Analysis of Factors in the Transfer Process

GINGER OSBORNE, PH.D. SANTA ANA COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Ginger Osborne: My guess if I were to put myself in his place, I would think that stupid dog. He is responding where he's not supposed to throw a mouth and we'll get a fresh dog and start over again. And I tend to imagine that that might have been what he initially thought. But a good scientist is one who is able to put aside their expectations. And actually see what is going on, and this is what Pavlov did.

James L. McGaugh: What he learned was cues that are associated with food will come to induce the same or if someone response which is the salivation response. A dog can be presented with some kind of a cue, ah, and he use such things as running water or a block square or something of that kind associated with food, put on the dog's trunk and eventually the dog would come to salivate to whatever cue is being used.

Ginger Osborne: And so, he dropped his work on the digestive process in salivation and began to study what he called a conditioned reflex. We now call it classical conditioning because it was the first type of learning that was studied.

DAVID G. MYERS, PH.D. AUTHOR, PSYCHOLOGY & EXPLORING PSYCHOLOGY

David G. Myers: Pavlov's work was really important for two reasons. One, it demonstrated that you could study basic processes of learning scientifically and so it gave input as to the scientific prospective in psychological science. Secondly, his principles of conditioning are applicable to many other human realms then just dogs drooling. And so, for example, human fears are conditioned. I was in my car one day and driving down the road and a car came from the side and go through a stop light, ah, and hit me. Ever thereafter is I approached that intersection, ah, and intersections like it because I generalized from that experience. I would cautiously look and slow down a bit. Ah, that was a conditioned emotion and it was a Pavlovian conditioned emotion.

SUSAN MINEKA, PH.D. NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY

Susan Mineka: We know that, ah, one of the primary ways people learned fears is one something that they are originally not afraid of, gets paired with some negative experience. If they were swimming and almost drown, they would be quite likely to acquire fear of water in those circumstances. Some people try to discredit a conditioning fear of phobias by saying, "It doesn't work for everybody." Well, we expect that prior experience knowing that, ah, an object to a situation is safe, is going to help protect you against later learning that it's dangerous.

JOHN CACIOPPO, PH.D. UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO

John Cacioppo: So that classic example, a Pavelov, the bell going off and the meat powder, the bell of its, its salvation. Okay? Well, let's say that I have, ah, a lot of pre-exposure to that bell. Late in a vision says that that dog will not learn to salivate to that bell just because it linked with meat powder because of many, many, many exposures to that bell that wasn't associated with meat powder.

Phil Crowley: Though we usually think of learning is an adaptive process, some associations made by the brain may have destructive effects.

John Cacioppo: So where did prejudices come from? Well, our cultural views or beliefs that we've learned as children here holds certain things to be true about African-Americans versus Caucasians. And now, you might be educated and know those to be in accurate. But you still have that associative structure in your head that associative structure can influence your behavior and why is it a quite subtle.

TRAVIS GIBBS, PH.D. RIVERSIDE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Travis Gibbs: With the definition of learning, it is relatively permanent changes. Just because you're conditioned, it doesn't mean you can't become unconditioned. Because if you learned how to do this, then you can on learn how to do it and do something else.

Phil Crowley: The research of Psychologist John Garcia took the study of classical conditioning in a remarkable direction in 1974. At that time, sheep ranchers in California's Antelope Valley, worked well with wild coyotes destroying their herds. The need for a solution inspired Garcia.

JOHN GARCIA, PH.D. PROFESSOR EMERITUS, UCLA

John Garcia: Then, I met Carl(ph) (inaudible) who was a very bright student on his own study in coyotes. As if, "You get the coyotes and, ah, and we can teach 'em not to eat sheep.

Phil Crowley: The coyotes were fed mutton laced with lithium chloride which made them ill. Garcia's coyotes now associated their illness with the taste and smell of sheep meat. The results were remarkable.

John Garcia: And they were often ate mutton just like that. We wonder two trials at the most would coyotes, they hit the sheep as to somewhere in the flank or at the side, ah, and going for the-- certainly and there's real back as free kind of conical. Then, the sheep then starts bluffing and it doesn't have a horn (inaudible) and they hasn't-- and the car has no rules, give way.

Phil Crowley: But with this conditioned taste diversion actually work in the wild.

John Garcia: And so then, we put together a, a mutton bate with lithium chloride and it-- and wrapped it in a wool so that it could be dispensed out in the field. Stewart(ph) and Allen(ph) scattered those bates along their way. We should have picked up and he zeroed a lamb kills in Antelope Valley.

Phil Crowley: This highly adaptive one-trail learning helps ensure our survival. Evolution, it seems, has equipped us to learn some lessons more quickly than others.

Susan Mineka: A colleague and friend and friend of mine in Sweden, Arna Hermann(ph), had been studying whether there are something special about the learning of, uhm, snake fear. You take him in subjects who weren't afraid of snakes or spiders or flowers and you present them with slides. Some of the slides were followed by very mild electric shock to their hand. He found that when you paired snakes or spiders with mild electric shocks a few times that the human subjects would pick up or conditioned fear and quotes response is in to expire the galvanic skin response. But when you told them, "It won't gonna present the shocks," it didn't seem to matter that they knew that they won't gonna get shocked anymore. The fear was maintained. And by contrast, if you paired pictures of flowers with mild electric shocks, people would pick up the fear. But when you told them you were gonna present the shocks, the fear went away immediately. The reason people are more likely to pick fears of snakes is because those who had quickly picked up a fear would have had a selected advantage relative to those who didn't pick up those fears readily who might be at more risk and didn't stay at around to pass on their genes.

Phil Crowley: This idea of animals that negotiating their environment by moving to rewards and away from dangers was critical to the theories of Psychologist B.F. Skinner. Skinner became famous for his lifetime of research into a second type of associative learning called operant conditioning.

David G. Myers: Operant conditioning pertains to behaviors that operate upon in the environment to produce consequences, so the organism does something. And then, there's a consequence that's either punishing or rewarding. And behaviors that are rewarded tend to be strengthened. And if the behavior is strengthen by the consequence that follows that, we called that a reinforcement.

Phil Crowley: Using a system of reinforcement, Skinner was able to gradually shake an animal’s behavior. Skinner conditioned animals of many species to perform behaviors based on reinforcement. He claimed that regardless of the species, their response to reinforcement was virtually the same.

John Garcia: And so, he said, that was a power of his message that he couldn't tell the difference between the pigeon, a rat and monkey.

Phil Crowley: Examples of operant conditioning are found just about everywhere.

RONALD E. RIGGIO, PH.D. CLAREMONT COLLEGE

Ronald E. Riggio: If you think about how we reward employees, then the reinforcement there is-- are very important. And important helping us understand, uhm, ah, work goes on in a work place. People are getting rewarded and it's done on schedules just like the rats in a, in a Skinner boxes. And so, there are lots of parallels there.

Phil Crowley: At the Taub Clinic in Birmingham, Alabama, Dr. Edward Taub and his team use operant conditioning to help victims of traumatic brain injuries. Virginia Garlitz is relearning to walk after her body was paralyzed by an AVM.

VIRGINIA GARLITZ

Virginia Garlitz: AVM is an Arterial Venous Malformation. Venous having to do with vein, it's nothing to do with the glottis. I was very disappointed to find out and I just finished a Spanish literature class and was sitting and talking to a student. And all of a sudden, I just lost the left side. It's been very tough because what you take you for most of your life just hasn't there anymore.

EDWARD TAUB, PH.D. UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA, BIRMINGHAM

Edward Taub: One of our central procedures is called shaping which is a type of operant conditioning. It was developed in the context of operant psychology, behavior modification. And it's essential nature is to take a behavioral objective that is just a little beyond the capability of a person at a given point time. But you keep making it just a little more difficult so that the person doesn't fail very often. But you keep extending the behavioral capacity a little bit at a time. But in a very short of time that odd can end up to a very substantial improvement of movement.

Phil Crowley: To shake Virginia's walk, Therapist Jean Crago challenges Virginia to navigate over barriers but therapy is intense. Even Virginia's subtle list improvements are reinforced with encouragement.

Jean Crago: Focus on left to make-- oh, good. Just keep walking.

Virginia Garlitz: Oh.

Jean Crago: Just a walk to in there. Good. Okay. Three to five minutes to this way, all the way. That's good. So that's it.

Edward Taub: The therapist writes down the number of repetitions that the person does. The type of, ah-- or the quality of the, the movement and that is reported to the patient after each trial quantitatively. And this is very satisfying for the patient because they know that their improvement which the therapist tells them about doesn't losery. It is real.

JEAN CRAGO PHYSICAL THERAPIST, TAUB CLINIC

Jean Crago: Virginia's walking pattern has changed significantly. She's now able to advance the, the stronger and foot passed the weaker one. And it has tremendous potential for continue the improvement.

Virginia Garlitz: I always know in teaching that positive reinforcement was important but I didn't realize how important, too.

EDWARD DIENER, PH.D. UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS

Edward Diener: We know from research that getting positive feedback is very important to learning. And that if you get some negative feedback and some criticism for example from your teacher, that's okay. But you have to get a lot of positive feedback to much more positive than negative to make it a rewarding learning experience.

Phil Crowley: Shaping the behavior of children is of particular concern to parents.

Phil Crowley: But are they reinforcing the right kinds of behavior?

MARGARET KEMENY, PH.D. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - SAN FRANCISCO

Margaret Kemeny: Have emotional behavior can be reinforced and can be conditioned? And now, we can see these patterns emerging in childhood. So every time you have tantrum, your mother is really nice to you and says, "Oh, you know, here, you know, let me help you do this." And, you know, "We'll go off and have ice cream." And everything will be better. You know, on the one hand, this is a very sympathetic reaction that I think could be very useful in a whole host of contest. But there's also another way in which that reinforces that emotional behavior. And you might find that the child is starting to have these kinds of utters more often. And then, that's learned emotional reaction.

Phil Crowley: Another way behavior can be strengthen is through negative reinforcement.

DAVID G. MYERS, PH.D. HOPE COLLEGE

David G. Myers: Negative reinforcement is hands down, the most difficult concept for students to get their minds around. They think it's punishment because that how it's used out there on the street. But reinforcement is always in event that strengthens the behavior that precedes it.

GINGER OSBORNE, PH.D. SANTA ANA COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Ginger Osborne: What I tell students is that keep in mind the reinforcement part. Reinforcement is referring to making a response more likely to occur in the future. Punishment makes it less likely. The negative comes from removing some unpleasant state of affairs.

David G. Myers: And that's a good thing when that happens. So if you're let out of the room that you were sent to because you misbehave, that's negative reinforcement. It strengthens your having been good when you're in the time-out room.

Phil Crowley: And what about punishment?

JEROME KAGAN, PH.D.

Jerome Kagan: It is not necessary to physically punish a child in order to produce a socialized child with a good conscience and high character. You don't have to.

Ginger Osborne: Punishment is associated with negative feelings and so for the individual who is punished may not engage in that behavior while the punisher is around. So in one sense, it may accomplish the goal that a couple of things happen with those negative feelings that the child may, ah, develop resentment toward the parent or fear toward them and also negative feelings toward themselves. They may think that, "Well, I'm a bad person." There are other ways to correct behavior than through punishment.

Jerome Kagan: You can do it by try hiding deprivation of privileges and saying that was not a nice thing to do as, as your parents do.

SHINOBU KITAYAMA, PH.D. UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN

Shinobu Kitayama: The idea is that parents make everything possible to convey some general expectations which are present in a situation by saying, "Oh." And, ah, and there's such a shame. You, you, you didn't know, know this for example. Ah, meaning that, oh, you should be aware of, let's say, general norms social expectations and so on.

Jerome Kagan: But having said that, a spank on the bottom is not a traumatic event because the child understands what that means. Punishment just requires communication to the child that this are the behaviors I wish you to do and these are behaviors I want you to suppress and words and deprivation of privileges and mild shaming are effective.

Phil Crowley: Classical and operant conditioning are not the only ways people learn. We can also learn by simply observing.

David G. Myers: Observational learning is a very important part of making us who we are. We observe other people who were models for the way we act. We're particularly at tune to the behavior of our peers. So the way they talk, the accents they express tend to be the way we talk. The clothing standards, the taste and values, ah, that we pick up are largely done by imitation, by observation.

Phil Crowley: In the 1960s, research pioneer Albert Bandura and his team conducted one of the most famous experiments in observational learning.

ALBERT BANDURA, PH.D. STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Albert Bandura: So what we set up was-- it was a study in which preschool children, ah, observed and adult model exhibit fairly noble forms of aggression toward and above it all namely, ah, the model pummeled it with a mallet. Ah, the model, he tossed it down, sat on it, punched it in the face, uhm, tossed it aggressively, kicked it across the room and this was embellished with a lot of verbal hostile statements. Now, that time, it was widely believed that exposure to, ah, ah, to aggression would train aggressive drives. And we found that it was really instigated rather than, ah, than reductive. We found that the children were creped to model. This noble styles of behavior intended to increase other forms of aggression. For example, ah, children within the aggressive modeling condition had more interested in playing guns and so on. And the children who had not been exposed to aggressive modeling had, ah, never exhibited any of these noble styles of behavior.

Phil Crowley: These findings reveal a dark side to observational learning.

David G. Myers: Mass media provide very potent role models that influenced children and teens and the dogs who were observing and absorbing, and sometimes, imitating children who are heavily exposed to TV violence and do behave more aggressively. And it's just the correlation. Maybe it's aggressive children who are more prone to TV watching out of violence for example. But we also have experiments that randomly assigned children to watch either violent or non-violent television and then record their behavior later. And indeed, they are more aggressive if they've seen violent television.

Albert Bandura: Tolerance and violence, first of all, it's an excellent teacher. And so kids, ah, kids see different forms of aggression. They learned aggressive patterns of behavior. Secondly, it tends to reduce restrains over, over aggression. And this is because, ah, most of the aggression is performed by Captain Virtue. The good guys are killing off the bad guys. And, uhm, and this gives, ah, social and moral sanction to the use of violence as a way of solving, ah, solving problems. Ah, third, it tends to desensitize and habituate, ah, people to aggressions so they're no longer upset by it.

DONALD F. ROBERTS, PH.D. STANFORD UNIVERSITY

Donald Roberts: Most people in this country say, "Come on, it's entertainment. It's in the background." Well, it changes the way we think about the world. And I don't just mean children with the correlations between adults watching violence and the number of locks they have on their door, pretty high.

David G. Myers: We now also have studies of video game plan that suggest it's effects are even greater than the effects of passively observing television. Because when you're playing a violent video game, you are actively simulating the role of mass murderer. And that seems to leave more of a residue in your own attitudes and behavioral tendencies than those merely passively and quietly observing violence on television or in a movie.

Phil Crowley: Mockingly, aggressive behaviors in the mass media are not the only ones that can be modeled by children.

David G. Myers: We can assign them to watch what we called pro-social that is positive social helping behavior or a neutral program. And see if they're more helpful after watching pro-social media. And indeed, they are.

Donald F. Roberts: What's the downside of lying? What's good about perseverance? Why is it important to learn or read? All of those kinds of issues, character issues and social issues, and how can we put them into scripts. Indeed, my position is how can they become the, the defining of every story.

Albert Bandura: Are the power of modeling is that a single model can impact vast numbers of populations, ah, ah, sort of divorce from time and place. For example, when the East Germans brought down the Berlin wall on top of their present regime, their strategy of mass action was instantly, ah, modeled by the other, ah, East European countries. And so, they quickly tap hold their, ah, rulers and regimes. The main determinant was they're modeling what they saw as an effective strategy.

Phil Crowley: Research on prosocial modelling has demonstarted the positive effects of observational learning. But for Bandura, it's change the legacy of the Bobo doll experiment forever.

Albert Bandura: Here was an experiment done for three years ago and then a very creative producer read the experiments. And he produced a long running serial dramas that ran a year or two or three, ah, designed to, ah, mirror its own social problem. Ah, what you do is you model the kind of problems people are struggling with. And then, you model, ah, the impediments that, that they face. And then, you, through these dramas, you inform them, you enable them, you motivate them and you guide them, ah, to, ah, a vision of a better life, and how they can take the steps, ah, to realize it. The one that's really, ah, powerful is the one we had in India to raise the styles of women-- viewership, 25 million people. And in the plot line, a mother fights against the discriminate policies against girls. And she, ah, promotes for education. Taru(ph), the daughter, has become a national model. And so we have adults in that areawho are now setting up a letter C classes for adults. We have teenagers who had no schooling are now avid readers. The vision of what they wanna become has been raised. And for them, started a little school for, ah, very poor children are on the, ah, village well.

Albert Bandura: So these are the kind of large scale changes you can achieve for this kind of vehicle or, ah, try to address some of the most urgent goal of permits.

Phil Crowley: By studying the ways we learn and adapt to our environment, psychologists unlock the vast potential that learning offers.

TRAVIS GIBBS, PH.D. RIVERSIDE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Travis Gibbs: Pavelov and Skinner or Bandura bring to the table the different faucets of learning and how we can approach learning from different points on the circle.

Phil Crowley: Whether we're conquering our fears, learning to walk or changing the world.

Produced By SALLY BEATY Written By CODY FARLEY Associate Producer CODY FARLEY Academic Consultant JEAN P. VOLCKMANN, Ph.D. Director Of Photography PATRICK ALLEN Editor JOY S. ZIMMERMAN Sound Mixer GEORGE STUPAR Segment Director PATRICK ALLEN Composer PETER DAVISON Narrator PHIL CROWLEY Production Manager MIKE MORANO Head Of Visual Research ZOÉ SHERLICK Visual Researcher SYDNEE RISK Production Coordinator LAURA MOSS Grips MICHAEL FLORES STEVE ROLLINS CHRISTOPHER LINARES Assistant Editor ERIC LUCAS Production Assistant GREGORY JORDAN On-Line Editor DIRK CARLSON Re-Recording Mixer SAMUEL ARONSON SFX Pre Lay KEN CAIN Account Manager - CCI Digital JASON RISK Post Production Services Provided By CCI DIGITAL Main Title Sequence JAMES KNIGHT "Find Out More" Editor GREGORY JORDAN Production Services Provided By MOBILE IMAGE Transcription KEYSTROKE GURUS Closed Captioning VISUAL SOUND, INC. ARCHIVAL MATERIAL COURTESY OF: ABCNEWS VIDEOSOURCE © Bettman/CORBIS Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Getty Images Film Library of Congress National Institute of Mental Health Population Communications International, Inc. U.S. Agency for International Development U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service © Worth Publishers, New York, NY SPECIAL THANKS David G. Myers, Ph.D. Kathryn Brownson Thomas Ludwig, Ph.D. Albert Bandura, PhD, Stanford University John Garcia and Joan Gustavson Susan Mineka, PhD, Northwestern University Bob Shepard, UAB Office of Media Relations Sydnee Risk and Kahlua Taub Therapy Clinic and CI Research Facility, University of Alabama University of Wisconsin Harlow Primate Laboratory ▸IN▴TELE▾COM◂ INTELLIGENT TELECOMMUNICATIONS © 2006 INSIDE OUT Episode #111 (800) 576-2988 www.intelecom.org

Phil Crowley Inside out is a 22-part series about Psychology. For information on this program and the accompanying materials, call 1 (800) 576-2988 or visit us online.