W4 Learning and Behaviour

Early History
Structuralism (map of consciousness)
 Introspection—participants unbale to describe subjective experience
Psychoanalysis (theory of unconscious)
 Unscientific

Behaviourism
 a systematic approach to understanding the behaviour of humans and other animals
through conditioning, without appeal to thoughts or feelings.
 only concerned with conditioning/associative learning
o when a subject links certain events, behaviours and stimuli together in the
process of conditioning
 Classical Conditioning: a type of learning allows one to links 2/more stimuli and
anticipate events.
o Eg. Pavlov’s Dog
a. Food (unconditioned stimulus) > Salivation (unconditioned response)
b. During Conditioning: Adding a bell (neutral stimulus) that initially
produces no response
c. Acquisition: the neutral stimulus elicits conditioned response, eventually
becomes a conditioned stimulus capable of eliciting the conditioned
response by itself
d. After-Conditioning Phase: sound of a bell (conditioned stimulus) > dog
drooling (conditioned response)
An initially neutral stimulus that elicits a conditioned response after it has
been associated with an unconditioned stimulus
o Eg. "Little Albert"
a. Make a loud noise to scare the boy > cry
b. Show a rat that initially produces no fear
c. After the experiment, Albert cries whenever seeing a rat (also scared of
other flurry objects)
o Additional Phenomena
 Extinction: the conditioned stimulus is (e.g. bell) no longer followed by the
unconditioned stimulus (e.g. food)
 Spontaneous Recovery: a temporary return of an extinguished response after
a delay
è Extinction =/= Unlearning
è extinction leaves a permanent trace that cause relearning
(reconditioning) to occur faster than the original conditioning
 Renewal Effect: recovery of an extinguished response that occurs when the
context is changed after extinction. Especially strong when the change of
 context involves return to the context in which conditioning originally
occurred
è Eg. if the extinction process is done solely in the day, renewal effect
may emerge when the dog is presented with the bell sound at night
 Blocking: no conditioning occurs to a stimulus if it is combined with a
previously conditioned stimulus during conditioning trials
è Eg. animal has already learned the association between stimulus A
(the bell) and the food,
è The prior conditioning involving CSA blocks the conditioning of CSB, the
animal doesn’t learn an association between stimulus B (the light)
and the food
è surprise factor is necessary in associative learning
 Operant Conditioning: a behaviour is strengthened by reinforcer/diminished by punisher
o Eg. Skinner’s Box
o Positive Reinforcement: a stimulus presented after a response, strengthen the
response
 Primary reinforcer—an innately reinforcing stimulus (satisfy biological
needs)
 Conditioned reinforcer—a stimulus that gains its reinforcing power
through association with a primary reinforcer
o Negative Reinforcement: a stimulus removed after a response, strengthens the
response
 =/= Punishment !!
I. Punishment: decreases the probability of a response.

o Positive Punishment: add an aversive consequence after undesired behaviour to

decrease future responses (e.g. receiving pain)
o Negative Punishment: take away a reinforcing item after undesired behaviour to
decrease future responses (e.g. withholding food)

o Shaping: an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide

behaviour closer and closer towards desires behaviours

o Success depends on the Reinforcement Schedule—frequency of reinforcement

 Continuous reinforcement: rewarded after every correct response
--However, it is subject to extinction as reinforcing a behaviour every
single time is difficult to maintain for a long period of time + behaviour
will stop once the reinforcement is no longer available
 Partial (intermittent) reinforcement: reinforcing a response only part of
the time; slower acquisition but greater resistance to extinction
I. Fixed-Ratio Schedule Provides reinforcement after a fixed number
of correct responses
 II. Variable-Ratio Schedule Provide reinforcement after a variable
number of correct responses but each response with nearly equal
probability of success
III. Fixed-Interval Schedule provide reinforcement for the first
response after a specific time interval
IV. Variable-Interval Schedule provide reinforcement after a variable
amount of time; equal interval on average
I. A pause after each reinforcement,
and the resumption of steady
responding. On average, pauses
are longer in schedules requiring
greater numbers of Reponses

II. Generate steady response rates

III. A pause is common after each

reinforcement, and begins to
respond again toward the end of
the time interval

IV. Responses are typically slow but

steady

o Additional Phenomena
 Extinction: responses stop producing reinforcements/punishments
Eg. You used to enjoy a particular video game, but for the last few times it
seemed boring, so you stopped playing
Eg. You once had the habit of asking your roommate to join you for
supper. The last few times rejected, so you stopped asking
 Generalisation: The more similar a new stimulus is to the original
reinforced stimulus, the more likely the response is the same
 Discrimination: an occurrence of reinforcement in response to one
stimulus but not another
 Superstitious behaviours: conditioned response to random delivery of
stimulus

However, behaviourism has been hugely criticized believes that learning is solely about
conditioning, association, reward, and punishment.
 Conditioned taste aversion—not all associations learned equally, some are vital for
survival
 Human have larger cognitive capacity to think out of intended associations
 Reinforcement not necessary in learning—latent learning
 Observational learning; modelling: observe and imitate
o Bandura and the Bobo Doll