1. Learning

2. Thoughts on Learning
“Learning is not compulsory. Neither is survival.”
W. Edwards Demming
“Education is what survives when what has been learned has been forgotten.”
B.F. Skinner
“I am always doing that which I cannot do, in order that I may learn how to do it.”
Pablo Picasso

3. A relatively permanent change in behavior that results from experience
What is Learning?
A relatively permanent change in behavior that results from experience

4. Types of Learning Classical conditioning Operant conditioning
Cognitive and social learning

5. Classical Conditioning: Examples
Sound of a dentist’s drill: sweaty palms
Smell of mom’s perfume: smiling
Sight of certain restaurant: nausea
Noise of a can opener: cat comes running
Smell of a hospital: weakened immunity
How does this happen?

6. Classical Conditioning
Discovered (accidentally) by Ivan Pavlov
Components
Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
Unconditioned Response (UR)
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
Conditioned Response (CR)

7. Pavlov’s Observation Studied digestion in dogs
Presented meat powder and measured salivation
Dogs started salivating before food was presented
Why?

8. Pavlov’s Experiment: Phase 1
Food (US): salivation (UR)
Reflexive response
Tone (CS): nothing (CR)

9. Pavlov’s Experiment: Phase 2
CS is repeatedly paired with the US
A tone is sounded before the food is presented
Note: Figure 6.2 on page 215 in the textbook incorrectly labels the CS as “Food”

10. Pavlov’s Experiment: Phase 3
Eventually, the CS elicits a new CR
Hearing the tone by itself causes salivation

11. Classical Conditioning: Conditioned Emotional Response
Avoidance learning
Conditioned phobias
Little Albert
Biological preparedness
Contrapreparedness
Easy to develop a snake phobia
Hard to develop a car door phobia

12. Classical Conditioning
Extinction
Spontaneous recovery

13. Classical Conditioning
Stimulus generalization
Stimulus discrimination

14. Classical Conditioning
Stimulus generalization is the extension of a conditioned response from the training stimulus to similar stimuli.
Through conditioning Baby Hannah smiles and laughs at the title screen with dark background and white writing that precedes a funny song and cartoon on her “Merrytubbies” video tape. Her parents notice that she also smiles and giggles at the FBI Warning screen appearing on movie videotapes.

15. Stimulus generalization is the process of extending a learned response to new stimuli that resemble the one used in training. Similar stimuli similar elicit a stronger response.

16. Classical Conditioning
Discrimination is the process of learning to respond differently to two stimuli because they produce two different outcomes.
Gradually Hannah stops laughing at the FBI Warning screen because the song and cartoon do not follow it.

17. Higher Order Conditioning
Pair CS1 with a new CS2
CS2: CR
But, CR will be weaker

18. The General Rule of Conditioning
Previously neutral stimulus will lead to a conditioned response (CR) whenever it provides the organism with information about the upcoming occurrence of the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). (Rescorla, 1992; Rescorla & Wagner, 1972).
As with Pavlov’s dogs, the sound of the metronome just before presentation of food (UCS) became a conditioned stimulus (CS) because the dogs began salivating (CR) when the metronome ticked.
Conditioning occurs because the sound of the metronome provides the dog with information that food will soon be delivered.

19. Classical Conditioning Applied
Drug overdoses
Smoking: environmental cues
Systematic desensitization
Advertising: sex appeal
Taste aversion
Conditioning and the immune system

20. Types of Learning Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning
Cognitive and Social Learning

21. Operant Conditioning
Classical conditioning teaches about future events, but it seldom allows one to change those events.
Thorndike proposed that behavior became more or less likely based on whether it produced a desired or undesired consequence, something he called the “law of effect”.
B.F. Skinner later called this idea “operant conditioning” because an organism’s behavior is operating on the environment to achieve some desired goal.
This is a more active form of learning than that of classical conditioning.

22. Operant Conditioning: Examples
Tantrums are punished: fewer tantrums
Tantrums bring attention: more tantrums
Slot machine pays out: gamble more
Reward dog for sitting: dog is likely to sit
How does this happen?
Fuzzy Knows!!

23. Operant Conditioning Thorndike’s puzzle box Skinner box
Law of Effect: actions that have positive outcomes are likely repeated
Skinner box

24. Thorndike The Law of Effect

25. Skinner and Operant Learning
Skinner defined operant learning as:
Voluntary and goal directed
Controlled by its consequences
Strengthened if rewarded or weakened if punished
The mouse is “operating” on its environment by pressing the food lever in the Skinner box and receiving a food reward.

26. Operant Conditioning: Principles
Stimulus-Response
Reinforcement
Positive reinforcement
Negative reinforcement
Punishment
Positive punishment
Negative punishment

27. Principles of operant conditioning
Relies on principle of reinforcement, in which the consequences of a behavior lead to a higher frequency of the behavior occurring later on.
Reinforcement works best when it involves a response contingency.
There are different types of reinforcers:
Positive reinforcement is when a desired reinforcer is presented after the occurrence of the desired behavior.
Negative reinforcement is when an unpleasant event or circumstance is removed after the occurrence of the desired behavior.

28. Principles of operant conditioning
Punishment is typically the occurrence of an unpleasant event as a consequence of a response, always decreasing the likelihood of the recurrence of that response.
Punishment is most effective if it has three characteristics:
It should occur immediately after the undesired behavior.
It must be consistent.
It must be aversive without being abusive

29. Effective Punishment Should be Challenges
Swift
Consistent
Appropriately aversive
Challenges
Physical punishment may be imitated
May fear the person who punishes
Most effective when paired with reinforcers

30. Principles of operant conditioning
Dangers of using punishment
It does not eliminate the capacity to engage in the problem behavior.
Physical punishment may elicit increased aggressive behavior in the person being punished.
Through classical conditioning, the person being punished may learn to fear the punisher.
Typically requires continuous observation.

31. Shaping Behavior
Shaping, or the method of successive approximations, is the process of teaching a new behavior by reinforcing closer and closer approximations to the desired behavior.
Behavior is shaped by breaking down a desired behavior into smaller substeps (or approximations) then successively reinforcing each substep until the desired behavior is reached.

32. Building Complex Behaviors
Shaping
Gradual reinforcement of successive approximations of target behavior
Used to train animals to do complex tricks

33. Reinforcement
Reinforcement increases the probability of the behavior it follows.
Continuous reinforcement (rewarding every correct response) results in fast learning, but can be quickly extinguished.
Partial reinforcement keeps us responding vigorously for longer.
Variable ratio reinforcement leads to the highest rates of responding greatest resistance to extinction.

34. Reinforcement Schedules
Contiuous reinforcement
Partial reinforcement
Fixed interval
Variable interval
Fixed ratio
Variable ratio

35. Reinforcement Schedules

36. Reinforcement Primary reinforcers Secondary reinforcers
Behavior modification
Immediate versus delayed reinforcement

37. Beyond Basic Reinforcement
Generalization
Discrimination
Discriminative stimulus
Extinction
Spontaneous recovery

38. Classical versus Operant Conditioning
Classical conditioning
Learned association between US and CS
Organism is passive
Responses elicited
Operant conditioning
Associate response and reinforcement
Organism is active
Responses emitted
Shared features
Avoidance learning
Extinction and spontaneous recovery
Generalization and discrimination

39. Types of Learning Classical conditioning Operant conditioning
Cognitive and social learning

40. Cognitive Learning
Latent learning
Tolman’s rats: cognitive maps

41. Cognitive Learning
Insight learning
“Aha” experience

42. Observational Learning
Imitation or Modeling
Observational Learning Also called imitation or modeling, the form of learning that occurs when a person observes and imitates someone's behavior.

43. Observational Learning
Observational learning is learning a behavior by observing or imitating the behavior of others (models). Behavior that has been rewarded is most likely to be imitated.
During observational learning, one learns by watching how others behavior is reinforced or punished, not one’s own behavior.
Operant learning, on the other hand, is learning directly from one’s own experience.

44. Bandura’s Social Learning Theory
People learn social behaviors mainly through observation and cognitive processing of information, rather than through direct experience. Observational learning is the central tenet to this theory.
For observational learning to occur, one must
Pay attention to a model’s behavior
Remember what has been observed
Be able to perform the observed behavior
Be motivated to perform the observed behavior

45. Aggressive Behavior
Studies suggest that children learn aggressive behaviors through observation.
Punishment does not seem to prevent the learning of aggression, but it does seem to inhibit its expression.
Nonaggressive responding can also be learned through positive social modeling.

46. Observational Learning
Bandura’s Bobo doll study