3. Learning: relatively permanent change in
behavior or mental processes as a result of
practice or experience
Applies to ALL learned behavior or
mental processes
Examples
Relative permanence?
4. Chapter Focus
Conditioning → process of learning
associations between environmental
stimuli and behavioral responses
2 most common types:
Classical conditioning
Operant conditioning
12. Key Terms
• Conditioned stimulus
(CS): previously neutral stimulus
that, through repeated pairings with
an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), now
causes a conditioned response (CR)
15. Key Terms
• Conditioned response
(CR): learned reaction to a
conditioned stimulus (CS) that occurs
because of previous repeated pairings
with an unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
19. Classical Conditioning
• Student noticed that
many dogs began to
salivate long before
food was placed in
their mouth at the
sight of:
– food or food dish
– Sight of person
delivering food
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
Why were his dogs
reflexively salivating
before the food was even
presented?
Why did they salivate
before the food was even
presented
20. • Soon discovered that the reflex
(salivation) occurring before the
appropriate stimulus (food) was
presented is not inborn and/or
biological
• Deduced that this had to be acquired
through experience – learning
23. What does classical conditioning have to
do with humans?
• Classical conditioning has been shown to be
the most basic and fundamental way that all
animals, including humans, learn most new
responses, emotions, and attitudes
24. John Watson & Rosalie Rayner (1920) - THE CASE OF LITTLE ALBERT
Demonstrated how the emotion of fear could be classically
conditioned
Used the fact that infants are naturally frightened (UCR) by loud
noises (UCS)
https://www.yout
ube.com/watch?
v=HZPXVb0W3
Hc
25. Watson, Rayner, and Little Albert
LOUD
NOISE
+ = FEAR
(Crying)
NS UCS UCR
7 pairing of NS + UCS
DURING CONDITIONING
26. Watson, Rayner, and Little Albert
= FEAR
(Crying)
CS CR/CER
Supported their original hypothesis that
fears are classically conditioned
AFTER CONDITIONING
27. • Conditioned Emotional Response
(CER): classically conditioned
emotional response to a previously
neutral stimulus (NS).
Watson’s Contribution
29. Activity to Hand in (2.5%)
• Watch the video and in groups, identify the
following:
① Neutral Stimulus
② UCS
③ CS
④ UCR
⑤ CR
Hand in your responses through moodle!
31. Stimulus Generalization
Learned response not only to the original
stimulus but also to other similar stimuli
The more the stimulus resembles the conditioned stimulus,
the stronger the conditioned response
32. Stimulus Discrimination
• Learned response to a specific stimulus
but not to other, similar stimuli
– Occurs if person has enough experience
with both
• E.g., high-pitched tone vs. low-pitched tone
elicited CR
• E.g. ? Little albert examples?
33. • Classical conditioning is only relatively permanent
• Extinction: gradual weakening or suppression of a
previously conditioned response (CR).
– UCS withheld repeatedly whenever CS is presented to
weaken the previous association
– E.g., Tone (CS) presented without food (UCS)repeatedly
decreases dogs salivation (CR)
34. • Extinction not an ‘erasing’ or ‘unlearning’
– If UCS + CS pairing reintroduced conditioning occurs much
faster second time
• Spontaneous Recovery: reappearance of a previously
extinguished conditioned response (CR)
– After extinction, present tone -> CR (salivation)
36. Operant Conditioning
learning in which voluntary responses
are controlled by their consequences
Organism → behavior → effect →
influences whether response will occur
again in the future
Different from Classical Conditioning?
HOW??
37. Thorndike’s Contribution
• Evaluated how voluntary behaviours influenced by their
consequences
• Law of Effect: the probability of an action being repeated is
strengthened when followed by a pleasant/ satisfying
consequence
• Explains how active voluntary behaviours can be modified by
their consequences
39. Operant Conditioning’s Basic Principles
Factors that strengthen a response →
Reinforcements
• 2 types of reinforcers:
1. Primary Reinforcers: normally satisfy an
unlearned biological need (e.g., food, water).
2. Secondary Reinforcers: learned value (e.g.,
money, praise).
• Only value they have to reinforce behaviour
results from their learned value
• E.g., baby prefers milk over money
40. Two types of reinforcements
• Reinforcement: Strengthen a behavioral
response, make it MORE likely to occur
• Positive Reinforcement: adding a stimulus, which
strengthens a response and makes it more likely to recur
• e.g., clean your house -> praise
• Negative Reinforcement: taking away a stimulus, which
strengthens a response and makes it more likely to recur
• e.g., headache removed after taking an aspirin, remove noise to
increase study, allowance taken away to increase truth telling
• Most behavior is rewarded on one or more Partial
Schedules of Reinforcement:
41. But how do you teach new or
complex behaviours?
42. • Shaping:
– Teaches a desired response by reinforcing a series of
successively improving steps leading to the final goal
response
43. Decreasing desired behaviour?
• Punishment: weakening a response!
• Positive Punishment: adding a stimulus, which
weakens a response and makes it less likely to
recur
• e.g., adding chores because you did poorly at school
• Negative Punishment: taking away a stimulus,
which weakens a response and makes it less
likely to recur
• e.g., taking car keys away because you were driving drunk
44.
45. Cognitive-Social Learning
• Emphasizes the roles of thinking and social
learning within the organism in behavior.
– People have attitudes, beliefs, expectations,
motivations, and emotions that affect learning
– All social creatures capable of learning new
behaviors through observation and imitation
46. • Observational Learning: learning new behaviors or
information by watching others.
• Bandura's Bobo doll study – Monkey See Monkey Do?
47. • Observational Learning requires 4 processes:
– Attention
– Retention
– Motor Reproduction
– Reinforcement
– Decide whether we want to repeat the modeled
behavior based on whether the model was
reinforced
