Learned behaviors By: Brittlee Crosser

What is learned behaviors? Learned behaviors is a behavior that is only acquired through experience or practice. It plays a crucial role in every living organisms life. Humans depend on learned behaviors for most everything. Apes and Chimpanzees also depend on learned behaviors.

Can learned behaviors change over time? Yes, learned behaviors can change over time. Why would learned behaviors change? For example, if student were to move schools, the student’s morning routine would change. With this change taking place, he student would change some of his or her routines for the morning to fit his or her new schedule. This would result in a change of learned behaviors.

Pavolv’s Dogs Occurred in 1902 Pavlov rang a bell, which was the stimuli, every time the dog was given food and measured the dog’s amount of saliva. After ringing the bell several times each time the dog was fed, the dogs learned to associate the bell noise with the food. After repeating the experiment numerous times, the sound of the bell alone would cause the dogs to salivate. Because the dogs would salivate after the bell was sounded, this meant the dogs had learned to connect food to the bell noise. This led Ivan Pavolv to the conclusion that dogs do have learned behaviors

Koko the ape Koko, an ape, learned American Sign Language and was able to understand spoken English. Dr. Penny Patterson formed a special bind to the ape, and led the experiment on the ape. She taught Koko three basic signs: food, drink, and more. Once Koko understood the three basic signs, Dr. Patterson then began teaching Koko more complicated signs. Dr. Patterson taught Koko the sign language by molding and modeling the signs. She would show the sign she was trying to teach Koko, and then complete the behavior to demonstrate what the sign meant saying the words at the same time and that would lead Koko to understand English. Over 40 years later, Koko had learned a variety of over 1,000 words. Learning the signs have given Koko human-like qualities and behaviors.

Bobo Doll Experiment In 1961, the Bobo Doll Experiment was performed by Albert Bandura. Bandura preformed the experiment to prove that behaviors were learned through social imitation and copying, not through genetic factors. He was trying to prove that a child’s behavior would be learned from copying an adult’s behavior. The control group would not be exposed to an adult. The second group, was exposed to the adults with aggressive behaviors. The third group was exposed to an adult with passive behaviors.

Bobo doll experiment To test the theory, a child was placed in a room with an adult with toys. The adults then attacked, verbally and physically, the toys in group 2. The third group’s adults peacefully played with the toys. The control group had no adult in the room present. After completing this part of the experiment, the students moved to another room filled with toys. The children were told they were not allowed to play with the toys, which was supposed to make the child angry. Results for the experiment include: the children exposed to adults with aggressive behaviors acted more violently, the boys also had more of an aggressive behavior, the children exposed to adults with non- aggressive behavior acted less violently. Based on the findings, the experiment proves that behaviors are learned

Learned Behaviors are always: Nonheritable- is when a behavior can only be learned by seeing or actually doing the behavior Extrinsic- Behavior that is not seen in animals that are isolated Permutable- means the behavior or pattern can be changed over the course of time Adaptable- Changing a behavior based on surrounding conditions Progressive- When behaviors can excel or progress over a course of time

There are five different ways behaviors are learned: Habituation- is when someone learns to ignore stimuli that are unimportant or irrelevant classical conditioning- Learning to connect stimuli instrumental learning- learning is when behaviors are learned from past event with a reaction. A good or positive reaction will encourage the behavior. A bad or negative reaction will not encourage the behavior. latent learning- learning from past events with no reaction Imprinting- is learning that occurs in the “home environment”

Examples Teaching a dog to roll over with a treat would be classical conditioning. The dog would learn to connect the stimuli. Once the connection is made, when the dog sees the treat, the dog would roll over. A kid is picking up trash on the side of the road. Once the kid gets home, he or she is rewarded with a toy. This would be an example of instrumental learning. When the kid picks up the trash and is rewarded with a toy that is a good or positive reaction that encourages the kid to continue to pick up trash. Sitting in class, a kid ignores the off topic conversations going on and continues to learn. This is an example of habituation because the student is ignoring the unimportant stimuli, also known as the talking. A kid watched his parents wash the dishes, and learns how to wash the dishes by observing how the parents are washing the dishes. This is an example of imprinting because the kid learned the behavior in the “home environment”.