PSY 402

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PSY 402

• Theories of Learning
• Chapter 1 What is Learning?
  

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What is Learning?

• Learning is
• An experiential process
• Resulting in a relatively permanent change
• Not explained by temporary states, maturation, or
  innate response tendencies.

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Three Limits on the Definition

• The change that occurs during learning is a
  potential for behavior that depends on other
  conditions.
• Learning is not always a permanent change.
• What can be learned can be unlearned.
• Changes also occur for other reasons
  maturation, motivation.

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Three Kinds of Learning

• Adaptation to the environment
• Habituation sensitization
• Classical conditioning
• Also known as Pavlovian conditioning, respondent
  conditioning, S-S learning.
• Instrumental or operant conditioning
• Also known as S-R learning.

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Roots of Learning Theory

• The discovery of reflexes
• Functionalism
• British Associationists

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1.3 (A) René Descartes (B) René Descartes came
up with the concept of reflex action
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Man, the Machine

• Descartes proposed that the body operates
  mechanically via reflex actions, similar to
  machinery.
• Reflexes are activated by stimuli in the
  environment.
• A reflex connects a stimulus (S) with a response
  (R).
• This concept is used throughout learning theory.

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The Role of Mind

• Descartes proposed that the mind could overrule
  the action of bodily reflexes.
• Hobbes disagreed, arguing that the mind too
  operated reflexively.
• Hedonism all human thought is governed by
  seeking pleasure and avoiding pain.
• De la Mettrie observed that humans and animals
  are similar, and the body can affect the mind, as
  well as vice versa.

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1.4 Two famous British Empiricists
John Locke
David Hume
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British Empiricists (Associationists)

• Locke, Hume, Berkeley
• The mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) at birth.
• Knowledge is built up from sense impressions
  combined to form complex ideas.
• Associations bind these impressions together.
• Complexity is built from simple parts
• Example of the apple sweetness, redness,
  roundness, associated with taste, smell to form
  the idea (concept) of an apple.

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1.5 Immanuel Kant
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Nature vs. nurture

• Nativists (nature) vs. empiricists (nurture).
• Rationalism Kant argued that the mind is
  prepared to respond to its environment at birth.
• A priori assumptions or ideas organize
  experience.
• We are born knowing about causality, substance,
  and a variety of other concepts.
• This idea is called preparedness.
• The extreme version of this philosophy is called
  structuralism.

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1.6 (A) Charles Darwin (B) Drawing from one of
Darwins notebooks
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Evolution Natural Selection

• Darwin there is a continuity between humans and
  animals and both struggle for survival.
• Perhaps the mind itself has evolved.
• Functionalism because behavior promotes
  survival, we can study behavior to understand its
  adaptive function.

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Functionalists

• Dewey lower animals have reflexes, humans have
  a flexible mind
• James people have instincts, not reflexes
• The difference is whether the behavior can be
  changed or interrupted
• Brucke internal biochemical forces motivate
  behavior in all species.

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Criticisms of Functionalism

• The variety of behavior across cultures is
  inconsistent with universal human instincts.
• Infants seem to have few innate instincts.
• Labeling everything an instinct doesnt aid
  understanding much.
• Bernard cataloged 2000 instincts

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Comparative Psychology

• Romanes collected stories of animal behavior.
• Morgan observed that dogs were not as clever as
  humans in performing certain tasks.
• Complex animal behaviors may be built from
  laboriously learned simple processes.
• We cannot judge from the observed result but from
  the process of learning.
• Morgans canon behavior should not be explained
  by a complex process if a simpler one works
  (parsimony of explanation).

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1.7 (A) C. Lloyd Morgan (B) Morgans dog, Tony
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Behaviorism

• A search for the laws governing learning.
• Emphasis on experience.
• Avoidance of mentalistic concepts.
• Associations are formed based on
• Resemblance (similarity)
• Contiguity in time or place
• Cause and effect
• We can generalize from animals to humans.

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Early Experiments

• Thorndike S-R learning with cats in puzzle box.
• Pavlov S-S learning with dogs salivating for
  meat powder.
• Watson S-S learning with humans, such as
  Little Albert and the white rabbit.
• Skinner S-R learning with rats in Skinner
  boxes (operant chambers). A radical
  Behaviorist.
• Tolman the gadfly of Behaviorism, arguing
  that even rats have minds and think about their
  actions.

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1.8 (A) Edward Thorndike (B) Two puzzle boxes
Thorndike used to study the intelligence of cats
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Thorndikes Laws

• Also called S-R learning.
• Law of effect A chance act becomes a learned
  behavior when a connection is formed between a
  stimulus (S) and a response (R) that is rewarded.
• Law of exercise the S-R connection is
  strengthened by use and weakened with disuse.

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Thorndikes Laws (Cont.)

• Law of readiness motivation is needed to
  develop an association or display changed
  behavior.
• Associative shifting a learned behavior
  (response) can be shifted from one stimulus to
  another.
• Once a behavior is learned, the stimulus is
  gradually changed.
• Fish stand up, then stand up alone.

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1.9 (A) Ivan Pavlov (B) Pavlovs classical
conditioning set-up
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Pavlovs Conditioned Reflex

• Conditioning -- a stimulus that initially
  produces no response can acquire the ability to
  produce one.
• Learning occurs through pairing in time and place
  of one stimulus with another stimulus that
  produces a response.
• This is a kind of associative shifting, but the
  response is involuntary.

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Pavlovs Studies
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1.10 John B. Watson
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Watson Raynor

• Human fears can be acquired through Pavlovian
  (classical) conditioning.
• Rat paired with loud noise
• Stimulus generalized to other white objects
  (white rabbit, white fur coat)
• Mary Cover Jones developed counterconditioning --
  a technique for eliminating conditioned fears.
• Acquisition of fear-inhibiting response

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Little Albert
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1.11 (A) B. F. Skinner (B) A modern Skinner
box
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Ethics of Learning Research

• Animals and humans are now protected by oversight
  and ethical guidelines.
• Pain or injury to animals must be weighed against
  and justified by the knowledge to be gained.
• Electric shock typically is uncomfortable and
  upsetting but not physically harmful.

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The Operant vs Respondent Distinction

• How voluntary is behavior?
• Operant vs respondent distinction
• Respondent behavior is controlled by what happens
  first (antecedents), elicited by stimuli in the
  environment.
• Operant behavior is controlled by the
  consequences of behavior in the past, emitted by
  the organism based on prior experience.

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1.12 Edward C. Tolman developed operational
behaviorism
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Tolmans Operational Behaviorism

• Tolman proposed that behavior can be described in
  terms of unobservable mental constructs.
• Thirst is a construct that relates antecedents to
  observed behavioral responses.
• Constructs are widely used in psychology.
• Cognitive psychology emerged out of Tolmans
  early research demonstrating constructs in rats.

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1.13 A theoretical construct like thirst is
not directly observable (Part 1)
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1.13 A theoretical construct like thirst is
not directly observable (Part 2)