Learning

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Learning
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Learning

• is a relatively permanent change in behavior
  that occurs through experiences.

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• Learning is extremely important for both humans
  and animals in terms of survival, function and
  adaptation. A century of research on learning on
  lower animals suggests that principles generated
  initially from lower animals can also be applied
  to human beings.

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Types of Learning

• 1. Associative Learning
• a type of learning where an organism makes a
  connection or association made between two
  events.
• Conditioning a process of learning associations
• 2. Observational Learning
• 3. Verbal Learning

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Classical Conditioning or Pavlovian
Theory
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Classical Conditioning

• - an organism learns the association between two
  stimuli
• Respondent behavior meaning, behavior occurs
  automatically and this explains how neutral
  stimuli bring out INVOLUNTARY RESPONSES
• ? Result organisms learn to anticipate events

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Major concepts

• UCS (unconditioned stimulus)
• gtgtstimulus that produces a response without
  prior learning.
• UCR (unconditioned response)
• gtgt response that is automatically obtained
  because of the UCS.
• NS (neutral stimulus)
• gtgt a stimulus that cannot elicit any response
  but becomes associated with a meaningful
  stimulus. Once associated, it acquires the
  capacity to produce similar responses.

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Major concepts

• CS (conditioned stimulus)
• gtgt a previously neutral stimulus that results
  in a conditioned response after being associated
  with an UCS.
• CR (conditioned response)
• gtgt learned response to the CS that occurs after
  CS-UCS link. It Is similar to the UCR.

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Important Principles

• 1. Acquisition
• gtgt initial step in learning association.
• Time interval
• ? defines contiguity or connectedness in time
  space of a stimulus
• ? gap between a particular stimulus to the
  unconditioned stimulus
• Contingency
• ? predictability of one stimuli occurring because
  of the presence of another stimuli.

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Important Principles

• 2. Generalization
• gtgt if another stimuli is more similar to the
  original stimulus, it will result to similar
  responses. We dont have to relearn everything we
  sense.
• 3. Discrimination
• gtgt learning to respond to certain stimuli not
  to respond to others because generalization is
  not always beneficial.

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Important Principles

• 4. Extinction
• gtgt weakening of the conditioned responses in the
  absence of unconditioned stimulus. Without
  continued association between UCS NS, CS losses
  power to produce CR
• 5. Spontaneous Recovery
• gtgt a conditioned response can occur after a time
  delay without further conditioning

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• Implications
• Classical conditioning can also explain
  help humans in several ways such as dealing with
  phobia, cultivating pleasant emotion, analyzing
  health problems consumer behavior.

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• Implication
• Phobias extreme fear or Irrational fear.
• Behaviorists claim that fears can be learned
  through classical conditioning, thus it can be
  cured through counter conditioning.
• Counter conditioning weakens a CR by associating
  fear- provoking stimulus with a new response that
  is incompatible with fear.

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• 2. Pleasant Emotion
• gtgt it is a positive emotion. Classical
  conditioning is also involve not only to
  unpleasant emotions like fear. This can explain
  our favorite songs, place food.
• 3. Health Problems
• gtgt asthma, headaches, high blood pressure are
  sometimes due to stress but behaviorist can
  explain these phenomena by claiming that these
  certain responses are caused by stimuli that
  become conditioned to produce physiological
  responses.

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• 4. Consumer psychology
• gtgt advertisers now a days use psychology in
  determining how consumers think, feel reason in
  selecting among variants, brands, products
  services. Women are associated with sexual
  arousal in men. Thus including women alcoholic
  beverages repeatedly conditions consumers to
  think that the drink is actually associated with
  masculinity, sexuality excitement.

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Operant Conditioning
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Operant Conditioning

• - is the use of consequences to modify the
  occurrence and form of behavior
• - is distinguished from Pavlovian conditioning in
  that, operant conditioning deals with the
  modification of voluntary behavior through the
  use of consequences, while Pavlovian conditioning
  deals with the conditioning of behavior so that
  it occurs under new antecedent conditions

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Operant Conditioning

• A type of associative learning where the
  consequences of behavior change the chances or
  probability of the behaviors occurrence.
• describes an organisms response to environment.
  Emphasizes on the ACTIVE and VOLUNTARY nature of
  an organism to respond.
• Also called instrumental conditioning

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• American psychologist B.F. Skinner 1938 coined
  the word operant that means
• ? that behavior operates on the environment and
  vice versa
• ? and that voluntary responses or behavior that
  operates on the environment produces rewards
  punishment.
• ? Skinner other behaviorist created the Skinner
  box (rat and food pellets and levers, also
  includes electric shocks.)
• through the skinner box behaviorist were able to
  assume basic principles such as rewards,
  reinforcements, punishments.

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observed the behavior of cats trying to escape
from home-made puzzle boxes. When first
constrained in the boxes, the cats took a long
time to escape. With experience, ineffective
responses occurred less frequently and successful
responses occurred more frequently, enabling the
cats to escape in less time over successive
trials.
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• In his Law of Effect, Thorndike theorized that
  successful responses, those producing satisfying
  consequences, were "stamped in" by the experience
  and thus occurred more frequently. Unsuccessful
  responses, those producing annoying consequences,
  were stamped out and subsequently occurred less
  frequently. In short, some consequences
  strengthened behavior and some consequences
  weakened behavior.

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Reinforcements Punishments

• Reinforcement, and punishment, the core ideas of
  operant conditioning, are either positive
  (introducing a stimulus to an organism's
  environment following a response), or negative
  (removing a stimulus from an organism's
  environment following a response).

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• Four contexts of operant conditioning Here the
  terms "positive" and "negative" are not used in
  their popular sense, but rather "positive"
  refers to addition, and "negative" refers to
  subtraction.
• What is added or subtracted may be either
  reinforcement or punishment. Hence positive
  punishment is sometimes a confusing term, as it
  denotes the addition of punishment (such as
  spanking or an electric shock), a context that
  may seem very negative in the lay sense.

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• Reinforcement is a consequence that causes a
  behavior to occur with greater frequency.
• Punishment is a consequence that causes a
  behavior to occur with less frequency.

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1. Positive reinforcement occurs when a behavior
   (response) is followed by a favorable stimulus
   (commonly seen as pleasant) that increases the
   frequency of that behavior. In the Skinner box
   experiment, a stimulus such as food or sugar
   solution can be delivered when the rat engages in
   a target behavior, such as pressing a lever.

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• 2. Negative reinforcement occurs when a behavior
  (response) is followed by the removal of an
  aversive stimulus (commonly seen as unpleasant)
  thereby increasing that behavior's frequency.
• In the Skinner box experiment, negative
  reinforcement can be a loud noise continuously
  sounding inside the rat's cage until it engages
  in the target behavior, such as pressing a lever,
  upon which the loud noise is removed.

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• Positive punishment occurs when a behavior
  (response) is followed by an aversive stimulus,
  such as introducing a shock or loud noise,
  resulting in a decrease in that behavior.
• Negative punishment occurs when a behavior
  (response) is followed by the removal of a
  favorable stimulus, such as taking away a child's
  toy following an undesired behavior, resulting in
  a decrease in that behavior.

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REINFORCEMENTS

• Primary reinforcements uses reinforces that are
  innately satisfying.
• Secondary reinforcement it acquires its positive
  values through experiences that was learned .

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Schedules of Reinforcements timetable when a
behavior will be reinforced

• FIXED RATIO reinforces behavior only after a set
  number of behaviors.
• (E.g sales commission)
• RESULT performance drops right after
  reinforcement
• ii. VARIABLE RATIO behavior is reinforced on
  an average of times but on an unpredictable
  basis.
• RESULT produces steady rates of behavior that is
  most resistant to extinction

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Schedules of Reinforcements timetable when a
behavior will be reinforced

• iii. FIXED INTERVAL reinforcement is determined
  by the time elapsed since last behavior was
  rewarded.
• (E.g. election, salary etc.)
• RESULT behavior peaks near the time of
  reinforcement
• iv. VARIABLE INTERVAL behavior is reinforced
  after an inconsistent amount of time has elapsed.
  
• (E.g. surprise quizzes, fishing, etc.)
• RESULT behavior is slow and consistent because
  it is difficult to predict a reward

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PUNISHMENTS

EDWARDS 1999 claimed that punishments shows
models of behaviour in handling stress. It also
instils fear, rage, and avoidance to children.
He says that it only teaches children what NOT
TO DO instead of what TO DO.
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Important Principles

• - Generalization give similar responses to
  similar stimuli
• - Discrimination responding only to a stimuli
  that signal that a behaviour will or will not be
  reinforced.
• - Extinction occurs when a previously reinforced
  behaviour is no longer reinforced.

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• Implication
• Applied Behavioral Analysis/ Behavior
  Modification divert behavior from destructive to
  constructive by setting consequences and
  reinforcing adaptive actions while less adaptive
  tactics are not.
• 2. Education choosing effective reinforcements
  and individualizing particular reinforcements.

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Observational Learning
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• also called imitation or modeling
• developed by Albert Bandura. He didnt like the
  trial and error models because learning would be
  hazardous. He affirmed that we need competent
  models to learn.
• Bandura had 4 steps attention, retention, motor
  production and reinforcement/ incentive
  conditions for learning to occur.

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Verbal Learning
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• is only true for humans. It involves activities
  that need the use of language like speaking,
  writing, reading, reciting.
• Memory plays an important role in learning
  because, like operant conditioning, it should be
  an active process. Memorization, like operant
  conditioning also increase the probability of a
  behavior in a given signal or appropriate context.

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Cognitive Factors in Learning
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• Classical and Operant conditioning ignored the
  possibility that cognitive factors such as
  memory, thinking, planning, expectations setting
  to be involved in learning.
• Cognitive vs. Behavioral behaviorist do not deny
  that thinking processes have roles in learning
  but since such processes cant be observed
  directly, they can hold back environmental
  conditions that dictates behavior

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• 1932 E.C. Tollmans purposiveness believed that
  much of our behavior is goal-directed. He
  believed it is necessary to understand entire
  behavioral sequences to understand why they
  display such behavior.
• (e.g. why high school students study hard? Is
  it because they get reinforced or because they
  want to have good jobs in the future?)
• Wolfgang Kohler insight learning a form of
  problem solving in which organisms develop a
  sudden insight or understanding of the problems
  solution.
• (e.g. stick and box problem)

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Biological and Cultural Factors in Learning
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• the organisms body either permits or hinders
  learning.
• E.g. flying, breathing underwater, morphing.
• Preparedness is the term, used by physiologists
  to indicate that biological/physiological
  predisposition dictates us on how to learn in a
  certain way.
• We cannot learn something we do not experience.
  Cultural differences also affect how we can
  discover our potential to do a particular
  behavior. Learning often requires practice, and
  certain behaviors are practiced MORE in some
  cultures than in others.