Learning Theories AO1

• What is classical conditioning?

  - Learning through association

  - It assumes learning is passive and based on reflex behaviours that all humans and animals have

  - It involves learning to associate a stimulus so that it also brings about the same response
• Who discovered classical conditioning?

  Pavlov, a Russian Psychologist
• How did Pavlov discover classical conditioning?

  - In 1897 Pavlov published the results of an experiment on conditioning after originally studying digestion in dogs. He discovered that dogs would salivate at the sound of a tone that had previously been associated with the presentation of food.

  - Pavlov theorised that all learning, whether of elicited responses in animals or of highly conceptual behaviours in humans, was due to the mechanisms of classical conditioning.
• What is an unconditioned stimulus?

  A stimulus that elicits a response innately (naturally without learning)
• What is a neutral stimulus?

  A stimulus that does not produce a response - does not create the unconditioned response
• What is an unconditioned response?

  Automatic response elicited by the unconditioned stimulus
• What is a conditioned stimulus?

  A neutral stimulus that has been paired with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a similar response
• What is a conditioned response?

  A response that us learnt by pairing the original neutral stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus
• What is stage 1: before conditioning?


  - In this stage, the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) produces an unconditioned response (UCR) in an organism. In basic terms this means that a stimulus in the environment has produced a behaviour / response which is unlearned (i.e. unconditioned) and therefore is a natural response which has not been taught. In this respect no new behaviouro.o has been learned yet.

  - For example, a stomach virus (UCS) would produce a response of nausea (UCR). In another example sun shining in your eyes (UCS) would create a response of blinking (UCR).

  - This stage also involves another stimulus which has no effect on a person and is called the neutral stimulus (NS). The NS could be a person, object, place etc. The neutral stimulus in classical conditioning does not produce a response until it is paired with the unconditioned stimulus.
• What is stage 2: during conditioning?

  - During this stage a stimulus which produces no response (i.e. neutral) is associated with the unconditioned stimulus at which point it now becomes known as the conditioned stimulus (CS).

  - For example, a stomach virus (UCS) might be associated with eating a certain food such as chocolate (CS). Also, perfume (UCS) might be associated with a specific person (CS).

  - Often during this stage, the UCS must be associated with the CS on a number of occasions, or trials, for learning to take place. However, one trial learning can happen on certain occasions when it is not necessary for an association to be strengthened over time (such as being sick after food poisoning or drinking too much alcohol).
• What is stage 3: after conditioning?

  - Now the conditioned stimulus (CS) has been associated with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) to create a new conditioned response (CR).

  - For example, a person (CS) who has been associated with nice perfume (UCS) is now found attractive (CR). Also, chocolate (CS) which was eaten before a person was sick with a virus (UCS) is now produces a response of nausea.
• What is forward conditioning?

  CS is presented before the UCS e.g a bell begins to ring and continues to ring until food is presented
• What is delayed conditioning?

  Presents the CS, followed immediately by the UCS
• What is trace conditioning?

  The CS can start and end before the UCS is introduced, introduces a time gap between the end of the CS and the start of UCS e.g A bell begins ringing and ends just before the food is presented
• What is simultaneous conditioning?

  Presenting the UCS and the CS at the same time e.g the bell begins to ring at the same time the food is presented. Both begin, continue, and end at the same time
• What is backward conditioning?

  When the UCS is presented and then afterwards comes the CS (not as effective). The food is presented, then the bell rings
• What is extinction?

  This is when the association between the CS and CR is broken and the behaviour no longer occurs e.g dog no longer salivating when bell rings
• What is stimulus generalisation?

  This is when the CR occurs to anything similar to the CS e.g dog salivates to any type of bell
• What is spontaneous recovery?

  Occurring after extinction, this is when the CS suddenly produces the CR again. It is when the learned behaviour that appeared to have been extinguished makes a spontaneous return
• What is discrimination?

  - The conditioned response is produced only by presentation of the originall stimulus, it does not extend to similar stimuli.

  - Pavlov's dogs also learned to respond to the sound of a particular tone and not to other tones.

  - Discrimination is the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus (which predicts the UCS) and other irrelevant stimuli.
• What is one trail learning?

  - When conditioning occurs immediately, after one trial only.

  - Whilst some responses may take hundreds of trials to become conditioned, not all conditioning is this slow. In some cases, an individual can acquire a new behavioral in a single pairing of the NS and UCS; this is called one-trial learning. One-trial leaning tends to occur when we learn to avoid poisonous food that has made us sick. Perhaps festive occasions involving excessive consumption of strongly flavored alcoholic drinks are examples of such one-trial leaning in humans.
• Where did the classical conditioning theory come from?

  Pavlov was a physiologist, working on the salivary reflex in dogs. As part of his experiments, he measured the amount of saliva secreted by dogs. He noticed that whenever a dog saw the laboratory assistant carrying the feed bucket, the rate of salivation increased, even when the dog could not actually see the food. Dogs normally salivate only at the sight, smell, or taste of food, yet the dog was clearly salivating at the sight of the bucket. He wondered whether, if the dog could associate the bucket with its food, it could also associate some completely different object with its food (e.g. a bell).

  Each time the dog received its food a bell was sounded for a few seconds, and the amount of saliva secreted was measured. After several such trials Pavlov sounded the bell without the food and the dog still salivated, nearly as much as it normally did when food was presented. Therefore, the dog had been classically conditioned to salivate to the sound of a bell. This is because the dog associated the sound of the bell with food. Therefore, classical conditioning is also a grounded theory, in that the study made the theory.
• How many times did the pairing process need to take place before association was made?

  4 or 5
• When did Pavlov find that the conditioning technique was the most effective?

  When the conditioned stimulus was presented very slightly before the unconditioned stimulus
• What is operant conditioning?

  BF Skinner suggested that learning is an active process whereby humans and animals operate on their environment. In operant conditioning there are four types of consequences for behaviour. These are positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment & negative punishment.
• How did Skinner come up with operant conditioning?

  In 1936 Skinner wrote "The Behaviour of Organisms" and introduced the concepts of operant conditioning and shaping. He expanded the principles of behaviorism and also brought them to the attention of the public at large. Earlier behaviourism had been concerned with stimulus-response connections. Skinner looked at the learning process in a different way, investigating how learning was affected by stimuli presented after an act was performed. He found that certain stimuli caused the organism to repeat an act more frequently.

  He called stimuli with this effect the "reinforcers", and by providing reinforcement in a systematic way one could shape the behaviour in desired directions. He used these ideas to train pigeons and other animals and developed theories about how best to teach children and how to create societies that were peaceful and productive.
• Why did he call the theory operant conditioning?

  Skinner called learning from consequences 'operant conditioning' because it is based on how organisms operate on their environment. This is a type of learning in which future behaviour is determined by the consequences of past behaviour. In general, if a behaviour results in something that the organism finds pleasant, it is likely to be repeated. Conversely, if behaviour is followed by unpleasant consequences, then it is unlikely to be repeated.
• What is the A-B-C model of behaviour?

  This is the A-B-C model of behaviour. Antecedent is the cue, signal or condition that influence the occurrence of the behaviour... basically it is what happens right before the behaviour occurs.

  Behaviour: An observable act that a person does. Consequence: The outcome and/or feedback that occurs immediately following the behaviour.
• What are neutral operants?

  Responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behaviour being repeated.
• What are reinforcers?

  Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behaviour being repeated. Reinforcers can be either positive or negative.
• What are punishers?

  Responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated. Punishment weakens behaviour.
• What is a reinforcement?

  A reinforcement is a consequence that strengthens a behaviour or makes it likely to be repeated.

  Note that reinforcement is not always the same as a reward. A reward is an example of positive reinforcement (the presentation of a pleasant stimulus). However, behaviour can also be strengthened if it leads to the removal of something unpleasant (negative reinforcement).
• What is a positive reinforcer?

  Occurs when we carry out a behaviour to receive a reward e.g praising a pet when they obey instructions
• What is a negative reinforcer?

  Occurs when we carry out a behaviour to avoid negative consequences e.g prisons sometimes ease regulations on a well-behaved prisoner
• What is a primary reinforcer?

  - When a reward strengthens a behaviour by itself

  - Have to do with fulfilling a biological need. Things like food, drink, shelter and pleasure are all examples of primary reinforcers

  - e.g giving a dog a treat for sitting down. The biological need is food to survive
• What is a secondary reinforcer?

  - When something strengthens a behaviour because it leads to a primary reinforcer

  - Most human reinforcers are secondary. These include money, good grades, tokens, stickers, praise

  - e.g money is a secondary reinforcer because it can be used to purchase primary reinforcers like food and clothing
• What is a punishment?

  A punishment is a consequence that weakens a behaviour or makes it less likely to be repeated. It can involve the presentation of an unpleasant stimulus or the removal or a pleasant one (sometimes these are referred to as positive and negative punishment).
• What is an example of a punishment?

  Suppose we now play a dirty trick on the rat. We change the mechanism so that when it presses the lever, instead of receiving a food pellet it is given an electric shock to its paw. Very quickly, the rat will stop pressing the lever. The electric shock has acted as a punishment which had the effect of weakening then extinguishing the lever pressing behaviour.
• What is a positive punishment?

  Something unpleasant is given after an undesired behaviour is exhibited e.g a child touches a hot stove and feels pain (so behaviour won't happen again)
• What is a negative punishment?

  Something is "taken away" that makes the behaviour less likely to continue or reoccur (i.e something pleasant is removed from the subject to discourage their behaviour) e.g a toddler is having a tantrum in a shop. The mother takes away his blanket (that he loves) until he stops his tantrum