Learning

Learning
 Learning
What is learning?
A relatively permanent change in
behavior brought about by
experience
- Classical conditioning
- Operant conditioning
- Cognitive
- Latent learning
- Observed learning
 Classical Conditioning

Does the mere sight of the yellow arches make you

hungry and think about hamburgers?
 Learning

- Nature vs. nurture

- Playing tennis; how
much due to maturation?
- What about short-term
drops in performance?
- Habituation; a decrease in
response to a stimulus that
occurs after repeated
exposure to the same
stimulus
- No new info
 Classical
Conditioning
• Ivan Pavlov (1927)
– Russian physiologist and never
intended to do psychological work
– Accidentally discovered classical
conditioning
– His experiments on salivation in
dogs turned into research on
learning
– If dogs salivate in anticipation of
food (by hearing bell or footsteps)
then perhaps the salivatory
response can be learned.
 Classical Conditioning
• Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): a stimulus that
always & naturally elicits a response-not learned
– e.g., smell of food
• Unconditioned Response (UCR): a response that
always & naturally occurs upon presentation of the
UCS-not learned
– e.g., salivation
• Neutral Stimulus (NS): any stimulus that does not
naturally elicit a response like the UCR
– e.g., footsteps, ringing of a bell
 Classical Conditioning
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): any stimulus that will,
after association with an UCS, cause a conditioned
response (CR) when presented alone-learned
– e.g., Ringing of a bell

• Conditioned Response (CR): the response that occurs

upon the presentation of the CS-learned
– e.g., salivation
 Classical Conditioning
Unconditioned Unconditioned
Stimulus (UCS) Response (UCR)

Neutral Unconditioned Unconditioned

Stimulus (NS) Stimulus (UCS) Response (UCR)

Conditioned Conditioned
Stimulus (CS) Response (CR)
Response Acquisition
 Classical Conditioning
Unconditioned Unconditioned
Stimulus (UCS) Response (UCR)

Neutral Unconditioned Unconditioned

Stimulus (NS) Stimulus (UCS) Response (UCR)

Conditioned Conditioned
Stimulus (CS) Response (CR)
 Classical Conditioning
• two key principles used to explain the formation
of associations:

Two events that are experienced at the same time will

tend to be associated

The more often we experience events that are contiguous,

the more strongly we will associate them
 Classical Conditioning
• For effective conditioning, it is not enough to pair
stimuli:
– Neutral stimulus must reliably signal
unconditioned stimulus (typically, must come
before)
 Classical Conditioning
• NS & UCS should occur close in time (about half a
second)

Good Temporal
Proximity

Poor Temporal
Proximity
Classical Conditioning

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eo7jcI8fAuI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwBQIhg6CvE
Classical
Conditioning (CC)
• Phobia: irrational & persistent fear of certain
situations, objects, or persons
• Preoccupation with avoiding feared object
or situation
• Feelings of helplessness, anxiety, or panic
when confronted by feared object or
situation
• May result from early negative experience
• e.g., bit by a dog, embarrassment in front of
peers (social phobia)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9hBfnXACsOI
Classical Conditioning (CC)

• Phobias
• Post traumatic stress disorder
• Traumatic experiences associated with
certain stimulus
• E.g., the loud noise with danger-causes
rush of fear and anxiety in the person
• Pleasant experiences
• E.g., smell of perfume associated with
thoughts of loved one-bring happy
emotions
• Drug paraphrenia
• Why drug addiction is hard to treat?
• E.g., a syringe or room associated with
the pleasant feelings after taking the
drug
CC Applications

• Conditioning preference in advertising

• Attractive model (UCS)
• attraction (UCR)
• Brand name (CS)
• attraction and Preference of brand
(CR)
CC Applications-clockwork orange
CC Applications
CC Applications
CC Applications
• Give
• unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
• unconditioned response (UCR)
• conditioned Stimulus (CS)
• conditioned response (CR) for the following
example:

• In the spring the pollen (from the flowers) makes

Merve sneeze. Soon she sneezes even when she
just sees a flower.
 Classical
Conditioning
• What happens to the
association of CS and
CR, if the UCS
(meat) is repeatedly
absent?
WAIT, WHAT DO YOU MEAN
THERE IS NO MEAT COMING?
 Classical Conditioning
If, after conditioning, the CS
is repeatedly present without the UCS
the CR will eventually disappear:
– If bell is continuously struck without steak, the dog
will no longer salivate
• Extinction: the loss of response to a CS when
it’s presented without its associated UCS
– However, extinction is not forgetting
Classical Conditioning
 Classical Conditioning
Stimulus Generalization: tendency to respond to stimulus
like the one in the original conditioning – not as intense
• So, stimulus similar to conditioned stimulus (CS) also
elicits condition response (CR)-similarity is important

CS CR
 Classical Conditioning
• Stimulus Discrimination: ability to distinguish between
conditioned stimulus & irrelevant stimuli
– stimulus similar to conditioned stimulus fails to evoke
conditioned response
CS CR CS
 CC Applications
• Desensitization therapy
– A technique that uses classical conditioning to treat
phobias
– gradual exposure to feared object/situation in a carefully
controlled manner without harm
– Person learns to relax in presence of stimulus that used
to be upsetting
CC Applications
• Desensitization therapy
• - Teach deep muscle-relaxation
• List situations that prompt various degrees of
fear or anxiety – from least frightening to
most frightening…
• While deeply relaxed, imagine each situation,
starting from least frightening and then
moving to next situation…
• Hearing tape of dog barking & relaxed
• Seeing dog on TV & relaxed
• Being in same room with dog &
relaxed
• Petting dog & relaxed
Beyond Traditional Classical
Conditioning: Challenging
Basic Assumptions

• Pavlov-CC occurs in mechanistic unthinking

manner
• Cognitive psychology-organisms develop
expectations
• Have an understanding of the situation
• Garcia; biologically prepared to learn certain
associations
• Food aversion; happens even 8 hours of
interval between stimulus and response-
even when had been exposed once
Challenging Basic
Assumptions

• Preparedness refers to the biological disposition to

rapidly learn a response to a particular class of
stimuli
• Study; photographs of snakes (CS) were paired
with mild electric shocks (US)
• Unconditional response to electric shock; skin
conductance response is palms sweating
• After some pairing strong CR (palms sweating)
to CS (snake photos)
• The same pairings with flower and gun
pictures
• Results; skin conductance was highest for
snakes, moderate for guns and low for flowers.
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