- Stimulus-Stimulus learning

- association b/w two stimuli

ex.) redness & ripeness w/ fruit

-SS learning usually not evident except in specific test procedures (would have to see someone choose a red fruit to eat in order to have evident red-ripe learning)

- behaviorally silent: no visible manifestation

- children can learn things about a car just by watching adults drive: purpose of gas, break pedals, steering wheel

- learning: occurs in an organism's lifetime

- evolution: occurs across generations

-learning: requires practice, repetition in order to create lasting behavioral modification

         -->limited to the practiced response

- maturation: changes due to physical growth, getting older, do not require practice

What is the definition of learning??!!!

(BIG ONE!)

- a relatively enduring change

- change in potential to engage in a particular behavior

- change is result of experience with environmental events specifically related to behavior

Difference b/w naturalistic observation and experimental observations? Pros and cons related to learning studies?

- Naturalistic: observe measurable behavior as it occurs under natural conditions; no manipulations

-->does not reveal reasons behind behaviors

-->can't identify causal variables, bad for learning studies

- Experimental: measures behavior under specifically designed conditions to test particular factors or variables that might influence the learning or performance of behavior

- cause of behavior can be seen through observations

- causal conclusions are inferences based on comparison of 2+ experimental conditions

What are the main features of the fundamental learning experiment?

- learning is result of past experiences

- learning is a causal variable that involves past experiences with relevant environmental events

(learning cannot be observed directly)

- learning can only be investigated by experimental manipulations that isolate a specific past experience as cause of change in behavior

What types of manipulations serve as independent variables in learning studies? Dependent variables?

- IV: specific past experiences

- DV: reluctant changes in behavior

What are the basic features of the general process approach to learning?

- learning phenomena are products of fundamental processes that operate similarly in different learning situations

- underlying commonalities across learning situations

- generalities in rules exists in regards to the learning process (NOT regarding content or speed)

- if universal rules exist, should be able to discover general rules of learning through studying any species

Why are alternatives to lab animals inadequate for learning research?

- given nature of learning, using anything other than intact organisms would not work

- plants don't have nervous systems

- w/o intact organism, cannot determine importantce of particular cellular processes for behavioral change that characterize learning

Why is knowledge of unconditioned behavior important of analysis of learning?

- learning is interaction b/w training procedures and individual's pre-existing behavior

- w/o understanding unconditioned mechanisms, cannot adequately look at learned/conditioned mechanisms

- unconditioned behavior is NOT homogenous or modifiable in any & all directions

        -->has determinate structure

Define reflex. What is the reflex arc and who originated this concept?

- reflex: unit of elicited behavior involving specific enviro event and corresponding specific elicited response (according to Descartes)

- reflex arc: entire unit from stimulus input to response output

- Neural structures [afferent(sensory) neuron, interneuron, efferent (motor) neuron] that enable stimulus to elicit a reflex response

What is the neural organization of simple reflexes? (the journey from neurological message to actual reflex response)

- sensory neuron: environmental stimulus for reflex response-->transmits message to spinal cord

- spinal cord: relays neural impulses to interneuron

-interneuron: passes impulses to motor neuron

-motor neuron:elicits reflex muscle response

- patterns of elicited behavior that occur across species

- "pattern" b/c not restricted to a single movement

- biologically determined

-specific feature of an object or animal that elicits a modal action pattern

- ex.) red spot on mother gull's beak-->pecking response from chicks

- occurence of many actions patterns depends on motivational state

- ex.) if not hungry, no motivation to go about food-related MAPs; if organism just had sex, not as high motivation to mate, etc.

preconditions: prime or create motivation for specific behavior

- ethnology model

- determines which factors lead to buildup of particular type of motivation or drive that increases likelihood of corresponding modal action patterns

- performance of MAPs reduces or discharges the motivational state

Appetitive vs. Consummatory Behaviors

- how are they related?

- then list differences

- in order to discharge a basic-drive state, must go through both stages

- appetitive: initial component in elicited behavior sequence

- brings organism in contact w/ releasing stimuli that will elicit consummatory response

- variable

- response to general spatial cues

- ex.) hunger-->seeking out the food

consummatory: behavior that brings elicited behavior sequence to an END

- "consummates"/finishes sequence of responses

- ex.) hunger-->eating the food

-occurence determined by intensity & frequency of stimulus

-habituation: decrease in psychological and behavioral response to a stimulus after repeated exposure to that stimulus over a duration of time

- specific to the eliciting stimulus

- inherent property of all elicited behavior

-sensitization: progressive amplification of a response follows repeated administrations of a stimulus 

- tends to occur for more intense stimuli

What is the primary purpose of habituation and sensitization phenomena?

- regulate reflex responses

- increase efficiency of interactions w/ enviro

- ensure we response vigorously to some stimuli while allowing us to ignore others

- characterized reflexes as invariant, energized by eliciting stimuli

- habituation & sensitization show that reflexes don't occur w/ the same energy each time

Define homeostatic regulation.

How is it achieved?

Relate to habituation/sensitization

- homeostatic regulation: forces that push system in one direction must be counteracted by forces to return system to desired homeostasis balance

- ex.) sweating when hot to regulate body temp

- achieved through activation of opponent processes

- habituation & sensitization are opponent processes--> regulate vigor of elicited behavior

Startle Responses, Tactile Stimuli-->relate to habituation and sensitization

- Sudden burst/Soft sound-->elicits startle response (flinch at novel stimulus)

     - quickly habituate, stop responding

- Tactile Stimulus: pebble in shoe

    - difficult to get used to; response typically increases at first and then declines

   - if very intense, repetitions may result in increased responding

   - sustained increase in startle response if stimulus is intense noise

- stimulus generalization: occurence of behavior learned through habituation or conditioning in presecne of stimuli different from stimuli used in training

- habituation is stimulus specific to particular, habituated stimulus

- if new stimulus presented, habituated response will recover a bit

- degree of recovery determined by how similar new stimulus is to habituated one

- stimulus specificity is defining feature of habituation

- Define "Spontaneous Recovery"

- When does it occur w/ habituated responses?

- How does it help distinguish b/w short term & long term habituation effects?

spontaneous recovery: recovery of response produced by a period of rest after habituation or extinction

- degree of recovery related to rest period

- higher stimulus frequency: less spontaneous recovery b/w trials

- responding declines more rapidly w/ frquent stimulation

- habituation declines more slowly if stimuli is more intense

- exposure to 2nd stimulus can result in recovery of previously habituated response

- ST habituation: effects last relatively short period of time w/ regard to spontaneous recovery-->don't count as learning

- LT habituation: results in response decrement that lasts one week or more at least (counts as learning)

Define "dishabituation"

How is it different from stimulus specificity of sensitization?

- dishabituation: recovery of a habituated response as result of presence of a second stimuli

- ST Sensitization: responding declines as result of time (not learning)

- LT Sensitization: evident after long periods w/o sensitization stimulis (learning)

- sensitization not as stimulus-specific

How does a period w/o stimulation affect sensitization?

- Short Term Sensitization: responding goes down as result of time w/o stim (not learning)

- Long Term Sensitization: evident after period w/o stimulation (counts as learning)

- greater sensitization effects w/ more intense eliciting stimuli

- sensitization effects can be ST & LT

- sensitization is NOT specific to a particular stimulus

- Russian physiologist

- discovered classical conditioning with dogs he was studying

- bell-->Pavlov's dinner-->dogs would drool

------->bell triggers drool

Who was Skinner?

What did he do that's important?

- B.F. Skinner, psychologist

- founded behaviorism

- invented "Skinner Box" to look at operant conditioning

- developed the free-operant method for studying instrumental behavior

- developed by BF Skinner w/ Skinner Box

-permits subject rather than experimenter to decide when to start next trial

- permits investigation into how quickly response completed, how frequently subject engaged in activity as well

Who is Thorndike?

Why is he important? What did he do?

- American psychologist at Harvard

- devloped 'puzzle box' for looking at learning in animals

- experiments used discrete trial method

- Thorndike w/ puzzle boxes

- participant only has opportunity to perform instrumental response at certain times

- experimenter determines the times

- subjects can only go about puzzle-box behaviors when inside puzzle box; after they do behavior, removed, cannot do behavior again until put back in for next trial

Who was Hull?

Why is he important?

- American psychologist

- wanted to know what makes an effective reinforcer

- looked at homeostatic model --> organisms defend stable state w/ respect to certain biologically determined critical factors

- Drive Reduction Theory: homeostatic imbalance creates a drive state to remedy the imbalance (ex. hunger)

- thus, food is effective reinforcer b/c it reduces hunger drive

- good reinforcers are able to reduce drive states

Who was Premack?

Why does he matter?

- developed the Premack Principle

- basically, highly-freely-occuring behaviors can be used to reinforce low-probability freely occuring behaviors

- only thing that matters: reinforcer response more likely than instrumental response

- ex.) sitting as reinforcer with severely unresponsive schizophrenia patients

- revolutionary: spurred looking at reinforcers as responses rather than stimuli for first time

- reinforcement no longer looked at just as function of biological needs

Who was Descartes?

Why is he important?

-believed in dualism of voluntary & involuntary behavior

- physical world sends messages through senses to brain

     - voluntary behavior goes all the way to

       "mind" in the pineal gland

     - involuntary behavior doesn't have to go to  

        mind

-claimed that no laws apply to function of the mind

- voluntary behavior not at all predictable

- some knowledge is innate (nativism)

    -->sense of self, God, basic geometric principles

- proponent of empiricism

- people born tabula rasa, blank slate

- learn everything through experience

- empiricism big on association: to learn something, need to make associations to various things

- Nativism: some knowledge innate (Descartes)

- Empiricim: born tabula rasa, all knowledge is learned through experiences, associations

Efficient, Material, Formal &

Final Causes of Learning

- Efficient: necessary & sufficient conditions for producing behavioral outcome, the experience

- Material: nervous system changes

- Formal Cause: theories of learning

- Final/Ultimate Cause: biological function, utility, how whatever the change in increases reproductive fitness