learning

• Learning is the process of acquiring knowledge or skills resulting from experience.
• Behaviourist approaches: an approach to learning that states that behaviours are learned through interactions with the environment.
• Types of behaviourist approaches include:

  1. Classical conditioning
  2. Operant conditioning
• Conditioning: the learning process by which the behaviour of an organism becomes dependent on an event occurring in its environment.
• Stimulus: an environmental event that triggers a response in an organism.
• Response: a behavioural reaction to a stimulus.
• Classical conditioning: a simple form of learning that occurs through the repeated associations between two stimuli to produce a conditioned response.
• Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): a stimulus that consistently produces a naturally occurring, automatic response.
• Neutral stimulus (NS): a stimulus (prior to conditioning) that doesn't produce a response.
• Unconditioned Response (UCR): a response that occurs automatically/involuntarily when the unconditioned stimulus is presented.
• Acquisition: the process during which an organism learns to associate two events (neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus).
• Conditioned stimulus (CS): formerly the neutral stimulus, now is able to produce the conditioned response by itself, as a result of the repeated associations with the unconditioned stimulus.
• Conditioned response: formerly the unconditioned response, now is triggered by the conditioned stimulus alone as a result of the conditioning.
• There are three stages in classical conditioning:

  1. Before conditioning
  2. During conditioning
  3. After conditioning
• The neutral stimulus must be presented before the unconditioned stimulus for the association to be most effective.
• Operant conditioning: a learning process in which the likelihood of a voluntary behaviour occurring is determined by its consequences.
• Antecedent: an environmental stimulus that triggers an action.
• Consequence: something that makes a behaviour more or less likely to occur again.
• Reinforcement: a stimulus from the environment that increases the likelihood of a behaviour occurring in the future.

  • Positive reinforcement: when a behaviour is followed by adding a desirable stimulus, increasing the likelihood of a behaviour occurring again.
  • Negative reinforcement: when a behaviour is followed by the removal of an undesirable stimulus, increasing the likelihood of the behaviour occurring again.
• Punishment: a stimulus from the environment that decreases the likelihood of a behaviour occurring in the future.

  • Positive punishment: when a behaviour is followed by adding an undesirable stimulus, decreasing the likelihood of the behaviour occurring again.
  • Negative punishment: when a behaviour is followed by the removal of a desirable stimulus, decreasing the likelihood of the behaviour occurring again.
• Learner: the individual that observes, remembers and initiates the actions of the model.
• Model: the person being observed/ modelled after by the learner.