Psychology Essay 5

owanaba

WADE_PPT_07.pdf

Home >Psychology homework help >Psychology Essay 5

Psychology Twelfth Edition

Chapter 7 Learning and

Conditioning

Classical Conditioning

• LO 7.1.A List and explain each of the four key elements

that make classical conditioning take place.

• LO 7.1.B Discuss the basic principles of classical

conditioning, including the extinction and recovery of a

classically conditioned response, how higher-order

conditioning takes place, and the process of stimulus

generalization and discrimination.

• LO 7.1.C Explain why the stimulus to be conditioned should

precede the unconditioned stimulus in order for classical

conditioning to take place.

New Reflexes from Old (1 of 4)

• Classical conditioning was first studied by Russian

physiologist Ivan Pavlov.

• Conditioning refers to a basic kind of learning

based on association.

• In this type of learning, a neutral stimulus is paired

with an unconditioned stimulus (US) that already

elicits a certain unconditioned response (UR).

• The neutral stimulus becomes associated with the

US.

New Reflexes from Old (2 of 4)

• The neutral stimulus then becomes a conditioned

stimulus (CS).

• It has the capacity to elicit a conditioned response

(CR) that is similar or related to the UR.

• Pavlov showed that all sorts of things became

conditioned stimuli for salivation if paired with

food.

– sounds like ticking metronome, bell, buzzer

– touches on leg; pinprick or electric shock

New Reflexes from Old (3 of 4)

Figure 7.1

Pavlov’s Method

New Reflexes from Old (4 of 4)

Page 224

Principles of Classical Conditioning (1 of 5)

• In extinction, the conditioned stimulus is

repeatedly presented without the unconditioned

stimulus.

• The conditioned response eventually disappears,

although later it may reappear (spontaneous

recovery).

• Reappearance shows why more than one

extinction session is often required.

Principles of Classical Conditioning (2 of 5)

• In higher-order conditioning, a neutral stimulus

becomes a conditioned stimulus by being paired

with an already-established conditioned stimulus.

• Higher-order conditioning may explain why some

words trigger emotional responses in us.

• It may also contribute to the formation of

prejudices.

– ethnic or national labels paired with disagreeable

words like “dumb” or “dirty”

Principles of Classical Conditioning (3 of 5)

• In stimulus generalization, after a stimulus

becomes a conditioned stimulus for some

response, other similar stimuli may produce the

same or similar reaction.

– “He who hath been bitten by a snake fears a rope.”

• In stimulus discrimination, different responses are

made to stimuli that resemble the conditioned

stimulus in some way.

Principles of Classical Conditioning (4 of 5)

Figure 7.2

Acquisition and Extinction of a Salivary Response

Principles of Classical Conditioning (5 of 5)

Figure 7.3

Higher-Order Conditioning

What Is Actually Learned in Classical

Conditioning? (1 of 2)

• Many theorists believe that what an animal or

person learns in classical conditioning is:

– not just an association between the unconditioned and

conditioned stimulus,

– but also information conveyed by one stimulus about

another.

– “If a tone sounds, food is likely to follow.”

• Classical conditioning appears to be an

evolutionary adaptation that allows an organism to

prepare for a biologically important event.

What Is Actually Learned in Classical

Conditioning? (2 of 2)

• Considerable evidence exists to show that a

neutral stimulus does not become a CS unless it

reliably:

– signals or

– predicts the US

• Certain concepts open the door to a more

cognitive view of classical conditioning.

– “information seeking”

– “preconceptions”

– “representations of the world”

Classical Conditioning in Real Life

• LO 7.2.A Provide an example of how classical conditioning

takes place in forming preferences.

• LO 7.2.B Provide an example of how classical conditioning

takes place in avoiding fearful stimuli, and describe how the

process of counterconditioning takes place.

• LO 7.2.C Describe how classical conditioning is involved in

avoiding a food associated with aversive outcomes.

• LO 7.2.D Describe how classical conditioning can affect

reactions to medical treatments, including a patient’s

reaction to a placebo.

Learning to Like (1 of 2)

• Classical conditioning helps account for:

– positive emotional responses to particular objects and

events,

– typically through the pairing of a neutral stimulus

 a car, for example

– with a pleasurable stimulus

 an attractive spokesperson

 free trinkets

 cold hard cash

Learning to Like (2 of 2)

Page 229

Learning to Fear (1 of 4)

• Positive emotions are not the only ones that can

be classically conditioned; so can dislikes and

fears.

• A person can learn to fear just about anything if it

is paired with something that elicits:

– pain

– surprise

– embarrassment

• When fear becomes irrational and interferes with

normal activities, it qualifies as a phobia.

Learning to Fear (2 of 4)

• John Watson showed how fears may be learned

and then may be unlearned through a process of

counterconditioning.

– “Little Albert” and rats

– Peter and rabbits

• Work on classical conditioning is now integrating

findings on:

– fear

– learning

– biology

Learning to Fear (3 of 4)

• The amygdala plays a central role in the

conditioning of fear.

• A drug can be used to enhance the activity of a

certain receptor in the amygdala.

• This activity speeds up the extinction of a phobia

during virtual-reality treatments.

– Example: fear of heights

Learning to Fear (4 of 4)

Page 230

Accounting for Taste (1 of 2)

• Classical conditioning can also explain learned

reactions to many foods and odors.

• Because of evolutionary adaptations, we are

biologically primed to acquire some classically

conditioned responses easily.

• These responses include conditioned taste

aversions.

– Note research with slugs, carrots, potatoes.

Accounting for Taste (2 of 2)

• Often a single trial pairing a stimulus with an

unpleasant outcome can produce aversive

conditioning.

– e.g., a desired meal followed by nausea

• Psychologists have utilized this phenomenon to

develop humane ways of discouraging predators

from preying on livestock.

– using conditioned taste aversions instead of traps and

poisons

Reacting to Medical Treatments (1 of 2)

• Classical conditioning can also account for

reactions to medical treatments.

• Treatments can create unexpected misery or relief

from symptoms for reasons that are entirely

unrelated to the treatment itself.

• Unpleasant reactions to a treatment can

generalize to a wide range of other stimuli.

• This is a particular problem for cancer patients.

Reacting to Medical Treatments (2 of 2)

• The stimuli themselves can elicit an aversive

response as the patient:

– associates neutral stimuli

 the color of a waiting room

 the smell of disinfectant

– with an unpleasant outcome

 nausea from chemotherapy, pain from an injection

• Patients may have reduced pain and anxiety when

they receive placebos.

– expectancy and classical-conditioning explanations

Operant Conditioning

• LO 7.3.A Discuss how Edward Thorndike’s

research served as the basis for operant

conditioning.

• LO 7.3.B Distinguish between reinforcement and

punishment and between a positive and negative

stimulus, and provide examples of positive and

negative reinforcement and punishment and

primary and secondary reinforcement and

punishment.

The Birth of Radical Behaviorism (1 of 2)

• In operant conditioning, behavior becomes more

or less likely to occur depending on its

consequences.

• Responses in operant conditioning are generally

not reflexive.

– such as the sight of food or the sound of a bell

• They are more complex than in classical

conditioning.

– riding a bicycle, writing a letter, climbing a mountain

The Birth of Radical Behaviorism (2 of 2)

• Research in this area is closely associated with B.

F. Skinner.

• Skinner called his approach “radical behaviorism.”

• An early study conducted by Edward Thorndike

set the stage for some basic principles of operant

conditioning.

– cats escaping a puzzle box

The Consequences of Behavior (1 of 7)

• In the Skinnerian analysis, reinforcement

strengthens or increases the probability of a

response.

• Punishment weakens or decreases the probability

of a response.

The Consequences of Behavior (2 of 7)

• Reinforcers are called primary when they are

naturally reinforcing.

• This is because they satisfy a biological need.

– food, water, light stroking of skin, air temperature

• They are called secondary when they have

acquired their ability to strengthen a response

through association with other reinforcers.

– money, praise, applause, good grades, awards

• A similar distinction is made for punishers.

The Consequences of Behavior (3 of 7)

• In positive reinforcement, something pleasant

follows a response.

– if you get a good grade after studying

• In negative reinforcement, something unpleasant

is removed.

– when taking a pill eliminates your pain

– when you take a certain route across campus to avoid

a rude person

The Consequences of Behavior (4 of 7)

• In positive punishment, something unpleasant

follows the response.

– if your friends tease you for studying

• In negative punishment, something pleasant is

removed.

– if studying makes you lose time with your friends

The Consequences of Behavior (5 of 7)

Page 235

The Consequences of Behavior (6 of 7)

Page 236

The Consequences of Behavior (7 of 7)

Page 237

Principles of Operant Conditioning (1 of 2)

• LO 7.4.A Describe the basic principles of operant

conditioning, including extinction and recovery,

stimulus generalization and discrimination,

schedules of learning and shaping, and some

biological limits on learning.

• LO 7.4.B Discuss some of the misconceptions

surrounding the work and ideas of B. F. Skinner

and, by extension, some of the misconceptions

surrounding the general goals of operant

conditioning.

Principles of Operant Conditioning (2 of 2)

Figure 7.4

The Skinner Box

Nina Leen/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images

The Importance of Responses (1 of 5)

• Operant conditioning shares many terms in

common with classical conditioning.

• Extinction, stimulus generalization, and stimulus

discrimination occur in operant conditioning as

well as in classical conditioning.

• However, operant conditioning focuses on how

responses to stimuli get reinforced.

The Importance of Responses (2 of 5)

• A discriminative stimulus signals that a response

is likely to be followed by a certain type of

consequence.

• Continuous reinforcement leads to the most rapid

learning.

• However, intermittent (partial) reinforcement

makes a response resistant to extinction.

– This helps account for the persistence of superstitious

rituals.

The Importance of Responses (3 of 5)

• Shaping is used to train behaviors with a low

probability of occurring spontaneously.

• Reinforcers are given for successive

approximations to the desired response until the

desired response is achieved.

• Using shaping and other techniques, Skinner was

able to train pigeons to:

– play table tennis with their beaks

– “bowl” in a miniature alley, complete with a wooden ball

and tiny bowling pins

The Importance of Responses (4 of 5)

• Biology places limits on:

– what an animal or person can learn through operant

conditioning, or

– how easily it is learned

• Operant-conditioning procedures always work

best when they capitalize on inborn tendencies.

• Animals sometimes have trouble learning a task

because of instinctive drift.

The Importance of Responses (5 of 5)

• In human beings, operant learning is affected by:

– genetics

– biology

– the evolutionary history of our species

• Human children are biologically disposed to learn:

– language

– some arithmetic operations

• Temperaments and other inborn dispositions may

affect how a person responds to reinforcers and

punishments.

Skinner: The Man and the Myth

• Operant conditioning is one of the mainstays of

learning theory.

• Its findings and conclusions have been

demonstrated repeatedly.

• As the sole explanatory system for why organisms

do what they do, however, it is incomplete.

• Skinner’s radical behaviorism was often

misinterpreted as a cold, mechanistic view of the

human condition.

Operant Conditioning in Real Life

• LO 7.5.A List and discuss six reasons why

punishment often fails to effectively change

behavior.

• LO 7.5.B Discuss reasons why rewards may

backfire and not produce their intended results for

behavior.

The Pros and Cons of Punishment (1 of 3)

• Punishment, when used properly, can discourage

undesirable behavior.

• An example is criminal behavior.

– Danish study

– consistency of punishment mattered most

• But punishment is frequently misused and can

have unintended consequences.

The Pros and Cons of Punishment (2 of 3)

• Punishment can fail because:

– It is often administered inappropriately because of the

emotion of the moment.

– It may produce rage and fear.

– Its effects are often only temporary.

– It is hard to administer immediately.

– It conveys little information about the kind of behavior

that is desired.

– It may provide attention that is rewarding.

The Pros and Cons of Punishment (3 of 3)

• Preferable to the use of punishment:

– extinction of undesirable behavior

– combined with reinforcement of desired behavior

• When punishment must be applied:

– should not involve physical abuse

– should be consistent

– should be accompanied by information about

appropriate behavior

– should be followed by reinforcement of desirable

behavior

The Problems with Reward (1 of 4)

• Reinforcers can also be misused.

• One obvious result of the misuse of rewards in

schools has been grade inflation at all levels of

education.

– Grades have risen, graduation rates have not.

– Literacy of graduates has declined.

• Rewards that are given out indiscriminately, as in

efforts to raise children’s self-esteem, do not

reinforce desirable behavior.

The Problems with Reward (2 of 4)

• An exclusive reliance on extrinsic reinforcement

can sometimes undermine the power of intrinsic

reinforcement.

• Extrinsic reinforcers: Reinforcers that are not

inherently related to the activity being reinforced.

• Intrinsic reinforcers: Reinforcers that are

inherently related to the activity being reinforced.

The Problems with Reward (3 of 4)

• Money and praise do not usually interfere with

intrinsic pleasure when:

– a person is rewarded for succeeding or making

progress rather than for merely participating in an

activity, or

– when a person is already highly interested in the

activity

• Findings on extrinsic versus intrinsic

reinforcements have wide-ranging implications.

• We must be careful not to oversimplify this issue.

The Problems with Reward (4 of 4)

Figure 7.5

Turning Play into Work

(Lepper, Greene, & Nisbett, 1973)

Learning and the Mind

• LO 7.6.A Define latent learning, and give an

example of how it might work in the daily life of a

college student.

• LO 7.6.B Define observational learning, and give

an example of how it might influence learning

during childhood.

Latent Learning (1 of 4)

• Even during behaviorism’s heyday, some

researchers were probing the “black box” of the

mind.

• To them, the box contained irrelevant wiring.

• It was enough to know that pushing a button on

the box would produce a predictable response.

Latent Learning (2 of 4)

• In the 1930s, Edward Tolman studied latent

learning.

• In latent learning:

– no obvious reinforcer is present during learning

– a response is not expressed until later, when

reinforcement does become available

• Latent learning raises questions about what,

exactly, is learned during operant learning.

Latent Learning (3 of 4)

• What appears to be acquired in latent learning is

not a specific response but rather knowledge

about responses and their consequences.

Latent Learning (4 of 4)

Figure 7.6

Latent Learning

(Tolman & Honzik, 1930)

Social-Cognitive Learning Theories (1 of 2)

• The 1960s and 1970s saw the increased influence

of social-cognitive theories of learning.

• These theories focus on observational learning

and the role played by:

– beliefs

– interpretations of events, and

– other cognitions in determining behavior

• Two people may come away with entirely different

lessons from the same event.

Social-Cognitive Learning Theories (2 of 2)

• Social-cognitive theorists argue that in

observational learning, what is acquired is

knowledge rather than a specific response.

• Bandura showed how important observational

learning is for children who are learning the rules

of social behavior.

– film with Rocky and Johnny

• Findings can help us evaluate arguments about

the effects of media violence.