Learning: the relatively permanent change in knowledge or behavior resulting from experience.

I. Classical Conditioning: A stimulus comes to elicit a response that it doesn’t normally elicit

• A neutral stimulus becomes paired (associated) with a stimulus that causes a reflexive behavior and, in time, is sufficient to produce that behavior

Key terms of classical conditioning

• Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): a stimulus that elicits an automatic response (UCR) without requiring prior learning
• Unconditioned = unlearned
• Unconditioned response (UCR): the reflexive response elicited by a particular stimulus
• Conditioned stimulus (CS): An originally neutral stimulus that acquires significance through the “conditioning” of repeated pairings with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
• Conditioned response (CR): A response that depends, or is conditional, on pairings of the conditioned stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus; the conditioned response occurs in response to the CS alone

• CS must precede UCS (i.e., the bell first, then the food), and in most cases, this sequence should occur immediately
• Simultaneous pairing (the bell & the food at the same time) and/or backwards pairing (the food first, then the bell) of CS & UCS won’t work!

Spontaneous recovery: the process by which the CS will again elicit the CR after extinction has occurred; this happens only when the person is given a rest period and given the CS again

• With Pavlov’s dogs, the food was not presented after the bell, producing extinction.  The bell was then stopped for a while (rest period), and when the bell was reintroduced, the dogs would exhibit the previously learned response of salivating to the sound of the bell (although not as intensely as before)
• Apparently, once learning for a conditioned response takes place, the associated never completely vanishes – if you extinguish a CR, and then retrain the association, the relearned CR occurs more quickly than the original learning process

• Phobias: Poor Little Albert!
• Watson & Raynor: with a loud noise (UCS), conditioned Albert to respond with fear (CR) on sight of a white rat (CS)
• Stimulus generalization: Five days after the conditioning of Little Albert, a rabbit, a dog, a fur coat, cotton, and a Santa Claus mask all elicited the CR of fear.
• That is, the CR of fear was elicited by neutral stimuli that were like, but not identical to, the CS; and, the more closely the new stimulus resembles the original CS, the stronger the CR.
• Stimulus discrimination: the tendency to respond to a very restricted range of stimuli or to only the one used during conditioning (i.e., the opposite of stimulus generalization).
• Occurs with prolonged training: if Albert had been rigorously and repeatedly conditioned by the association of the loud noise and the rat, he would not have exhibited stimulus generalization.
• Taste aversions
• A bad experience with food/drink leads to avoidance learning: learning that occurs when a conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with an unpleasant unconditioned stimulus (UCS) that leads to nausea (CR) of the CS and you tend to avoid the CS altogether

The Skinner box

• Skinner box: rats learning to press down on levers and pigeons learning to peck on keys when food is dispensed as consequence.

• Reinforcement
• Reinforcer: consequence that increases the likelihood that behavior will occur again
• Positive reinforcement: a desired reinforcer is presented after a desired behavior
• Studying earns you a good grade
• Negative reinforcement: the removal of an unpleasant event following a desired behavior
• Giving in to someone’s demands to stop the whining
• Primary vs. secondary reinforcers
• Primary: events/objects that are inherently reinforcing by themselves (food, water, relief from pain)
• Secondary: learned reinforcers that do not satisfy a physical need (attention, praise, money, good grades)
• Behavior modification techniques with prisoners use secondary reinforcers: token rewards for good behavior are traded in for food or privileged activities
• Reinforcement Schedules
• Continuous reinforcement: reinforcement is given for each desired response
• Learning happens quickly but is subject to rapid extinction when reinforcement is taken away, so to maintain conditioned behavior without constantly reinforcing the behavior…
• Partial reinforcement: reinforcement is given only intermittently
• Ratio: based on a specified number of emitted responses
• Fixed (reinforcement after a fixed # of responses) & variable (reinforcement after an average # of responses)
• Interval: based on a specified interval of time
• Fixed (reinforcement after a fixed interval of time) & variable (reinforcement after an average interval of time)
• Extinction & Punishment
• Extinction: gradual disappearance of behavior because it is no longer followed by a reinforcer
• Spontaneous recovery: If a break in the action follows distinction, the old behavior will reappear…if you don’t use that vending machine for a month, you are likely to put money into again because of prior learning when the machine did reinforce you putting money into it
• Punishment: Consequence of behavior decreases likelihood of it happening again
• Presenting something undesirable as a consequence