Classical Conditioning: Things to Know

Remember… When behavior is created by classical conditioning, the behavior is in response to a stimulus. (cause/effect)

The behavior that results from the stimulus should be considered as a “trained” response---something that is not a natural to 100 people.

Neutral stimulus- Does not cause any reaction or response

Unconditioned Stimulus- something that causes a normal or natural “non-trained” response. 100 people would respond to it the same way.

Unconditioned Response-The normal or natural “non-trained” response to the Unconditioned Stimulus. 100 people would react this way if the stimulus was applied.

Conditioned Stimulus- Something that causes a “trained” response . If this happened to 100 people only a few would respond to it.

Conditioned Response- The “trained” behavior in response to the specific conditioned stimulus. Only a few out of 100 people would respond this way. IT CAN BE THE SAME BEHAVIOR AS THE UNCONDITIONED RESPONSE!!!

Bell----neutral response

Food ----unconditioned stimulus

Salivation (drooling)----- unconditioned response

Bell then food=

Bell----Conditioned stimulus

Salivation( drooling at the sound of bell)---- Conditioned response

Operant Conditioning—Things to Know

In operant conditioning the behavior comes before the consequence.

The consequence is known as reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement ---I do the behavior because I get a reward or a good consequence

Negative reinforcement--- I do the behavior to avoid or escape a bad consequence

Punishment--- I stop doing a behavior because of a bad consequence.

Factors Influencing Operant Conditioning

Most reinforcement of behavior occurs in a series of schedules:

Ratio: Based on the number of times a behavior is done then it is reinforced

Interval: Based on the amount of time the behavior is done then it is reinforced

Fixed: The number of times that the reinforcement is done does not change.

Variable: The number of times the reinforcement is done varies or changes.

Example of reinforcement for studying--

Fixed Ratio: At the end of each new topic learned, you study, and then the teacher gives the test.

Fixed Interval:Your teacher gives you a test every Friday so you only need to start studying on Thursday instead of other days.

Variable Ratio: At the end of each topic learned, you study and sometimes the teacher gives the test.

Variable Interval: Your teacher gives you a test on different days of the week regardless of how many topics you have learned so you study every day.

Problems with Punishment:

Punishment is meant to decrease the frequency of a certain unwanted behavior.

Acceptable behavior must be included/ instructed when administering punishment.

Punishment must be consistent.

Severity of punishment can lead to unwanted behaviors.

Frequency can create shut-down instead of correction

Things to know about Memory!

First: all info should be “chunked” into groups of 3.

Types of memory

  1. Episodic (This is what the observation task was about)
  2. Procedural
  3. Generic

Types of memory based on length of storage

  1. Sensory
  2. Short-term primary/recency effect
  3. Long-term

Process of memory

  1. Encoding codes: visual, semantic, acoustic
  2. Central processing/storage rehearsal mantainance/elaborative
  3. Retrievalcontext/state dependent

Methods of retrieval

  1. Recall
  2. Recognition –easiest of all three to do
  3. Re-learning