Learning Theories Goal How do we learn behaviors through classical conditioning?
Learning is… Relatively permanent Change in behavior Due to experience Habituation – lose sensitivity to repeated stimulus, even if stimulus changes
Associative Learning Learn that certain events occur together Classical Conditioning: associate two stimuli together to anticipate events Operant Conditioning: associate a behavior with a good or bad result
Ivan Pavlov’s Experiment Studied digestion of dogs – Learn to salivate? Paired food w/neutral stimulus Dogs salivated to just the neutral stimulus
UR UC CR CS
Classical Conditioning Acquisition – the initial learning of behavior
Classical Conditioning Strength of CR Pause Acquisition (CS+UCS) Extinction (CS alone) Extinction (CS alone) Spontaneous recovery of CR
Extinction Diminished response to CS
John B. Watson & “Little Albert”
Generalization - show CR to similar stimuli to CS Discrimination – only show CR to CS (can distinguish) Taste aversion & classical conditioning US – bad food (old, rotten) UR – sick CS – smell of food, sight of food, restaurant where food was purchased UR – sick to CS Higher-order conditioning – pair CS to w/new neutral stimulus – learner shows weaker CR to new CS
Factors Influencing Classical Conditioning 1) How consistently CS predicts UCS 2) Number of pairings of CS and UCS 3) Intensity of UCS 4) Time between CS and UCS
But what about…? Cognitive processes? – Learned helplessness – Alcohol & nauseating drug Pill taken to make alcoholics nauseous at the first taste of alcohol when stop taking pill, desire to drink returns because person knows the pill was the cause of the nausea Biological predispositions? – Garcia & Koelling study associations may be adaptive (aversion to tastes, but not sights or sounds)
Biopsychosocial Influences on Learning Biological Genetic predispositions Unconditioned responses Adaptive responses Psychological Previous experiences Predictability of associations Generalization Discrimination Social-Cultural Culturally learned preferences Motivation, affected by presence of others LEARNING