Learning and Conditioning 2

Compiled by
Bro. Hans Moran, FSC
USLS Psychology Department
 Reinforcement Schedules
1. Fixed Ratio
2. Variable Ratio
3. Fixed Intervals
4. Variable Intervals
Synonyms:
 Fixed – steady, set, unchanging
 Variable – changeable, inconsistent, no pattern
 Ratio – amount of work, responses
 Interval – space or period of time
 Fixed ratio
1. Fixed Ratio –
 Reinforcement given for a certain fixed
number of response made.
 Based on a fixed number of responses or
work
 2 pecks = 1 pellet of food (positive)
 2 pecks = 2 seconds of no electric current
(negative)
 Fixed Ratio Examples
 I will pay you for every response you make
 1 hamburger = 1 Response = P 35.00
 2 Hamburgers = 2 Responses = P 70.00
 (No work - No Pay Salary Scheme)
 Can you think of other fixed ratio schemes?
 Variable Ratio
 Reinforced for varying number of responses
made
 I may reward after every 6th or 7th or may be
even 10th response made – not fixed, always
changing
 Example is a slot machine in a casino
 Irregular rewards
 Fixed Interval
 Fixed Time Interval – based on a fixed
amount of time.
 So long as the person is working, I will pay
them after a fixed amount of time
 Monthly or Weekly Salary
 Variable Interval
 Reinforced after a varying amount of time or
varying time intervals
 Some say that some Public Schools are as
such, you will be paid but since it is delayed,
you are not too sure when it will come but
you know it will come in time.
 Exercises – Reinforcement
Schedules
 Can you identify the reinforcement
schedule?
1. Some workers are paid after a week.
2. Waiting for a taxi cab, I am not sure when
one will pass by so I wait.
3. Christmas Gifts
4. Fishermen raise and lower their nets many
times in the night to catch fish. Sometimes
they do some times they don’t.
Learning by Observation

By Albert Bandura
 Learning By Observation
 Learning through the observation of others
(models)
 This learning is called imitation or modeling.
 Bandura believes that many of our complex
behaviors are a result of exposure to
competent models who display appropriate
behavior in solving problems with their
world.
What I joke
 Four Factors in Imitative Learning

1. Attention Process
2. Retention
3. Motor Reproduction
4. Incentive and Motivational Process
 Attention Process
 You need to pay attention
 To the model’s behavior
Attention Process
 Retention Process
 This is to remember
what you observed.
 This means encoding
what you observed into
your memory so that
you can retrieve it.
 Motor Reproduction Process
 This is the actual copying or imitating.
 This is turning what you remember into
action and actual doing the action.
Incentive and Motivation process
 To perform a new behavior an appropriate
incentive (reward) is needed.
Key Variables: Observation Learning
1. Type and Power of the Model
 Nurturing, Authoritative, High Status, and/or
source of reward
2. Learner’s Personality
 Dependent children, and people with less self-
confidence
3. The Situation
 In situations when you are not certain what to
do
Insight Learning
 Moving two match sticks, turn these five squares
into 4 squares. Remember, move and do not
take out.
 The illustration on the
left shows two wine
glasses arranged from
ten matches.

The object is to move

six of them in such a
way that to get a
house instead of these
wine glasses.
 Take sixteen matches
and arrange them into
five squares as shown
on the left.

The object is to move

two matches to new
positions to get exactly
four identical squares
instead of five.
 Arrange 8 matchsticks to
form a fish swimming left
as shown in the illustration.

The object of the puzzle is

to move 3 matches to
make the fish swimming in
the opposite direction, i.e.
to the right.
 Insight Learning
 Sudden realization or discovery of the
correct answer to a problem
 Not derived from trial and error
 A sudden solution to a problem by
rearranging your experience.
 Insight Learning Process
1. Period of Quiet
2. Surveying of Environment & Looking for
tools to help solve the problem
3. AHH! AHA! Or Eureka Experience
4. Do what you think to solve the problem
(Action)
 Transfer of Learning
 This is the ability to use what you learned in
one place (like school) in another place.
 So this is the ability to transfer your learning
to another place.
 It is NOT the transfer of learning from one
person to another person.
 It is the transfer of learning of the same
person from one situation to another.
 Transfer of learning

Home
School
 Transfer of learning
1. Positive Transfer of Learning
 Past or previous learning helps or
facilitates the present learning.
 Example: learning addition helps a person
learn multiplication
 Transfer of Learning
2. Negative Transfer of Learning
 Past or previous learning hinders/interferes
with the present learning situation
 Example: Learning how to text can
interfere with learning the correct spelling
of words.
 Driving on the right interferes with learning
to drive on the left in British influenced
countries.
Biofeedback

Miller and Dollard

 Biofeedback
 When a person uses cues from the body as
feedback to condition themselves to change
their behavior
 Rats
 The two psychologists used rats
 The rats were drugged which made them
paralyzed.
 Every time the rats made a targeted response (like
a slow heart beat), an electric impulse was sent to
their pleasure enter of the rat’s brain.
 In the course of the experiments, the rats learned
to slow their heart rate, decrease the amount of
blood flow to their stomach walls, decrease blood
pressure, urinate, and other autonomic nervous
system responses.
 Autonomic Conditioning
 It is called Autonomic because the subject is
conditioned to control their autonomic nervous
system (parts of the nervous system that runs
automatically without our thinking)
 This had implications to Humans in controlling
heart rate, stomach acid, blood pressure.
 Do you use Biofeedback?
 Basically this is getting feedback from your body to
alter your behavior.
 Whatever the
experience –
good or bad –
make this a
learning
experience for
you.