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Learning & Conditioning - Coggle Diagram
Learning & Conditioning
Learning
The process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviour, including behaviour change, resulting from experience or practice
Behaviourism
Learning is the result of observable acts and events, excluding mental processes
Classical conditioning
A theory that states behaviour can be modified or learned based on a stimulus and a response
Pavlov's Dogs
- Unconditioned Stimulus (US): a stimulus that triggers a response without additional learning. [Food]
- Unconditioned Response (UR): response triggered by an US without additional learning Classical Conditioning Elements [Salivation]
- Conditioned Stimulus (CS): an initially neutral stimulus triggers a CR, when paired with an US [Food + Food Dish]
- Conditioned Response (CR): response triggered by CS [Salivation]
Features
- Generalisation: tendency to respond to a stimulus that is similar to the CS to trigger similar response:
- Discrimination: learn to distinguish between a CS and other irrelevant stimuli and respond differently
- Extinction: extinguishing the CR by repeatedly presenting the CS in the absence of the US
- Spontaneous Recovery: the reappearance of an extinguished CR after a pause
- Higher-Order Conditioning: the CS is paired with new neutral stimulus creating a new (weaker) CS
Applications
- Learning to like: positive emotional responses (for CS) to certain objects/events (US)
- Associate joy (UR) for favourite food (US) with household chores (CS)
- Learning to fear: pairing an US with a stimulus that elicits pain, surprise, or embarrassment (CS)
- Biological preparedness to acquire some fears more readily than others (eg., heights, snakes)
- Acquired Tastes: likes/dislikes for certain foods & odors
- Biological preparedness to develop taste aversions with one or few pairings due to survival instinct (bad food → illness)
- Reacting to medical treatments
- Unpleasant reactions to stimuli associated with medical treatments
- reduced pain or anxiety in response to placebos (pills & injections with no direct physical effect on illness)
Operant conditioning
The process by which a response becomes more likely or less likely to occur, depending on its consequences (behaviour controlled by consequences)
2 types of consequences
Reinforcement
The process by which a stimulus/event strengthens the response, or makes it more likely to recur
Primary Reinforcer
An innately reinforcing stimulus satisfying biological needs (e.g, hunger, thirst)
Secondary Reinforcer
A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer (e.g., praise, “gold stars”)
Positive Reinforcement
Response is followed by the presentation or increase in intensity of a pleasurable stimulus resulting in the response becoming stronger or more likely to occur
Reinforcement Schedule
A pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforced
- Reinforcement timing: influences speed of learning, strengthens learned response and behaviour pattern
- Reinforcement schedule types:
- Continuous: reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs (quick learning)
- Partial: reinforcing a response only sometimes (slower but longer lasting learning)
Negative Reinforcement
Response is followed by the removal, delay, or decrease in intensity of an unpleasant stimulus resulting in the response becoming stronger or more likely to occur
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Punishment
The process by which a stimulus/event weakens the response, or makes it less likely to recur
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Features
- Extinction: occurs when the behaviour is no longer followed by the consequence that reinforced it (reinforcer stops → behaviour stops)
- Generalisation: response reinforced (or punished) in presence of one stimulus occurs (or suppressed) in presence of similar stimuli
- Discrimination: response occurs in presence of one stimulus but not in presence of similar ones that differ from it
- Instinctive Drift: tendency to revert to instinctive behaviour (biological constraint)
- Shaping: reinforcing small steps, or each successive approximation until desired behaviour occurs
Applications
- Behaviour Modification: the application of operant conditioning techniques to teach new responses or to reduce or eliminate problematic behaviour
- Used successfully in various professional settings
- Pediatric hospital: help children with autism improve communication skills
- Mental hospital: train patients to communicate effectively and improve psycho-social functioning
- Rehabilitation ward: training patients with brain damage to control inappropriate behaviours
- Also, used successfully for common problems:
- Parenting: teaching parents to toilet train children
- Managing unhealthy habits: smoking, drinking
- Improving skills: exercising, studying
Problems
Punishment
- Inappropriate administration (harsh methods for toddlers)
- Harsh or frequent punishment results in anxiety, fear or anger (severely punished teenager may run away)
- Effectiveness is temporary and dependent on the presence of punisher (misbehaving when parents absent)
- Most behaviour is hard to punish immediately (punishing dog when you get home for something done in morning)
- Does not instruct what the person should do (scolding student for learning slowly)
- Punishment may be reinforcing as it brings attention (mother yelling at child throwing tantrum in public)
Rewards
- Rewards are often misused by being given indiscriminately, unrelated to desired behaviour (giving happy-face stickers or high grades undeservingly does not improve performance)
- Focusing on rewards that are not directly related to the ultimate goal undermines the purpose of the action (rewarding students for playing piano may distract from the joy of playing the piano)
- Effectiveness of rewards depends on many factors: initial motivation, the context in which rewards are achieved, sincerity of the person giving praise
Social Cognition
Learning includes not only changes in behaviour but also changes in thoughts, expectations & knowledge, that in turn influence behaviour in a reciprocal process
Learning
Biological predisposition
biological constraints predispose organisms to learn associations that enhance survival (resistant to learning: raccoons “washing” food)
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Social cognitive learning theories
Importance of beliefs, perceptions and observations of other people’s behaviour in determining what we learn, what we do and the personality traits we develop
- Observational Learning: a process in which an individual learns new responses by observing the behaviour of another rather than through direct experience
- The 4 Elements of Observational Learning:
- Attention
- Retention
- Reproduction
- Motivation