant.

Negative punishment: The behavior leads to the removal of something pleasant.

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B. F. Skinner and the Experimental Study of Operant Conditioning

Skinner introduced the term operant conditioning to distinguish this learning from classical conditioning.

The animal makes a choice to respond to the environment in a certain way.

Each choice produces some type of consequence.

Skinner box was used to study operant behavior in a compressed time frame.

Organism is automatically rewarded or punished for engaging in certain behaviors.

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Discussion Activity 2

In playing electronic games, players are rewarded for their behavior in various ways. For example, gamer scores points for shooting the bad guy, gets to see the next level after successful play.

Players can also be punished. If you make a bad decision, your character might be killed or you may lose points or resources. You may hear a disappointed failure tone if you spell a word incorrectly, and so on.

What are the positive and negative impacts on behavior from these types of devices?

Does one form of response inspire you to work harder at the game? Why or why not?

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Responses will vary, but students should be able to use this example to distinguish between punishment and reward.

Acquisition and Extinction

Extinction: Occurs when reinforcers are discontinued and behaviors tend to disappear.

Extinction burst: The behaviors may increase at first after the situation changes, as the organism attempts to force the situation to resume the reinforcement.

When the rewards do not resume, extinction happens rather rapidly.

Acquisition and Extinction in Operant Conditioning

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Schedules of Reinforcement

Continuous reinforcement

Each instance of desired behavior is rewarded.

Typically does not modify behavior.

Unrealistic to reward desired behavior every time, making the continuously reinforced behavior is vulnerable to extinction.

Partial reinforcement

Rewards are given only after some instances of desired response.

Fixed ratio: reward given after every Xth instance of desired response.

Variable ratio: Rewarded on average for every Xth instance of desired response.

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Interval Schedules of Reinforcement

Fixed interval schedule

Organism is rewarded for the first instance of the desired response, after which a set interval of time must pass before another instance will be rewarded.

Once the organism has received its reward for an interval, it usually stops responding for most of the remainder of the interval.

Variable interval schedule

The length of the interval varies.

Produces a steady rate of response.

Produces behaviors that are more resistant to extinction than those produced with fixed interval schedules.

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Partial Reinforcement of a Rat in a Skinner Box

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Discrimination, Generalization, and Shaping New Behaviors

Discrimination

Occurs when the organism learns to distinguish among similar stimulus.

Offer a particular response only in situations in which reinforcement will be forthcoming.

Generalization

Occurs when the same operant behavior is emitted in response to different but similar stimuli.

Shaping

Build new behavior by rewarding successive approximations.

Instinct drift: The tendency to abandon a learned behavior in favor of a more instinctive response.

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Punishment or Reinforcement?

Reinforcement is often the safer, more effective route to control behavior.

Punishment doesn’t teach the correct behavior in a given situation.

Harsh punishment, especially physical punishment, has the capacity to teach aggressive behavior.

Punishment is often ineffective at producing behavior change.

Punishment often leads to negative emotional reactions.

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Alternatives to Physical Punishment (1 of 2)

Alternatives to physical punishment:

Explain the appropriate behavior and reinforce that behavior.

Minimize situations that might tempt a child to engage in bad behavior.

Use punishment that really punishes.

Use punishment immediately after the bad behavior occurs.

Punishment must occur every time the bad behavior occurs.

Remain calm while punishing the child.

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Alternatives to Physical Punishment (2 of 2)

Nonphysical punishment methods:

Time out: The child must sit in a quiet place.

Restitution: The child must give something up.

Fines: The child must pay a fine.

Loss of privileges: The child loses a privilege.

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Nonpunishment Methods

Empathy training

Help the child understand and empathize with others.

The ability to empathize reduces the motivation to hurt others.

Ask the child to imagine how they would feel if someone too their toy.

Differential reinforcement of incompatible responses (DRI)

Child is rewarded for engaging in a desirable behavior.

Desirable behavior cannot be performed at the same time as the undesirable behavior.

Child is praised for sharing the toy instead of taking the toy.

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Primary and Secondary Reinforces

Primary reinforcer: a reward that is reinforcing in and of itself; that is, it does not have to be learned or associated with another reward.

Secondary reinforcer: a reward that gains its value through its association with a primary reinforcer.

Token economy: Reinforces desired behavior with a token of some sort that can later be cashed in for primary reinforcer.

Delay of gratification: Learning to forego immediate reinforcement in favor of waiting for a later, sometimes larger, reinforcement.

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The Role of Cognition in Learning

Learning is not something that occurs in an involuntary manner, even in classical conditioning.

Insight learning (Wolfgang Kohler): Sudden realization of how a problem can be solved even in the absence of trial-and-error attempts to solve it. An “ah-ha” moment.

Latent learning (Edward Tolman): Learning without an immediate demonstration that learning has occurred. Learning may not be evident until a behavior occurs at a later time.

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Knowledge Check Activity 3

Which type of operant conditioning schedule is most resistant to extinction?

Operant conditioning

Shaping

Punishment

Variable schedules

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Knowledge Check Activity 3: Answer

Which type of operant conditioning schedule is most resistant to extinction?

d. Variable schedules

Continuous reinforcement leads to high rates of responding but the quickest extinction. Ratio schedules of reinforcement lead to higher rates of responding than do interval schedules of reinforcement. Variable schedules of reinforcement lead to behaviors that are the most resistant to extinction.

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Section 6.4

Observational Learning or Modeling:

Learning by Watching Others

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Albert Bandura and the Bobo Doll Experiments

Children were assigned to watch one of these films.

Reward film: Children watching this film were most likely to beat up Bobo.

Punishment film: Children watching this film were more hesitant to beat up Bobo.

No consequences film: Children were equally likely to beat up Bobo as those who watched the reward film.

The Bobo doll experiments show that you don’t have to engage in a behavior or experience reinforcement for learning to occur. Secondly, learning can be latent.

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Observational Learning and Cognition

According to Bandura, modeling is a four-step process:

Attention: The observer must first pay attention to the model’s behavior before he or she can model it.

Retention in memory: The observer must retain a cognitive representation or memory of the model’s behavior.

Reproduction of the behavior: the observer must have a mental representation stored in memory that can be retrieved and used to reproduce the behavior.

Motivation: The observer must be motivated to actually execute the behavior.

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Knowledge Check Activity 4

How do observational learning and operant conditioning differ?

In observational learning, the person is less aware that learning is taking place.

In operant conditioning, the person is less aware that learning is taking place.

In observational learning, the person does not have to engage in the response.

In operant conditioning, the person does not have to engage in the response.

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Knowledge Check Activity 4: Answer

How do observational learning and operant conditioning differ?

c. In observational learning

Classical and operant conditioning theories cannot explain why a child would act out scenes from their favorite superhero cartoon on the playground hours or days after seeing the cartoon. Likewise, they cannot explain why children learned how to be aggressive toward Bobo before they were actually aggressive toward him. Because of such realities, Bandura concluded that cognitive processes must play a role in learning that is somewhat separate from the actual behavior.

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Section 6.7

Integrating Psychology: The Big Picture

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The Big Picture: Learning (1 of 2)

All of us have some capacity for learning. Learning is an important process through which we adapt our behavior to meet the demands of our environment.

Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior, or potential for behavior, as a result of experience.

We learn to ignore repetitive stimuli when we habituate.

Classical conditioning explains how we come to have particular physiological and emotional responses to certain stimuli.

And operant conditioning occurs when our behavior is shaped by the consequences it elicits from the environment.

We also have the ability to engage in observational learning by observing the actions of others and later modeling these actions in our own behavior.

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The Big Picture: Learning (2 of 2)

Learning is an important process through which we adapt our behavior to meet the demands of our environment.

Learning occurs as a result of experience.

We learn to ignore repetitive stimuli when we habituate.

Classical conditioning explains particular physiological and emotional responses to certain stimuli.

Operant conditioning occurs when behavior is shaped by the consequences it elicits.

We engage in observational learning by observing and modeling the actions of others.

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Self-Assessment

Can you identify the benefits of habituation, and dishabituation?

Do you understand Palov's experiments on classical conditioning and how we apply that knowledge today?

In which way does Thorndike’s law of effect manifest in how we train for acceptable behaviors?

How can you use operant conditioning to shape new behaviors?

Can you outline ways to reinforce and punish behaviors, and the advantages and disadvantages of each method?

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Summary (1 of 4)

Now that the lesson has ended, you have learned how to:

Define learning.

Define and give examples of orienting reflexes, habituation, and dishabituation.

Describe Pavlov’s studies of classical conditioning.

Define classical conditioning and describe the factors that affect it.

Explain how classical conditioning occurs in humans.

Describe the process through which classically conditioned responses are removed.

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Summary (2 of 4)

Now that the lesson has ended, you have learned how to:

Describe how classical conditioning can be used to help people.

Explain Thorndike’s law of effect and the experiments that led to its discovery.

Describe the contributions that B. F. Skinner made to the study of operant conditioning.

Describe the phases of operant conditioning, including acquisition and extinction.

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Summary (3 of 4)

Now that the lesson has ended, you have learned how to:

Describe the factors that affect the process of operant conditioning, including schedules of reinforcement.

Describe discrimination, generalization, and shaping as they relate to operant conditioning.

Describe the decisions that must be made when applying operant conditioning in the real world.

Describe the evidence supporting the idea that cognition plays an important role in learning.

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Summary (4 of 4)

Now that the lesson has ended, you have learned how to:

Describe Albert Bandura’s Bobo doll experiments and their implications for real-world behavior.

Describe the process of observational learning and the role that cognition plays in observational learning.

psy 210

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