LU6

• Learning


  A change in behavior, thoughts and feelings as a result of experience
• Classical conditioning


  • A simple form of learning that happens in both humans and animals
  • Often passive
• Neutral stimulus (NS)


  A stimulus that is unconnected to the behavior
• Conditioned stimulus (CS)


  An environmental event whose significance is learned
• Unconditioned stimulus (UCS)


  A stimulus that elicits a response without prior experience
• Conditioned responses (CRs)


  Learned reactions
• Unconditioned responses (UCRs)


  A response to an unconditioned stimulus that requires no previous experience
• Acquisition and Timing


  1. Contiguity or proximity in time between the CS and the UCS

  2. Consistency, or a correlation between the CS and UCS
• Extinction and Spontaneous Recovery

  1. Extinction: If the tone sounds, but the dog does not get the meat, the dog will eventually stop salivating

  2. Spontaneous Recovery: Bringing back the meat, after it has been taken away, to create the response
• Generalization


  The CS may become associated with other stimuli just because they have some of the same characteristics
• Discrimination


  The ability to make fine distinctions between the implications of stimuli
• Higher-Order Conditioning


  Learning in which stimuli associated with a conditioned stimulus (CS) also elicit conditioned responses
• Operant Conditioning


  A common type of learning that involves consequences
• Positive reinforcement


  When a behavior is strengthened, or its frequency is increased by the presence of a rewarding stimulus that follows it
• Primary reinforcers


  Effective because of their natural roles in survival, such as food
• Secondary reinforcers


  Learned, including valuing money, grades or gold medals
• Negative reinforcement


  A method for increasing behaviours that allow us to escape or avoid an unpleasant consequence
• Punishment


  The introduction of an aversive stimulus with the aim of stopping a particular behavior
• Positive punishment


  Applying an aversive consequence that reduces the frequency of or eliminates a behavior
• Negative punishment


  Involves the removal of something desirable
• Observational Learning


  1. The ability to learn by simply watching others

  2. Attention: Learn through observation, one must pay attention to another person's behavior, and its consequences

  3. Retention: Restoring of a mental representation of what you have witnessed in your memory

  4. Reproduction: Enacting a modelled response, depends on one's ability to reproduce the response by converting your stored mental image into overt behaviour

  5. Motivation: One is most likely to reproduce an observed behaviour/response, if one believes it will pay off