Learning Notes 2017

Learning Notes 2017

How do we learn? By association-we connect events that occur in sequence. All of our senses contribute to this connection building we do in our brains.

These associations can become habits…particular behaviors belong in particular contexts. The CONTEXT can trigger the behavior. (you find yourself walking to class that you don’t have b/c you are in the 100’s hallway.)

Sometimes, a bx that occurs over and over will HABITUATE…we reduce our responses to unchanging stimuli.

Learning enables survival and adaptation

In CLASSICAL CONDITIONING, we learn to associate a stimulus with a response.

In OPERANT CONDITIONING: we learn to associate a response (our bx) to a consequence.

Essential Questions:

What influences the learning?

How does conditioning actually work?

BEHAVIORISTS SOUGHT TO DISCOVER RULES THAT GOVEREND BEHAVIOR, much like the physical sciences were finding the laws that govern matter, energy and the like.

Where classical conditioning deals with associations between stimuli and RESPONDENT behaviors (automatic/reflexive/visceral responses), Operant conditioning involves the production of VOLUNTARY Bx in order to gain rewards or reduce/avoid punishment. Because the bx operates on the environment to produce a reward or punishment, we call it OPERANT BEHAVIOR, as opposed to respondent behavior.

In other words, in CC there is not a lot of control over the learned response behavior. In Operant conditioning, the learner has a lot of control to ILLICIT rewards and punishments thru their bx.

Thorndike and the LAW OF EFFECT:

• Cats and puzzle boxes.
• No insight, just trial and error.
• Takes time.
• LAW OF EFFECT: behaviors followed by desirable consequences is more likely to be repeated. Behaviors followed by punishing consequences is less likely to be repeated.

BF SKINNER: Modern Behaviorism’s most influential and controversial figure. (died in 1990). He expanded on Thorndike’s work…he didn’t want to WAIT for learners to figure things out so he engineered consequences to SHAPE BEHAVIOR.

He designed theSkinner Box, or as he called it, the Operant Chamber. It had a bar or key that an animal pressed in order to get food, and there were stimuli, such as lights, or buzzers that would initiate a behavior.

Shaping Behavior: sometimes animals don’t produce a desired behavior in perfection on the first try, so you have to SHAPE the behavior you want. You do this by rewarding APPROXIMATIONS of the behavior…bx’s that demonstrate an attempt, but not necessarily an accurate bx. Pretty soon, as the attempts get better and better, you STOP rewarding the off bx’s and start only rewarding the perfect bx’s.

Chaining Bxs: Sometimes a series of bx’s will need to be produced in order to complete a particular task…”go to bed” involves jammies, teeth brushing and kisses, for example. You can reward pieces of the bx till the learner starts putting it all together

Reinforcers: consequences that ENCOURAGE bx.

Positive: good things that are added

Negative: crappy things that are removed

Learners in both of the above instances are encouraged to continue the bx because they LIKED the consequence that the bx resulted in.

Primary: rewarding in and of itself: UNLEARNED. I.e. food, pain removal

Secondary: We learn the power of these through their association with the primary reinforcers.

Immediate and delayed responses. Animals don’t respond well to training if the reinforce is delayed. Humans can delay gratification. Mischel’s famous marshmallow experiment.