Unit-1-Historical-Approach.

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Raqueel04

Psicología del Aprendizaje

1º Grado en Psicología

Facultad de Psicología
Universitat de València
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 UNIT 1: HISTORICAL APPROACH
LEARNING AND STUDYING BEHAVIOR
Branch of experimental psychology that had a high degree of development during the 20th
century.

Features of the psychology of learning:

- Set of phenomena, related to behavior modification, both in natural and laboratory

situations.
- Series of accumulated knowledge that is the result of the research carried out.
- Set of research methods, to obtain data and testimonies about the phenomena that
form its field of action.

The methods used are:

- Methods of experimental psychology.

- Specific methods and own instruments (such as Skinner's box).

A theoretical structure: science is not simply the accumulation of facts, but also their
organization and explanation.

DEFINITION OF LEARNING

Skinner (1950): “We may define learning as a change in probability of response, but we must
also specify the conditions under which it comes about”

Thorpe (1956): “Learning is that process which manifests itself by adaptive changes in
individual behaviour as a result of experience”

Kimble (1961): “Learning is a relatively permanent change in a behavioural potentiality that

occurs as a result of reinforced practice”

Domjan y Burkhard (2005): “Learning is an enduring change in the mechanisms of behaviour

that results from experience with environmental events”

COMMON IDEA → learning is a change in performance

High levels of arousal makes remembering easier.

Learning is one of the biological processes that facilitates our survival and promotes our well-
being. Whenever we see evidence of learning, we see the emergence of a change in behaviour
(a new response occurs or it is suppressed). However, it is important to take into account that
behaviour is influenced by other factors. We may conclude that “learning is an enduring
change in the mechanisms of behaviour that results from experience with environmental
events”

Appearance of a change in behavior:

Learning: acquire a new answer, delete a response that was previously produced.

Performance: actions of an organism at a specific time, determined by many factors

(motivation, sensory and motor abilities, learning).
The behavior (performance) of an organism is used to provide evidence that learning exists.

B. DISTINCTION BETWEEN LEARNING AND OTHER CAUSES OF BEHAVIOR:

Changes are not always permanent: new experiences, oblivion

Changes can be due to other processes: motivation, fatigue, drugs, development (maturity),
processes (instinctive).

Fatigue: temporary decrease in behavior caused by excessive or repeated use of the muscles
involved with them.

Maturation: changes in behavior caused by the physical or psychological development of the

organism in the absence of the experience with particular situations in the environment.

IMPLICATIONS OF LEARNING:

- Personal growth
- Social relations
- Personality development
- Acquisition of new skills, attitudes or

knowledge Attitude: evaluates behavior. Not innate,

acquired.

Aptitude: ability to act and react

The main factors that affects learning are:

1. Inheritance: capacity to learn developed by the intervention of the environment to

develop it.

2. Ripening: process by which the patterns of biologically predetermined behavior

emerge following a more or less orderly sequence.

3. Practice

4. Motivation

5. Transfer

C. THE ETHICS OF BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH:

Margaret Floyd Washburn: founder of comparative psychology.

The use of animals in learning research:

- It is easier to establish causal relationships because animal behavior is less variable.

- It is easier to control the experimental situation.
- It allows to know the causes of behavioral disorders through procedures impractical
in humans.
- There is no need to worry about meeting the characteristics of the experiment
(social desirability).
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Conducting studies with humans: The APA's ethical principles determine what type of research
can be conducted.

SUBJECT 2. LEARNING AND RELATED PROCESSES:

1. INSTINCTS AND REFLEXES:

Living things can adapt to a changing world through origin.

Two types:

Phylogenetic: Relatively simple mechanisms aimed at finding the most suitable habits by all
individuals of the same species. Instincts and reflexes

Ontogenetic: They are the behavioral changes produced during the life of an individual due to
maturation and learning.

INNATIONAL BEHAVIOR:

The one that is given without previous experience. It implies the existence of fixed connections
within the nervous system. ALL individuals of the same species reproduce it in the face of
certain stimuli. They have not always existed, but have appeared throughout the phylogenetic
process and have been perpetuated by the mechanism of natural selection. Innate Behavior is
not the same as Specific Behavior of a Species (for example, language).

Only with innate mechanisms would we have great problems adapting to the changing
environment  learning.

TYPES OF INNATE BEHAVIORS:

Elementary innate behaviors: Kinesia: random movements in relation to a stimulus. Rates or

tropisms: movements with a certain relationship with the location of a stimulus.

Unconditioned reflexes: The brain (the will) does not intervene. Innate, elemental and
immediate responses that the organism emits to certain stimuli and responds to pre-set
guidelines.

Instincts: It involves the brain as the main center of coordination. It is not a specific reaction,
but a form of habitual behavior of a species.

Print: It occurs from the recognition of a certain stimulus at a certain stage of development.

2. THE REFLECTIONS

Definition: It is any innate response, of a motor or secretory type, relatively simple that the
organism produces in an involuntary and rapid manner in the face of certain types of stimuli.

Purpose: develop defense behaviors, avoid situations that would lead to a deterioration of the
organism, develop survival movements. Learning.

INSTINCTS:

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More complex and elaborated behaviors than the reflexes. They are triggered by certain
stimuli in all individuals of the same species.

Human instincts: Instinct of aggression. Instinct of fraternity or sociability. Guidelines for

encouraging behavior, for reproduction.

There is controversy about whether or not humans have instincts: McDougall talks about
twelve basic motivations. Behaviorism disagrees and explains human behavior as habits
acquired through repetition and reinforcement.

What is clear is that although learning is more powerful and will modify instinctive behaviors,
there are innate behaviors such as smiling, blinking in response to stimuli or the reflexes of
babies.

PREFIXED WAYS OF RESPONDING TO REALITY THAT INTERACT WITH LEARNING:

REFLEXES: Innate, elemental and immediate responses that the organism gives involuntarily to
certain stimuli. They are prefixed and are usually called unconditional or absolute.

Examples: bending of a limb against a blow to the knee tendon…

INSTINCTS: Inherited and innate psychophysical disposition that determines the individual to
perceive or attend to objects of a certain class, and determines him to also experience an
affective excitement to perceive such objects, or at least to experience an impulse to act in this
way.

REQUIREMENTS OF AN INSTINCT BEHAVIOR:

- To be innate
- Being stereotyped
- Be specific to a species
- Be unintentional, not intentional
- Be uninterrupted
- Have a sense of survival (adaptive) both for the individual and for the species
- Be satiable

FIXED ACTION PATTERNS:

Instinctive actions that show relatively fixed coordination patterns are characterized by
stereotypy, although they can exhibit flexibility in terms of orientation. They do not require
any previous experience for their realization.

LORENZ AND TINBERGEN: THE IMPORTANCE OF INSTINCT

Instinctive systems increase the ability of animals or humans to

adapt to the environment.

This adaptation involves internal energy (or internal force)

activated by a specific environmental stimulus (signal stimulus)
that triggers a predetermined sequence of behavior (fixed action
pattern).
The ability to learn from experience and to respond differentially to a variety of situations is
programmed into the genetic structure of species and provides them with the necessary
flexibility to adapt to environmental changes. § Instinctive processes are programmed to
change as a result of experience. § The ability to learn is INNATURAL, and adaptation increases
to the extent that a species incorporates knowledge about the environment into its genetic
programming.

KEY BEHAVIORAL DIFFERENCES:

INSTINCT: rigid, minor development, it supports little variability.

LEARN: flexible, greater evolution, it supports more variability.

DIFFERENCES BETWEEN REFLEXES AND INSTINCTS:

- Reflex is less complex than instinct.

- The reflex disappears with the Ss while the instinct does not.
- Reflexes occur in the face of very concrete Ss, while instinct can be triggered in
the face of more varied and abstract Ss.
- In reflexes there is no motivational component, while in instincts it counts.
- Reflexes can be conditioned, instincts cannot.

STUDY OF BEHAVIOR IN TERMS OF STIMULI AND RESPONSES:

STIMULUS: Energy change in the physical environment. Agent or condition that acts on the
organism through receptors. It can influence an organism and trigger a response.

ANSWERS/RESPONSES (Rs): Reply or reaction. Unit of behavior limited in time, relatively

complicated in many cases within what "the organism does consecutively to a stimulus".

PHYSIOLOGICAL ASPECTS:

Receiver: it is the structure responsible for collecting the S that can come from the internal or
external environment of the organism.

Transmitter or afferent pathway (from the outside to the inside): leads the S to the medulla or
to higher centers of the CNS

Efferent pathway (from the inside to the outside): it transmits the nerve impulse generated in
the medulla or in the brain to the effectors.

Interneuron: joins the afferent and efferent pathways.

Effector: produces the R: they can be motor neurons (if the R is motor) or glandular (if the R is
secretory).

LAWS OR PROPERTIES OF THE UNCONDITIONED REFLEX:

1. Law of intensity-magnitude: the greater the intensity in the S, the greater the intensity
in the R.

2. Law of latency: the greater the intensity of the S, the less time it takes for the R to appear

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3. Law of the threshold: there is a minimum intensity or threshold below which stimulation
no longer produces reflex R

4. Law of fatigue: If an S is applied repeatedly and with a constant intensity, it may

happen that the magnitude of the R decreases or even that it disappears

5. Law of discharge: in most phasic reflexes (flexion, scratching reflex) the excitation
usually lasts longer than the S that produces it. The duration and strength of this effect
increase by presenting strong Ss or prolonging short Ss.

6. Law of the addition of stimuli: An addition of subliminal stimuli presented repetitively very
close in time can produce an R: the reflex, even if none of the S is capable of causing the
reflex, if is presented alone.

7. Law of reciprocal inhibition or competition: the facilitation of one group of muscles

inhibits the activity of the other. Successive induction or "spinal contrast": one reflex can
predispose the appearance of another.

8. Law of the force of reflection:

A. A reflex is powerful or intense if the threshold to start it is low.

B. A reflex is powerful or intense if the magnitude of the R is large.

C. A reflex is powerful or intense if fatigue takes a long time to appear.

D. A reflex will be more intense the shorter the latency.

9. Refractory phase: After the elicitation of the R reflex, the threshold of the reflex will
be raised for a short period of time which is called the refractory phase

TYPES OF LEARNING:

1. Pre-associative learning:

It is one of the simplest forms of learning.

It is performed from a single stimulus and includes habituation and sensitization.

Previous acquisitive structures, whose basic functional properties are essentially the same as
those of learning.

But the coincidence is not complete, and in some cases they seem to oppose each other.

(*)

2. Associative learning:

They are limited to a mere association Stimulus (S) – Response (R)

They are more specific and important in animals.

The fundamental importance of stimuli in our behavior.

The control of the behavior will be determined by the influence of the stimulus.

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3. Cognitive learning:

More complex learning.

Intellectual or cognitive processes intervene.

They are more typical of the most developed species in the phylogenetic scale.

The fundamental importance in behavior is cognitive processes.

We would talk about cognitive control of behavior versus control of behavior by stimuli.

4. Perceptual-motor learning:

Learning skills, mainly motor skills

5. Verbal learning:

It refers specifically to the human being and is closely related to:

Concept formation problems.

The use of symbols.

Other issues related to thinking.

6. Social learning:

The learning of socially important behaviors, the content of socialization.

It also means learning with social contact with models or with reinforcements through people.

(*) HABITAT AND AWARENESS:

Habituation: Diminution or momentary disappearance of the responses (R’r) as a result of the

continuous, monotonous and regular repetition of an stimulus (S) which has no meaning for
us.

Sensitization: More or less permanent increase of an innate response as a result of repeated

stimulation

FUNCTION: they help to organize and direct behavior so that it is effective:

They help in:

Adaptation of the organism: reduce reactivity to irrelevant Ss, avoiding unnecessary responses.

Saving energy: they leave free a series of centers that should produce responses to non-
significant stimuli for the organism.

Channeling behavior: through organized and directed actions that are an R to only some of the
Ss that are experienced.
HABITUATION:

It is a pre-associative learning process of a negative nature.

Negative adaptation in which an organism learns to inhibit itself, not to respond.

Behavior is modified through experience, in the sense of avoiding the repetition of innate
responses, which are superfluous or harmful.

There is no acquisition of new associations, but there is behavioral enrichment coming from
experience and that is why it is considered learning.

SATIATION:

Not all the observed decrement in behavior is habituation since organisms can stop responding
under other conditions.

Satiation implies that it is the effects that occur after ingestion that determine that a hungry
animal gradually stops ingesting food when presented to it.

SENSITIZATION:

First step of positive learning.

The organism increases its ability to respond adaptively.

Sensitization manifests itself in two ways:

- Through an increase and magnitude of its latency and Threshold.

- Through new responses to previously inappropriate stimuli to elicit them, without
there having been a previous association between neutral and unconditioned
stimulus.

This second form of manifestation of sensitization is called PSEUDO CONDITIONING: first

approach to conditioning, at the first and most basic level of associative learning

Habitat: decrease in the face of an innocuous stimulus. (The sound of a horn may startle
the first time it is heard, but if the sound is repeated several times in a short period of time,
the startle diminishes)

Awareness: Increase in response to an intense stimulus, noxious or fear-inducing stimuli. (The

startle caused by the horn increases if it takes place on a lonely, dark street)
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