True or False?

1. Fear of rats is natural 2. Rolling or twisting one’s tongue is an innate

ability 3. You can train a fish in a tank to love your face! 4. Compassion is inborn. 5. You can’t teach an old dog new tricks. 6. Language is best learned in babyhood.

True or False?

7. A bad experience with an injection will make a person fearful of injections for life.

8. To get someone addicted to say, an illegal drug, giving this person complete access to the drug, is essential.

9. Reaction (like a startle response) to sudden loud noises is innate.

10. Once something is learned, it is never really forgotten.

Answers

1. F 2. F 3. T 4. F 5. F 6. T 7. T 8. F 9. T 10.T

Number of correct choices 9-10 gifted in psychology 7-8 good potential for psychology

Learning definition

Factual definition: Learning is a relatively permanent change in immediate or potential behavior because of experience or practice.

Some behaviors are instinctive and readily respond to stimuli without any prior learning.

Except for a few isolated behaviors in babyhood, humans are not preprogrammed to behave. They are not driven by instincts.

In fact, we are preprogrammed to learn a language through exposure and to learn from experience. Watson’s claim that the baby’s mind is a blank slate (tabula rasa) is not entirely true.

How to study Learning

Learning is an intervening, unobservable variable that is inferred in a particular outcome which can be objectively measured. The outcome is usually given as a score for say, performance.

Learning can therefore be studied by clearly defining the variables involved. This is called the/a working definition.

Such a definition describes only the observed behavior e.g., practice and subsequent performance or cause and effect or outcome.

What is learning?

It does not describe how learning occurs or the underlying mechanisms responsible for it.

Learning can also involve a modification of instinctive or reflex responses. But sometimes, this ‘modification’ is just suppression of natural behavior (animals trained to behave “unnaturally”: e.g., simulate human behaviors). The natural behavior might resurface suddenly (called “instinctive drift”) . This occurs when animals turn on their trainers.

Mechanism of learning

Learning can effect permanent changes such as the formation of new neural circuits.

This is what is meant by the underlying mechanism of learning.

For instance, in the event of learning, physical changes can occur in the synapses which strengthen connections in a group of nerve cells. This is known as Long term potentiation.

As the saying goes, “The cells that wire together fire together.” So when people talk about “rewiring” their brain cells they mean they want to learn or relearn something (say, a skill).

Operational definition

We can objectively study learning by creating operational definitions or working definitions of learning.

This enables us to “operate” or work out a systematic, objective way to study learning by selecting and specifying exactly which factors or variables are to be studied.

Importantly, we need to ascertain how one factor can affect or influence another factor.

This gives us an understanding of the cause and effect relationships in learning.

How to study Learning Learning can be studied or operationalized as

follows: For instance, one might want to study the

impact of (length or hours of) practice (say, studying or training in a sport) on subsequent performance (outcome: grades or score achieved).

Practice is called the independent variable (IV) because it independently (or is deemed to be the main cause or main effect) affects performance, the outcome or the desired behavior or change in behavior from which we infer that learning has taken place.

How to study Learning cont’

Performance is called the dependent variable (DV) because it is dependent on or influenced by Practice (IV) .

However, performance may not reflect accurately the level of learning.

So (a) repeated study/studies conducted (called replication) might give a more accurate index of performance or achievement (what we call “learning” in this study).

Who can learn? Any living organism (yes, we can!) – no

matter what the IQ or intelligence… Aplysia (sea slug)

http://brembs.net/learning/aplysia – can learn through a conditioning procedure.

This occurs when two separate events or stimulus are associated or paired together (say, flash of light followed by administration of electric shock).

Subsequently, the sole administration of the flash in light is reacted to by the sea slug with an involuntary wriggle although no shock is given.

(Still, it is not complimentary to be called a worm or sea creature!)

Conditioning theories

How do we learn? Learning is typically studied by the conditioning process.

Conditioning is the process of learning associations by contiguity or contingences.

Basically, there are two major procedures or theories of learning, also called conditioning: Classical (Pavlov) and Instrumental or Operant (Watson, Skinner).

Conditioning theories (cont’)

Classical conditioning refers to the “original” or the first experiments regarding learning.

– two stimuli occur or are paired together (contiguity) and evoke a response.

Operant conditioning – a voluntary behavior which leads to an

outcome or consequence, usually reward. The response or behavior emitted is said to

be contingent on the reward expected.

Conditioning theories (cont’)

Both types of theories concern the study of relatively simple forms of learning. More complex forms of learning can be “broken down” or separated into simpler forms.

These two theories assume that certain basic laws underlie animal and human learning.

They differ in theoretical orientation or ideas. This means that the methodology or procedure used to study specific behaviors and the principles used to explain them are different.

Faces

Look at each of the faces in the following slides.

What is your immediate response to each face?

Can you explain your automatic response, emotional or otherwise?

Why did you react or feel the way you did? What learning process is involved in your response to each face?

Your reactions

Many of our reactions to people and objects develop through the classical conditioning process.

These reactions pertain both to good feelings but also to fears or phobias.

Let us examine what classical conditioning is about.

Classical conditioning

Classical conditioning is learning by pairing or association of two stimuli or events. It is typically studied in this way (Pavlov’s experiment):

A dog is harnessed and an incision made to the side of its mouth so that saliva can be collected from the parotid gland (cruelty to animals, eh?).

A bell (a neutral stimulus, NS) is rung. This ringing catches the dog’s attention but initially only, causing the animal to orientate (pay attention) towards it (orienting reflex).

Classical conditioning

The NS is then paired with food (UCS), an unconditioned stimulus which naturally evokes with no prior learning, salivation, an unlearned or unconditioned reflex (UCR).

After several such pairings, the dog salivates to the sound of the bell alone.

The bell is now deemed to be a conditioned stimulus, CS, because it can now on its own elicit salivation, now called the conditioned response (CR).

A typical illustration from any introductory psychology

textbook Saliva collected from parotid glandSaliva collected from parotid gland

Recap - Classical conditioning terminology

The previously neutral stimulus is now called the conditioned stimulus (CS) since the successful pairing has enabled the CS to acquire the same reinforcing property or power as the UCS, the primary reinforcer.

The CS is now called a secondary reinforcer. The behavior CR is said to be elicited or

evoked by the stimulus. This is why classical conditioning is also called respondent conditioning.

Recap - Classical conditioning terminology

The number of repeated pairings can even be called Practice. It gives an indication of how easy or difficult it is to acquire a specific response and conversely, how easy or difficult it might be to eradicate that response.

This will be discussed in a future section on a type of therapy called behaviour modification.

Footnote: Pavlov won the Nobel prize in physiology/medicine in 1904.

http://nobelprize.org/educational/medicine/pavlov/readmore.html

An example of a classically conditioned

response

Quiz on previous slide

For the previous slide, identify the following terminology:

UCS UCR CS CR (note: there are 3 CRs!)

Answer

UCS soup CS lizard in soup UCR fear 3 CRs i. scream (‘Yuks!’); ii.felt like throwing up; iii. Could not eat or sleep all night.

Another example

Try your hand at this example: You’re expecting a telephone call.

Suddenly, your cell phone rings. You’re momentarily startled but you quickly answer the call.

Question? What conditioning process(es) is/are

involved?

Answer

Both classical and operant conditioning are involved.

Why Classical Conditioning: The ringing (CS) elicited an involuntary

reaction (startle, an autonomic response, typically the UCS) from you but which is now conditioned to the phone ringing (CR).

Why Operant Conditioning: You answered the phone. This was a specific,

voluntary behaviour or response, that is, you emitted a response to the ringing.

Summary and Conclusion

Classical conditioning – presenting contiguously in time, a NS and a UCS. The UCS is called a primary reinforcer and naturally elicits the response.

The NS becomes the CS, a secondary reinforcer having similar reinforcing properties or powers as the UCS.

Operant conditioning – presenting reinforcement or reward after the response is made. The reward is said to be contingent on the occurrence of required response.

Summary and Conclusion These learning or conditioning theories

explain well the acquisition of behaviors. However, they do not take into account

learning that is facilitated by maturation or critical periods in development

OR the idea that the person may have the innate

propensity to learn (e.g., language development)

We will delve more into this when we deal with child development in the future.

Next session: Classical & Operant Conditioning