PSY 451A Learning and Memory

1
PSY 451A Learning and Memory

• Introduction and syllabus
• Questions and discussion
• Metatheory in learning
• Science and human behavior
• What is an explanation?
• Why do we want to understand?

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Science and human behavior

• Aquinas (1225 - 1274) and Newton (1642 -1727)
  Two-fold truth
• The demise of vitalism
• The success of science spreads

3
What is an explanation?

• Explanation connects two variables
• Causes and effects
• Necessary causes vs. sufficient causes
• In real explanations, causes
• are external to effects
• initiate processes leading to effects
• are necessary under the circumstances
• are sufficient under the circumstances
• can be generalized as laws or explanations

4
Teleological explanations

• Teleological explanations add cognitive variables
• Purpose
• Belief
• Expectation
• Deliberation

5
Forming explanations

• Forming hypotheses
• Malaria is caused by bad air.
• Testing hypotheses
• Seeking confirming data
• Seeking disconfirming data
• Choosing explanations

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Why do we want to understand?

• So we can intervene Control
• So we can feel better Retrospective control
• So we can satisfy our values

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Roots of learning theory

• Philosophical roots
• Empiricism and rationalism
• Associationism
• Biological roots
• Physiology
• Evolutionary theory
• Challenges to learning theory

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Philosophical history of learning theory

• Empiricism and the Ionian cosmologists
• Rationalism and the Platonic idealists
• Aristotle and controlled observation
• Augustine (354-430) and the Patristics

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And more philosophical history

• Ibn Sina (Avicenna) (980-1037)
• Ibn Rushd (Averroes) (1126-1198)
• Descartes (1596-1650), centralized authority, and
  a new dualism Interactionism
• Hobbes (1588-1679) and laws of the mind
  Endeavors
• Locke (1632-1704), the demise of the Stuarts, and
  the tabula rasa

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The rise of associationism John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873)

• The first four laws of association
• 1. Temporal contiguity
• 2. Repetition or exercise
• 3. Spatial contiguity
• 4. Intensity of sensations
• continued...

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The rise of associationism Mill

• The last four laws of association
• 5. Similarity of sensations
• 6. Recency of pairing of sensations
• 7. Context complexity
• 8. Distinctiveness of association

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Biological bases of learning theory

• Empirical challenges to Descartes
• Swammerdam (1637-1680) and Galvani
• The biological basis of reflex Helmholtz
• Reflexes in the mind Sechenov
• The influence of DarwinRandom variation, natural
  selection, and species continuity
• Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) and the evolution of
  intelligence
• PavlovAssociation ThorndikeEvolution

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Challenges to learning theory

• Representations
• Insight
• Preparedness
• The substitutability test
• Ethology Lorenz and Wilson
• Birdsong learning and the critical period
• Nest-provisioning in the digger wasp
• Navigation in bees

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The substitutability test
Strength of Response
Tone
Taste
Taste
Tone
Shock Food Shock Food