Chapter 8: Learning

Learning:
a relatively permanent change in an
organism’s behavior due to experience.
Q: How do we learn?

A: By association & experience!

Our minds naturally connect events that occur in
sequence – we associate them – and we then use
these associations when we experience similar
situations.

Ex. You are walking quickly on a icy sidewalk and

you slip and fall. The next time you see an icy
sidewalk you are going to walk more slowly and
carefully.
Associative Learning:
Learning that certain events occur together.
The events may be two stimuli (as in classical
conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in
operant conditioning).
Why does it matter?
• Humans & animals placed in new environments
will have trouble succeeding until they learn
appropriate associations and experiences.
• Successful adaptation requires both nature (the
right genetic disposition) and nurture (a history
of appropriate learning).
• Some humans and animals will never learn the
appropriate associations needed and will fail in
their environment.
 In one study information was collected from
the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan showing
that from 1993 to 1999 20-30% of new
teachers withdrew from the pension plan
with less than three years of teaching
experience.
 3 Types of Associative Learning

 Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov & John Watson)

 Learn to expect and prepare for significant events like food
and pain

 Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner & Edward Thorndike)

 Learn to repeat acts that bring rewards and to avoid acts
that bring unwanted results

 Observational Learning (Albert Bandura)

 Learn new behaviours by observing events and
watching others
 Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
 Trained in animal physiology
 He focused his work on 3 problems during
his career;
-nerve functions of the heart
- primary digestive gland function
(earned him a 1904 noble prize)
-conditioned reflexes
Pavlov’s work provided the foundation for John B. Watson’s theory
on human behavior.
Classical Conditioning
Definition:
A type of learning in which an organism comes to
associate stimuli.
Pavlov’s Famous Experiment

 Originated from his work in dogs and their

digestive glands.
 Frustration with ‘psychic secretions’
 The dogs would begin to salivate when a stimulus
associated with food was present i.e. the food dish,
the assistant who usually brought in the food, and
their footsteps.
 The salivating dogs disrupted his research, so he
decided to look into how the dogs learned the
associations.
 Pavlov’s Famous Experiment continued
 To understand why this happened, Pavlov:
1)Gave the dog the food. The dog salivated.
2)Produced a tone. The dog did not salivate.
The tone was therefore neutral – no response from dog.
3)Produced tone before giving food. Dog salivated
because of food. (repeated many times).
4) Produced tone with no food. Dog salivated.

Outcome:
The dog now associated the tone with food – learned
association between the stimuli!
 Pavlov’s Terminology
To describe his observations, Pavlov used the
following terms:
Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): a stimulus that
unconditionally – naturally & automatically- triggers a
response.
i.e. dog salivating to food in mouth (the stimulus).

Unconditioned response (UCR): the unlearned naturally

occurring response to the unconditional stimulus
(UCS).
i.e. dog salivating (the response) to food in mouth.
 Pavlov’s Terminology
Conditioned Stimulus (CS): an originally irrelevant
stimulus that, after association with an
unconditioned stimulus (UCS) comes to trigger a
conditioned response.
i.e. dog salivating to the tone (stimulus).

Conditioned Response (CR): the learned response

to a previously neutral conditioned stimulus (CS).
i.e. dog salivating (the response) to the tone.
Neutral stimuli
 Neutral stimuli are those events or items
that produce no response before
conditioning
Check your understanding
Check for understanding - identify the UCS,
UCR, CS and CR.

Every time someone flushes the toilet in my

house, the shower gets very hot and I have to
jump out of the way. Over time I learned to
jump back as soon as I hear the toilet flush
before the water temperature changes.
Every time someone flushes the toilet in my
house, the shower gets very hot and I have to
jump out of the way. Over time I learned to jump
back as soon as I hear the toilet flush before the
water temperature changed.
Unconditioned stimulus: UCS – hot water
Unconditioned response: UCR – jump back
Conditioned stimulus: CS – toilet flush
Conditioned response: CR – jump back
 Causes & Effects of C.C.
Pavlov found that there are 5 processes that
influence Classical Conditioning.

 1) Acquisition – initial learning of the stimulus-

response relationship.

The timing of the neutral stimulus to the

unconditioned stimulus is extremely important.
If the time delay is too long between stimuli, the
association will not happen.
 Causes & Effects of C.C.
2) Extinction – diminished responding that occurs
when the CS no longer signals an impending UCS.
This means that associations can be unlearned.

3) Spontaneous Recovery – reappearances of a

weakened CR after a rest period.
Suggests that extinction sometimes only
suppresses instead of eliminates.
 Causes & Effects of C.C.

4) Generalization – once a response has been

conditioned for a stimulus, similar stimuli elicit the
same response.
Shows that C.C. is adaptive in nature.

5) Discrimination – learned ability to distinguish

between a conditioned stimulus and other
irrelevant stimuli.
Survival value.
Higher-Order Conditioning
 Here, a neutral stimulus (NS) can become a
new conditioned stimulus (CS)
 All you need is to pair it with a previously
conditioned stimulus
 A cranky teacher is associated with humiliation in
front of the class, the student is conditioned to fear
the teacher, later the classroom itself will provoke
the fear response
Oh Watson…how cruel you were
Famous Quote
 “Give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and
my own specified world to bring them up in and I'll
guarantee to take any one at random and train him
to become any type of specialist I might select –
doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief and, yes,
even beggar-man and thief, regardless of his
talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations,
and race of his ancestors.”
-John B. Watson (1878-1958)
 Watson’s Little Albert Study

 Albert was 11 months old and feared loud noises.

 Watson presented him with a rat to play with.
 And struck a hammer on steel rod every time Albert
reached for the rat.
 Albert would soon burst into tears at the sight of a rat.
 Albert generalized this fear to other small animals
(rabbits, dogs).
 Showed that humans are just as easily conditioned as
animals.
Really though, why does Pavlov’s
work matter?
 1) Many responses to many stimuli can be
classically conditioned in many organisms
(humans included); virtually all organisms
learn to adapt to their environment

 2)Pavlov showed us how learning can be

studied objectively
B. F. Skinner 1904-1990
 Never took a university
psychology course before
enrolling in Harvard’s
graduate psychology school.
 Behavioral Psychologist.
 Famous for Operant
Conditioning
Operant Conditioning
 Definition: Type of learning in which
behavior is strengthened if followed by a
reinforcer or diminished if followed by a
punishment.
 Skinner’s work
 Skinner used Edward Thorndike’s Law of effect as a
basis for his work.
 Law of effect: rewarded behavior is likely to recur.

 Skinner developed the Operant Chamber (Skinner

Box) to conduct his work in.
Skinner Box – soundproof box, with a bar or key that
an animal presses to release a reward of food or
water.
Skinner Box
Skinner’s Work
 Skinner put pigeons or rats in his operant chamber.
 Inside the box, the animal had to learn to press a bar
for food or water.
 The 1st time the animal pressed the bar, it was
probably an accident, but received the food.
 Gradually the animal learned that the bar was the
source of food.
Operant Conditioning

 Hunger  Presses
Bar
Rat Stimulus Response
to Stimulus

 Receives Food
Reinforcer of behavior
 Timing is very
important as after 30
seconds you will not
be reinforcing the
behaviour you want to
affect
 Skinner & Shaping
Skinner’s work explored the conditions that foster
efficient and enduring learning. He used shaping to
achieve his results.
 Shaping (aka successive approximation)
 reinforcers guide behavior toward closer
approximations of a desired goal.

Psychologists can use shaping to see what

animals perceive.
Ex. Pigeons have been trained to distinguish between
Bach & Stravinsky.
https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=2HNn0wgZG0A