Superstitions

1
Superstitions

• Name as many superstitions as you can!
• Walking under a ladder
• Breaking a mirror
• Step on a crack Step on a line
• Dont open an umbrella indoors
• Black cats are unlucky
• Friday the 13th

2
Superstitions

• Why is Friday the 13th unlucky?
• Do you personally think it is unlucky?
• British Study less people drive on Friday the
  13th than on Friday the 6th, but higher number of
  hospital admissions (52)

3
Friday

• Judeo-Christian events on Fridays
• Adam Eve kicked out
• Day Jesus was killed
• Great Flood started
• Pagan day of good luck
• Norse deity Frigg/Freya like Venus
• Good day to get married
• Sailors fear HMS Friday
• Roman day of execution, Hangmans day in Britain

4
13

• Many towns dont have 13th street, no 13th floor
• Pagan symbolism
• Alexander the Great died after placing the 13th
  statue on his temple
• Loki crashed a dinner party of 12 at Valhalla,
  Balder was killed (incited a riot)
• 13 moon months in a year, moves 13 a day
• Freya met with a coven of witches 121 13
• Egyptians believe in 12 chapters of life, the
  13th is death

5
13

• Primitive man couldnt count that high
• In Japan 4 is same word as death, 9 is same as
  torture
• Women have 13 cycles in a year
• Judeo-Christian symbolism
• Last supper had 13 people
• Apollo 13 had an oxygen tank explode on April 13,
  1970

6
Friday the 13th

• Two unlucky things together are worse
• Freya turned into a witch by Christianity
• Female power/control
• Animal symbol happens to be black cat
• Not linked together before 19th century
• At least 1 a year, up to 3 (2009 next time)
• Knights of Templar massacred Oct 13, 1307

7
Friday the 13th

• Did you learn superstition for Friday the 13th
  from others or from experience
• Conditioning if you learned from experience
• Social learning if you learned from others

8
Learning

• Conditioning and Cognition

9
Whats the common factor?

• A young orangutan cleans up his cage for a chance
  to blow a whistle
• Lizards jump 2 feet in the air to get insects
  from a keeper
• A tiger retrieves a floating ball from the moat
• A Chinchilla jumps on the scale to be weighed

10
Whats the common factor?

• A man is driving along and spots a park bench and
  his heart races at first he doesnt know why,
  then he remembers its the spot he once shared
  with a high school sweetheart
• Angela goes to summer camp shes a city kid
  without much outdoor experience, by the end of
  the 8 weeks she can cane, sail, pitch a tent, and
  even tell poison ivy from poison sumac
• What do ALL the scenarios have in common?

11
Whats the common factor?

• Learning is not limited to a classroom
• its the process by which experience or practice
  results in relatively permanent changes in
  behavior or potential behavior
• Conditioning is the acquisition of fairly
  specific patterns of behavior in the presence of
  well-defined stimuli

12
Whats the Common Factor?

• Stimuli are those things around us that cause
  reactions
• If you learn that a behavior is related to a
  stimuli in a good way, you will continue the
  behavior
• If you learn that a behavior is related to a
  stimuli in a bad way, you will avoid the
  behavior, or the stimuli

13
Learning

• Classic Conditioning type of learning in which
  a response naturally elicited by one stimulus
  comes to be elicited by a different (normally
  neutral) stimulus
• Music played before scary scene
• Operant Conditioning type of learning in which
  behaviors are changes (in the presence of certain
  stimuli) in order to earn rewards or avoid
  punishment
• Teaching dog to sit

14
Learning

• Unconditioned Stimulus a stimulus that
  invariably causes an organism to respond in a
  specific way
• Appearance of food (chocolate cake?)
• Conditioned Stimulus an originally neutral
  stimulus that is paired with an unconditioned
  stimulus and eventually produces the desired
  response in an organism when presented alone
• Mom making tea (serves with cookies)

15
Learning

• Unconditioned Response a response that takes
  place in an organism whenever an unconditioned
  stimulus occurs (natural)
• Mouth waters when cookies are around
• Conditioned Response the behavior an organism
  learns in response to a conditioned stimulus
• Mouth waters when mom makes tea

16
Learning

• Conditioned food (or taste) aversion
  conditioned avoidance of certain foods even if
  there is only one paring of conditioned and
  unconditioned stimulus
• bad Brussels sprouts
• Desensitization therapy conditioning technique
  designed to gradually reduce anxiety about a
  particular object or situation
• Fear of flying, the Bee

17
Learning

• Reflexes when a stimulus always elicits the
  same response
• The strength of the response can change due 2
  ways with experience ? habituation or
  sensitization
• Habituation a decrease in the strength of a
  response due to repeated exposures
• At first you avoid a smell, eventually it doesnt
  smell as strongly

18
Learning

• Sensitization an increase in the strength of a
  response due to repeated exposures to a stimulus
• Walk into the woods and hear everything, adjust
  (habituate), then a twig snaps and youre alert
  again
• Habituation and Sensitization often occur
  rapidly, generally with stimulus that are related
  to potential harm

19
Classical Conditioning

• Descartes originated the concept
• Believed that senses are muscles connected by
  nerves
• Flow of animal spirits through these nerves makes
  it possible for instinctive reactions to take
  place
• Example step on a sharp stick
• Nerves in foot send signal to the brain
• Brain releases animal spirits into the nerve
  causing swelling and the foot to be pulled up off
  the stick

20
Classical Conditioning

• This is Descartes explanation of a reflex it
  bypasses consciousness and happens automatically

21
Classical Conditioning

• Whytt (1763)
• Scottish noted that seeing or thinking about
  food caused an increase in salvia in a hungry
  person
• Bernard (1872)
• Studied salivation in horses

22
Classical Conditioning

• Pavlov Russian physiologist
• Earned a Nobel prize for work on digestion
• Was working with dogs used surgical holes in
  the stomach to measure digestive fluids
• New design to measure salvation
• Put food in dogs mouth to monitor salvia and
  digestive juices
• Problem dogs soon began to salivate at the
  sight of Pavlov
• Needed to figure out cause before he could go
  back to studying digestion

23
Classical Conditioning
24
Classical Conditioning

• Pavlovs results
• If two stimulus together, the subject will begin
  to associate them and if one is present expect
  the other (called associative learning)
• Eventually, the presence of the previous neutral
  stimulus will elicit the same response as the
  conditioned stimulus
• The more close the pair stimulus appear together,
  the quicker the learning

25
Classical Conditioning

• If the neutral stimulus precedes the conditioned
  stimulus it doesnt work as well (backwards
  conditioning)
• The conditioned response is not exactly the same
  as the unconditioned response (salvia is
  different)
• Classical conditioning is possible in all
  organisms humans, dogs, rats, etc.

26
Classical Conditioning
27
Operant Conditioning

• Modification of behavior in order to elicit
  desired effects (rewards) and/or avoid negative
  effects (punishments)
• Operant Conditioning is shaping behavior through
  rewards and punishments
• Voluntary behavior is encouraged/discouraged

28
Operant Conditioning
Goal get the mouse to the star by teaching the
mouse to reach each turn, moving further when
behavior it engrained
29
Operant Conditioning

• Edward Thorndike the 1st to study
• Focused on learning by trial and accidental
  success
• Law of Effect behavior that is consistently
  rewarded will be stamped in as learned behavior
  and behavior that is consistently punished will
  be stamped out
• B. F. Skinner
• Created conditioning chamber or Skinner Box
• Allowed control of other stimuli, provide rewards
  or punishment

30

• Gets food is performs desired behavior (pushes
  lever)
• Gets shocked if performs undesired behavior

31
Operant Conditioning

• Reinforcer a stimulus that follows behavior and
  increases the likelihood that the behavior will
  be repeated
• Punisher a stimulus that follows behavior and
  decreased the likelihood that the behavior will
  be repeated

32
Operant Conditioning

• Positive reinforcer any event whose presence
  increases the likelihood that ongoing behavior
  will recur
• Behavior earns treats, pleasant music
• Negative reinforcer any event whose reduction
  or termination increases the likelihood that
  ongoing behavior will recur
• Behavior leads to loss of something bad (no
  shock), bad smell leaves

33
Operant Conditioning

• Punishment any event whose punishment decreases
  the likelihood that ongoing behavior will recur
• Positive something bad happens (shock)
• Negative lose something good (food) also
  called omission training
• Avoidance training learning a desirable
  behavior to prevent the occurrence of something
  unpleasant such as punishment
• Cat stays off the counters because it knows it
  will be squirted with water if it gets on them

34
Operant Conditioning

• Learned helplessness failure to take steps to
  avoid or escape from unpleasant stimulus that
  occurs as a result of previous exposure to
  unavoidable painful stimulus
• Subject is unable to avoid negative stimulus
  once, thinks they never can (no control over
  events)
• Children who are punished (abuse) with no
  relation to action develop feelings of
  powerlessness, lose motivation to try

35
Reinforcement Schedules

• Fixed ratio (FR) - every nth response is
  reinforced
• individual works steadily until receiving one
  reinforcer, then takes a break, then works
  steadily until receiving another reinforcer
• Fixed interval (FI) - occurs after the passage of
  a specified length of time from the beginning of
  training or from the last reinforcement
• do not respond at the beginning of the interval,
  but they respond faster and faster as the time
  for reinforcement approaches
• Students watching a clock in class

36
Reinforcement Schedules

• Variable ratio (VR) - number of responses
  required between reinforcements varies, but on
  average equals a predetermined number
• occur at a rapid, steady rate, with few pauses
• Gambling slot machines, poker, etc
• Variable interval (VI) - reinforcement occurs
  after the passage of a varying length of time
  around an average
• Behavior on these schedules tends to be steady,
  but slower than on ratio schedules

37
Reinforcement Schedules

• BF Skinner
• Believed positive reactions reinforced behaviors,
  negative reactions discouraged
• Thinks punishment is not a deterrent to behavior,
  people will continue the behavior and try to
  avoid the punishment
• Believes faster reinforcement will increase
  learning (immediate feedback) and students are
  more likely to continue learning

38
Social Learning

• Observational learning learning by observing
  other peoples behavior
• Vicarious reinforcement/punishment
  reinforcement or punishment experienced by models
  that affects the willingness of others to perform
  the behaviors they learned by observing models.
• Social Learning Theory a view of learning that
  emphasizes the ability to learn by observing a
  model or receiving instructions, without
  firsthand experience by the learner.

39
Social Learning

• General Principles
• People can learn by observing the behavior is of
  others and the outcomes of those behaviors.
• Learning can occur without a change in behavior.
  Behaviorists say that learning has to be
  represented by a permanent change in behavior, in
  contrast social learning theorists say that
  because people can learn through observation
  alone, their learning may not necessarily be
  shown in their performance. Learning may or may
  not result in a behavior change.

40
Social Learning

• Cognition plays a role in learning. Over the last
  30 years social learning theory has become
  increasingly cognitive in its interpretation of
  human learning. Awareness and expectations of
  future reinforcements or punishments can have a
  major effect on the behaviors that people
  exhibit.
• Social learning theory can be considered a bridge
  or a transition between behaviorist learning
  theories and cognitive learning theories.

41
Social Learning

• four-step pattern which combines cognitive and
  operant views of learning
• Attention -- the individual notices something in
  the environment
• Retention -- the individual remembers what was
  noticed
• Reproduction -- the individual produces an action
  that is a copy of what was noticed
• Motivation -- the environment delivers a
  consequence that changes the probability the
  behavior will be emitted again (reinforcement and
  punishment)

42
Social Learning

• Factors that models have that affect imitation
• who are similar to themselves
• who are seen to be rewarded for their actions
• who have some kind of prestige (because of their
  possessions, their strength etc.)
• Other factors
• if the motivational set is increased (offering a
  reward for imitation of the model) then subjects
  are more willing to imitate
• previous experience influences the attention paid
  to particular aspects of the model's behavior
  (children used to violence are more likely to pay
  attention to violent aspects of the model's
  behavior)

43
Social Learning

• Bobo Dolls early 1960s
• Showed video of adults hitting doll to children
• Children were lead into another room with
  attractive toys they werent allowed to touch
• Children were lead into a 3rd room with toys
  similar to the Bobo Doll
• 88 of children imitated the violent behavior
• 8 months later, 40 were still imitating the
  behavior

44
Social learning
45
Social learning

• Another version had video in which a child in a
  playroom behaved aggressively (e.g., hit, kick,
  yell) towards the "bobo doll."
• The film had three different endings.
• One group of children saw the child praised for
  his behavior
• One group saw the child told to go sit down in a
  corner and was not allowed to play with the toys
• The control group saw a film with the child
  simply walking out of the room.

46
Social Learning

• Children were then allowed into the playroom and
  actions of aggression were noted

47
Social Learning

• Children are more likely to imitate aggressive
  behavior displayed by cartoon characters than
  behaviors displayed by live or filmed adults

48
Memory