Chapter 12: Theories of Learning

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Chapter 12 Theories of Learning

• A History of Psychology
• (3rd Edition)
• John G. Benjafield

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Ernest R. Hilgard (19042001)

• Wrote series of popular and influential textbooks
• Introductory text most successful academic
  textbook of the 1970s
• Conditioning and Learning (1940)
• Theories of Learning (1948)
• Became a defining survey textbook
• Served as a prototype for later survey textbooks

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E.R. Guthrie (18861959)

• Trained in logic and philosophy of science
• Concluded The laws of logic are conventions and
  not laws of thought.
• Skeptical of notions of possibility of completely
  rigorous deduction, ultimate validity in an
  argument
• Presented his theory of learning in an informal
  way

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Contiguity

• Continguity A combination of stimuli which has
  accompanied a movement will, on its recurrence,
  tend to be followed by that movement.
• Principle at the core of Guthries learning theory

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Repetition

• Typical view repetition acts to strengthen the
  connection between stimulus and response
• Guthries view repetition provides the
  opportunity for additional stimuli to become
  associated with a response

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Reward

• Typical view reinforcement strengthens the
  connection between stimulus and response
• Guthrie reward acts to prevent the animal from
  unlearning the association formed just before the
  reward

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One-Trial Learning

• Guthries writing was in touch with everyday life
• Suggestions for meeting the problems of animal
  training, child rearing, and pedagogy
• Ex. breaking a habit
• 1. Find the cues that initiate the action
• 2. Practice another response to these cues

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Clark L. Hull (18841952)

• Motivational theory
• Based on the concept of drive
• Drive any persistent and intense stimulus
• Similarities shared with psychoanalytic
  hypotheses about motivation

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The Formal Structure of Hullian Theory

• Guthries approach
• Simple, practical ideas
• Informal relation between theory and data
• Hulls approach
• Abstract, technical
• Precise relation between theory and data
• Illustrates the kind of procedures recommended by
  logical positivists

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The Hypothetico-deductive Method

• Hull attempted to create a mathematical theory
  from which could be deduced the facts of learning
• Postulates intended to describe the basic laws
  of behaviour
• Intervening variables represent hypothetical
  processes that occur inside the organism and are
  supposed to govern behaviour
• Theorems experimentally testable hypotheses
  about behaviour

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Postulates

• Theory was an elaboration of Thorndikes law of
  effect
• Primary reinforcer any stimulus that results in
  a reduction in drive
• Secondary reinforcer a stimulus that initially
  has no reinforcing properties but acquires them
  through association with a reinforcing stimulus

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Postulates

• Drive (D)
• Major motivational concept in Hulls theory
• Tends to increase as a function of the amount of
  time that has elapsed since the last
  reinforcement

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Postulates

• Habits learned connections between stimuli and
  response
• Formed as a result of reinforcement
• Habit strength is equal to 1 minus 11 to the
  minus aN
• N is the number of times a response to a stimulus
  has been reinfroced
• a has a constant value (.03)

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Postulates

• Stimulus-intensity dynamism (V) amount of energy
  possessed by a stimulus that impinges on the
  organism
• Incentive motivation (K) amount of reward that
  follows a response
• Reaction potential amount of energy
  available for a response

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Postulates

• Reactive inhibition acts as a negative
  drive that is reduced by not responding
• Conditioned inhibition negative habit
  that tends to make the organism less likely to
  respond

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Kenneth W. Spence (19071967)

• Worked closely with Hull
• Attempted to explain Köhlers transposition
  experiments
• Animals learn relationships between stimuli
• Realized Köhlers Gestalt explanation was a
  threat to an associationist form of explanation,
  like Hulls

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Charles E. Osgood (19161991)

• Graduate work at Yale
• Extended the Hullian approach
• Mediational processes
• A way of explaining how stimuli acquired meaning
  for an organism

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The Semantic Differential

• Mediating processes often associated with words
• Mediators carry the meanings of words,
  particularly their emotional or affective
  meanings
• Semantic differential technique rate a person,
  thing, or event on a set of seven-point bipolar
  scales

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E.C. Tolman (18861959)

• 1914 Converted to behaviourism
• Phenomenology in operational behaviouristic
  terms
• Blend of methodological behaviourism and Gestalt
  psychology with other influences

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Purposive Behaviour

• Subject matter behaviour described with
  reference to the goal that the animal is seeking
• Molar descriptions in terms of what the
  behaviour is intended to accomplish
• Molecular descriptions in terms of specific
  muscular and glandular reactions
• Tolman attempted to explain molar behaviour,
  therefore purposive behaviour

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Cognitive Maps

• The explanation of purposive behaviour requires
  an understanding of how an animal represents its
  environment
• Cognitive maps
• Contain expectancies representations of what the
  animal is likely to find by following the
  different routes represented in the map
• Expectancies integrated into sign Gestalts
  representations of the way one event leads to
  other events in the cognitive map

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The Place vs. Response Controversy

• Does learning consist of the formation of
  stimulusresponse connections?
• Does learning consist of the formation of
  expectations?

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The Verbal-Learning Tradition

• Studies of verbal learning
• Ebbinghaus nonsense syllables
• Calkins paired associates
• Concerned with uncovering the basic laws of the
  formation of associations in humans

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Acquisition

• Irvin Rock (19221995)
• Tested the hypothesis of one-trial learning
• Results repetition plays no role in the
  formation of associations
• Some criticisms re experimental procedures used

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Serial Learning

• When asked to learn lists of nonsense syllables,
  participants learn the middle of the list more
  slowly than the ends
• Real world context?
• Roediger and Crowder (1982)
• Listing names of the presidents of the United
  States shows serial position curve

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The Fate of Verbal Learning

• Benton J. Underwood (19151994)
• By the 1960s, verbal learning considered dull
• Symposium Verbal Behavior and General Behavior
  Theory
• Adequacy of an associationist approach to the
  study of learning was called into question

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D.O. Hebb (19041985)

• Studied with Karl Lashley
• Career at McGill University
• First foreign president of the American
  Psychological Association (Canadian)

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The Organization of Behavior

• Neuropsychology combined aspects of psychology
  with neurophysiology
• Cell assemblies physiological mediating
  processes responsible for representing
  stimulation
• Hebb rule when neuron A fires neuron B, some
  change occurs in A or B or both, which then
  increases As capacity to fire B in the future
• Phase sequences
• Phantom limbs

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Motivation

• Arousal system the nonspecific or diffuse
  projection system of the brain stem which was
  shown . . . to be an arousal system whose
  activity in effect makes organzied cortical
  activity possible

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Experiments in Sensory Deprivation

• Funded in part by the Canadian Department of
  National Defence
• Participants paid undergraduate students
• Procedure participants placed in insolation
  chambers, received only unpatterned sensory
  stimulation

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Experiments in Sensory Deprivation

• Results
• Participants began to have hallucinations after
  23 days
• Participants more likely to believe propaganda
  than controls
• Participants less able to think about problems
• Participants quit the experiment quickly

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Albert Bandura (1925)

• Undergraduate degree at University of British
  Columbia
• PhD at University of Iowa
• Influenced by Kenneth Spence

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Social-Learning Theory

• Stressed the importance of modelling in shaping a
  persons learned behaviour
• Modelling takes place through observational
  learning
• Observational learning a person can acquire
  novel responses through the observation of
  another persons actions
• Bandura has drawn out the social implications of
  modelling

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Behaviour Modification

• Mary Cover Jones (18961987)
• Study with boy named Peter, afraid of furry
  objects
• Placed a caged rabbit nearby while the boy was
  fed
• Decreased distance between rabbit and boy on
  subsequent occasions
• Systematic desensitization

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Reciprocal Determinism

• Is the person or the situation more important in
  determining behaviour?
• Reciprocal determinism assumes neither that the
  environment controls behaviour nor that people
  are free to do as they wish
• Triadic reciprocal causation the person, the
  environment, and behaviour interact so as to
  determine each other