AP Psychology Unit 4: Learning

The ability for the brain to link two stimuli in a way that helps us anticipate an event, to which we have a reaction.

Relatively permanent behavior change, learned by association that occur in a certain order.

- We learned by being repeated to the same information & the way we react to it. (Repeated Exposure).

- A Behaviorist who founded the theory of classical conditioning.

- Influenced behaviorism, which focuses on observable behavior.

- Pavlov's Dogs Experiment

- Believed human emotions & behavior are mainly conditioned & learned responses.

- Little Albert: A child being exposed to a stuffed animal & loud noise at the same time, eventually associating all stuffed animals with the loud noise, becoming scared of them.

How a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus.

A stimulus that has NO initial affect on the given person/animal who is being tested.

Ex: The initial ringing of a bell.

The initial response of the person/animal being tested, that was NOT conditioned. (Not purposefully expected.)

- The response NOT learned.

Ex: A dog salivating in response to food.

- What was originally the neutral stimulus, is NOW the conditioned stimulus.

- What you CONDITIONED them to be exposed to.

Ex: The ringing of the bell is now CONDITIONING the dog to have a response.

- What was originally the unconditioned response, is now the EXPECTED response to the conditioned stimulus.

- How you EXPECT the person/animal to respond. What you CONDITIONED them to do.

Ex: The dogs' hearing of the bell (CS) now causes it to salivate. (CR)

- Initial learning process of stimulus-response relationship.

- The process of conditioning taking place within an experiment.

- The Neutral Stimulus (The Bell) should be exposed to the person/animal WITH the unconditioned stimulus half a second away from each other. (Pretty much at the same time.)

Unconditioned Stimulus in Pavlov's Dogs: The Food, triggered an automatic response NOT learned.

- Adds a second conditional stimulus.

Ex: A light before the bell will eventually make the dog learn that the light causes the bell, the bell causes the food, the food causes the dogs' salivation response.

Extinction: When the Unconditioned Stimulus (Food) stops following the Controlled Stimulus (Bell).

Ex: The dog will eventually recognize there's no food coming after the bell, and stop salivating. (Controlled Response (Salivation) Stops/Weakens).

Spontaneous Recovery: After extinction for a certain amount of time, the Controlled Response RETURNS after a rest period.

Ex: After a few hours, if the dog hears the bell, it will salivate by instinct. Drooling response returns.

Once conditioned, the person/animal associates similar stimulus's with the conditioned one, allowing the person/animal to have a similar response.

Ex: Different tones of a bell causing similar salivation levels. Little Albert fearing all fuzzy animals instead of just the white rat stuffed animal he was exposed to.

The ability to distinguish between other controlled stimulus' and other irrelevant ones.

Ex: A bell ringing isn't the same as a violin playing, the dog DISCRIMINATES between the two and knows not the salivate to the violin tone.

Showed that animals can learn the predictability of an event.

- The more predictable the association is, the stronger the conditioned response is.

Ex: The dog PREDICTS the ring of the bell and the food, and knows to salivate.

- We can condition ourselves, but it takes longer.

- Founded the theory of learned helplessness.

- Learned Helplessness: The lack of power/help/hope a person/animal feels in a certain event.

- The feeling of a lack of power to change the outcome of something. (I have LEARNED to feel helpless).

- Animals are biologically predisposed to learn associations between stimuli that aid in their survival, and to adapt to their environments. (Survival Instinct).

- John Garcia conducted an experiment.

- After giving rats taste, sight & sound stimuli, and then radiation to make them sick, he found...

- Rats developed aversions (a dislike) to taste stimuli, not sight or sound.

- Rats developed aversions (dislike) even though the radiation happened 2 hours after the stimuli.

- Experiment allowed researched to understand how animals adapt to their environment.

- The process of objectively studying something. (Measurable & studied behavior objectively.)

- Counselors helping with drugs & addictions.

- Little Albert led to discussion of treatment & emotional disorders.

Classical Conditioning: Conditioning more based off of BIOLOGICAL & automatic responses. (Drooling, being scared, sadness, etc.)

Operant Conditioning: When organisms associate their own actions with consequences. (Rewards & punishments).

Rewarded behavior is more likely to occur.

Created the Skinner Box, consists of a bar or key than an animal presses to receive an award (food or water).

- Device records responses.

- AKA Training

- Using reinforces (food) to guide actions. Training towards a desired behavior. Uses shaping to tell how animals discriminate between stimuli.

Strengthens & encourages behavior.

- ADDS a stimulus to strengthen behavior.

Ex: Answer correctly, you get candy! (Adding stimulus of candy.)

- A kid whines, parents give in. (Parents ENCOURAGE behavior by giving in.)

- TAKES AWAY/SUBTRACTS stimulus.

- Ex: Beeping stops after you put on your seatbelt. Stimulus (beeping) goes away.

- Taking away quiz because everyone did their

homework. (Takes away stimulus of quiz.)

- Parents STOP telling child to clean his room because he does it.

Negative Reinforcement is NOT a punishment.

DECREASES behavior

- ADDS stimulus to weaken behavior.

- Ex: Misbehaved child is yelled at (stimulus) to weaken behavior (kid misbehaving).

- TAKES AWAY stimulus to weaken behavior.

Ex: License is revoked (taken away stimulus) to weaken behavior.

- Breaking a curfew, car taken away (stimulus).

Unlearned rewards, biological & evolutionary. For the sake of survival (food, water, warmth, etc.)

Learned associations, things we've come to feel the need of.

Ex: Money, good grades, points, etc.

Reward must be given with stimulus, reward must be instant.

- As humans, we've learned delayed gratification. (To expect rewards at a later date.)

Reinforcing desired behavior EVER SINGLE TIME. (Happens every single time.)

- Allows for rapid learning & rapid extinction.

Ex: Constantly teaching a dog to sit, eventually learning it.

Reinforcing a response ONLY PART OF THE TIME. Random reward rate.

- Ex: Dog is only given treat part of the time, when being trained to sit.

- Predictable & has an amount.

- Reinforcing behavior after a set # of responses.

Ex: Coffee punch cards, reinforcing a free drink after a set number of punches.

- Unpredictable (Random), & has an amount.

- Not knowing how many times is takes to receive reinforcement.

Ex: Slot machines, not knowing how man times it takes to win (reinforcement).

- Predictable over a period of time.

- You can predict what would happen, but not when it will happen.

Ex: Being paid every two weeks. (Predicting the reinforcement of being paid over a period of time, two weeks.)

- Not knowing when something will happen, but over a period of time.

- Produces slow, steady responding.

Ex: Checking emails, not knowing when you will receive an email.

- 1 Group of rats got through the maze quicker, unlike the other group of rats, because it had pior experience in it.

Not knowing you're learning something until given incentive.

- Not knowing you're processing & associating stimuli with the environment around it.

The mental map you have in your head.

- The solution is sudden & novel. An "AHA!" moment.

- Something just clicks.

- Intrinsic: Having an internal love/passion for what you're doing. Doing something for your own personal sake.

- Extrinsic: Performing a behavior to avoid punishment. (Grades, etc.)

Over justification Effect: We loose the passion/love for something when given a reward for it, since we expect a reward for it, because now you're expecting a personal reward.

- Animals are predisposed to learn associations that are naturally adaptive.

- Animal trainers utilize this to their benefit.

- The ability to observe & imitate others.
- We learn through observation.

- Animals capable of observational learning have mirror neurons in the frontal lobe.

- Enabling imitation & sympathy through mental simulation.
- Being able to feel/understand another persons' emotions, opinions, etc.

- After children were exposed to seeing an adult aggressively fight a Bobo Doll, the children who saw it did the same. (Imitated the adults.)
- We're especially likely to imitate people we perceive at similar to ourselves/successful.

- Positive modeling
- Encourages positive & helpful behavior.
- Power of modeling as a force for positive social change.

- Negative Modeling
- Passed-down aggressive behavior. (Parents pass down their aggressive traits to their kids.)
- Being exposed to violence in our everyday environment makes us used to it.
- Becoming desensitized & used to violence displayed in social media, movies, etc, having a lack of empathy for others.