Learning�Module 26

Adaptation to the Environment

• Learning— the process of acquiring new behavior & knowledge/info that is relatively permanent
• A relatively permanent change in behavior and/or knowledge due to experience

Learning by Association

• Most learning comes from association – we connect events that occur in sequence.
• Hearing one song on a playlist cues you to what song is coming next.
• When behaviors are repeated in a certain context/environment/situation, the behavior becomes associated with that context
• Over time the repeated behavior becomes a habit when you are in that situation/context.
• The situation/context triggers the habitual behavior associated with it.
• Associative Learning = predicting the immediate future
• We accurately guess what’s coming next by linking two events together.

• Stimulus - anything in the environment that one can respond to
• Response – any behavior or action

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Stimulus-Response Relationship

You quickly realize that the “flush” predicts hot water.

Stimulus-Response Relationship

After linking the two stimuli together, the originally neutral “flush” elicits/causes a response. You’ve learned by association!

Behaviorism

• The view that psychology should restrict its efforts to studying observable behaviors, not mental processes.
• Founded by John B. Watson
• Thought that all human behavior is a result of conditioning or due to past experience and environmental influences.
• Claimed he could take any child and train him to become any type of specialist.

Classical Conditioning

• Conditioning = Learning
• A type of learning where a formerly neutral stimulus gains the power to cause a response because it predicts another stimulus is coming that already produces the response
• OR to put it simply: When an animal learns to do a natural reflexive response to something that it would normally not do the response to.
• Form of learning by association

Ivan Pavlov (1849–1936)

Pavlov’s Dogs

• Studied digestive reflexes and salivation
• “Psychic secretions” were made by dogs to things like seeing the researcher or hearing their approaching footsteps.

Pavlov’s Research Apparatus

Ivan Pavlov

• Watch “Pavlov’s Discovery of Classical Conditioning” (3 min) - online
• Video #6 from Worth’s Digital Media Archive for Psychology.
• Click on link below to view.

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Neutral Stimulus — Bell

• Exists BEFORE conditioning/learning has occurred
• Does not normally elicit (cause) a response or reflex action by itself
• a bell ringing
• a color
• a clicking metronome
• None of these would naturally cause a dog to salivate.

Neutral Stimulus

=

No Response

Unconditioned Stimulus — Food

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• Always elicits/causes a reflexive action: an unconditioned (unlearned) response
• Food causes salivating
• blast of air causes blinking
• Loud noise causes one to startled or scared

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Unconditioned Stimulus

Unconditioned Response — Salivating

• The automatic/natural response to the unconditioned stimulus
• A response to an unconditioned stimulus—naturally occurring & not learned
• Salivation at smell of food
• Eye blinks at blast of air
• Startle reaction in babies

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Unconditioned Response

Unconditioned Stimulus

Conditioned (Learned) Stimulus — Bell

• The stimulus that was originally neutral becomes conditioned or learned after it has been paired repeatedly with the unconditioned stimulus
• Will eventually cause the unconditioned response by itself
• The Bell predicts food is coming so the dog salivates
• What was once neutral is now learned/conditioned because it now causes something to happen. Before it did not.

Conditioned Stimulus

=

Conditioned (Learned) Response - Salivating

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• The original unconditioned response becomes conditioned/learned after it has been caused by the conditioned (previously neutral) stimulus
• Usually the same behavior as the UR

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Conditioned Stimulus

Conditioned Response

Classical Conditioning

Unconditioned Response

Unconditioned Response

(NS)

(US)

(US)

(NS)

(CS)

(UR)

(UR)

(CR)

Pavlov’s Experiment

Pavlov’s Experiment

Pavlov’s Experiment

Classical Conditioning Terms

• Aquisition
• Extinction
• Spontaneous recovery
• Generalization
• Discrimination training

Acquisition

• The process of developing a learned response
• The initial learning that takes place in the during/learning stage of conditioning when the animal starts to associate the NS with the US.

Acquisition

Extinction

• The diminishing of a learned response
• When the CS is continually presented without the UCS then the CR will eventually begin to disappear.

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Spontaneous Recovery

• The reappearance, after a rest period, of an extinguished conditioned response
• After a period of time if the CS is presented, the CR returns.
• Learning may disappear but is not eliminated.

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Spontaneous Recovery

Generalization

• Process in which an organism produces the same CR to two similar stimuli (CS)
• The more similar the substitute stimulus is to the original used in conditioning, the stronger the generalized response

Different alarms still have the same effect = wake you up

Discrimination

• Ability of an animal to not respond to a new NS/CS that is too different from the original CS.
• The subject learns that one stimuli predicts the UCS and the other does not.

After learning to salivate to a bell, Pavlov’s dogs didn’t drool to other sounds.

=

Where’s the bell?

Generalization vs. Discrimination

• A new NS gets associated with a previously learned CS and starts to trigger the CR.

Higher-Order/Second-Order Stimulus

John B. Watson and Little Albert

• 11-month-old infant
• Watson and his assistant, Rosalie Rayner, classically conditioned Albert to be frightened of white rats
• Led to questions about experimental ethics

To Watch a Short Video on Watson and the Little Albert experiment click HERE. �Online version (4 min)

Little Albert – �Before Conditioning

UCR

Little Albert – �During Conditioning

UCR

Little Albert – �After Conditioning

(CR)

CS: rat

Little Albert – �Generalization & Discrimination

(Generalization)

(Discrimination)

Could Little Albert’s Fear Have Been Undone?

• YES!!! Through Counter Conditioning!
• Must pair the conditioned stimulus (Rat) with something that is incompatible with fear (Candy).
• Notice how we start with a conditioned stimulus not a neutral stimulus

CS = CR UCS = UCR

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CS + UCS = UCR

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CS = New CR

Rat

Rat

Rat

Fear

Not Scared

Candy

Happy

Candy

Happy

BEFORE:

DURING:

AFTER:

Mary Cover Jones

Mary Cover Jones’ Peter Experiment

Taste Aversion

• Rats drank flavored water (NS) and hours later were given a shot with a drug or radiation (UCS) that made them sick (UCR). The rats refused to drink the flavored water again.
• Subjects become classically conditioned to avoid specific tastes, because the tastes are associated with nausea.
• Animals that hunt by sight learn to avoid prey items that look like the prey item that made them sick. Birds will avoid butterflies that look like Monarchs.

John Garcia (1917- 2012)

**Differs from other Classical Conditioning in that:

• It did NOT require repeated pairings of a NS and UCS.
• The time span between the two was a few hours.
• Rats were conditioned to taste and not anything else that occurred in the hours between when they drank the flavored water and got sick.

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How Taste Aversion Works:

BEFORE

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NS = No Response UCS = UCR

DURING:

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NS + UCS = UCR

AFTER:

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CS = CR

Flavored Water

Drug/Radiation

Nausea

Flavored Water

Drug

Nausea

Flavored Water

Fear leading to Avoidance

Classical Conditioning �& �Drug Use

Responses Similar to the Drug’s Effect:�Classically Conditioned Drug Effect

• Drugs that are regularly used to restore NORMAL functioning produce a conditioned response (CR) similar to the drug’s effect. (see diagram below)
• This can result in a Placebo Response – a psychological & physiological reaction to a fake treatment or drug.
• You feel more alert after drinking decaffeinated coffee

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Responses OPPOSITE to the Drug’s Effect:�Classically Conditioned Compensatory Response

• Drugs that are regularly used to DISRUPT normal functioning produce a conditioned compensatory response (CCR) opposite to the drug’s effect.
• This is caused by your body naturally trying to compensate and restore normal functioning.
• Eventually, stimuli that reliably precede the administration of a drug cause a physiological reaction that is opposite to the drug’s effects.
• May be one explanation for the characteristics of withdrawal and tolerance

The Conditioned Compensatory Response

Siegel’s CCR Studies

• If a drug abuser does their drug in an unfamiliar setting they will run the risk of overdose because they will not have the CCR effect before they take the drug.
• Spontaneous recovery is a reason people relapse when they find themselves in a similar situation to the one in which they regularly used the drug.

Siegel’s Rat Study

• Over the course of a month, rats gradually developed tolerance to increasing amounts of heroin.
• Then, they were injected with an overdose of almost twice as much heroin as they had become accustomed to receiving.
• Rats that were injected with the heroin overdose in the same setting in which they had previously received heroin were twice as likely to survive as were rats that were injected in a different setting.
• Almost all the rats in the control group that had not previously been exposed to heroin died.

CCR & Drug Overdose

• Some heroin addicts have died after injecting their usual amount of heroin in an unfamiliar environment. Why?