Taped_lectures.docx

My Notes From Class and Taped Lectures Behavior approaches to learning: Historically, the oldest approaches in this country; in other words if we go back to the last century, 1900?s, and if we look from 1900?s to 1950, and then we take 1950 to 2000, what we are going to see Is an incredible dominance of behaviorism in the first half of the last century. Almost all psychologists, in the 20, 30 40s and 50s were all behaviorist; whereas today, very view identify their main orientation as behaviorist. This doesn?t mean it does not exist or that is not important, it means that the climate of science change and psychologists started to look for alternatives to behaviorism. Basic Assumptions: People?s behaviors are largely the result of experiences in their environment. So behaviors are really going to focus on environmental factors, how the environment shapes behaviors. Learning is described in terms of relationships among observable events called stimuli and responses. What we are going to see in the behaviorist traditions for both classical and operant conditioning is a focus on stimuli and responses. Learning involves a behavior change that we can see. Learning = behavioral change. Other theorists said you can learn something without changing your behavior, something that can be stored in your brain and your mind that you may know all about it but not necessarily act on it. Learning is most likely to take place when stimuli and responses occur close together in time. Example: push our dog down to sit then answer the phone or get distracted with something else and then expect the dog to know the command to sit. Many species of animals (including humans) learn in similar ways Classical Conditioning (Pavlov-Watson) Operant/instrumental conditioning (B.F Skinner) Learning = behavioral change CLASSICAL CONDITIONING Pavlov?s work: UCS unconditioned stimulus UCR unconditioned response UCS UCR unconditioned response No learning: Involuntary or automatic response/instinct **Conditioning = learning** Bell (NS) + Food UCS UCR Salivation (automatic response) NS (BELL) Neutral Stimulus Bell (alone) learning!! CS Conditioned stimulus Salivation conditioned response Unconditioned stimulus: a force that causes a behavior you cannot control. Unconditioned response: a response or behavior you cannot control Neutral stimulus: something that doesn?t cause a reaction when applied alone. Key point of classical conditioning: The learning takes place because neutral stimulus gets paired with unconditioned stimulus!!!!!! NS gets paired with that thing that automatically causes a response!! (UCS) NS + UCS = CLASSICAL CONDITIONING When the bell alone (NS) produces salivation is now a conditioned response (CR) Meaning learning has occurred. The learning happens when: NS (CS) CR REMEMBER? NS (BELL) + PAIRING!! UCS (FOOD) UCR By checking the NS alone (bell) and we get salivation, then learning has taking place. Classical conditioning is relevant to the real world because: Watson (father of behaviorist psychology) + Raynor (his pupil) Watson used little Albert (9months old) NS (White Rat) Rat (other fluffy and fury things) + CS Loud Noise CR UCS UCR (fear) (fear generalizes to other fury fluffy things) Stimulus generalization: example Little Albert fear generalized to all other fury fluffy things. Stimulus discrimination: opposite (phone ringing example) Respond to the original CS but not to the other S. Watson was never able to de-conditioned little Albert. In other words, extinction never took place and Little Albert generalized his feared to all other fury fluffy things. Extinction takes place when unlearning a response or a de-conditioned of a response has taken place. Watson thought that if NS + UCS (loud noise) is critical to learning, then for extinction the key was to present the CS alone as many times as possible. Jan 26/11 REMEMBER? Extinction of little Albert CR How to do? Present the CS alone!!! (Not paired with UCS) Extinction 2 methods: ?Extinction? ? Plain old **just CS alone over and over!!** ?counter-conditioning?: fancy extinction **CS alone plus relaxation technique** in case of little Albert, present the rat alone plus ice cream **why is it difficult to extinguish fears in the real world??** Because if giving a chance, people will run away from their fears!! We avoid of what we are afraid off the CS instead of facing them but in the mean time, our fears generalize!! Jan 31/11 Operant Conditioning B.F Skinner Classical Conditioning: Pavlov ? respondent involuntary Operant or Instrumental conditioning: B.F skinner ?voluntary (has the choice) Skinner refers of classical conditioning ? respondent behavior He says that Pavlov and Watson are working on what he calls Respondent behavior. However all this learning theories are correct in some ways. Skinner is interested in those involuntary responses that you or the organism, have no choice but to make them! For involuntary behaviors = automatic no choice Voluntary = has the choice and is a bigger piece of the pie! Operant voluntary response of behavior There are some pressures to respond or have certain behaviors, but is a choice! Example: waking up, brushing your teeth, eat breakfast, etc. So what Skinner was interest in was: on how do we learn these more voluntary behaviors? What shapes these behaviors? How do these behaviors get learned? (R) Voluntary behaviors will be followed by a (S) consequence and these consequences are very important to keep in mind. Our voluntary behaviors have consequences if the consequences are favorable to the organism (making the response, example ?I like?) then R goes up (the behavior increases) Also, ex: if I engage in a behavior and is followed by a consequence that I don?t like, then the voluntary behavior goes down R S (stimulus consequences) (Favorable S/Reinforcement) R S (unfavorable S) (Punishment) What is considered a favorable or unfavorable consequence is on the eye of the beholder. According to Skinner, the only thing that is going to drive the organism behavior?s to go up or down is whether the organism wants the consequence to occur again. REMEMBER: in other words, the pigeon (from video) is always right (the organism that is making the response, is always right) You can?t stay praise or spanking is bad, is the behavior the one that predicts, whether the consequence was right or wrong. If spanking lowers behavior (punishment), then consequence (S) was unfavorable for the organism so it lowers its behavior. But if spanking is actually increasing the behavior, then S is actually reinforcing the behavior (favorable for the organism which may be looking for attention)