PSY 2010 Lecture Notes - Lecture 14: Classical Conditioning, Motivation, Observational Learning
30 Apr 2023
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Biological constraints: evolved biological tendencies that predisposed animal"s behavior and learning, making certain behaviors easier to learn than others. ex: garcia and koellings taste-aversion research. Animals including humans seem biologically prepared to learn some associations rather than others. Conditioning is stronger when the cs is ecologically relevant. The genetic predisposition to associate a cs with an us that follows predictably and immediately is adaptive. Nature limits species" capacity for operant conditioning. Biological constraints predispose organisms to learn associations that are naturally adaptive. Instinctive drift occurs as animals revert to biologically predisposed patterns. Mental information that guides behavior is acquiring through cognitive learning. Animals learn the predictability of an event ( rescorla & wagner. 1972). The more predictable the association between a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus,the stronger the conditioned response. Its as if animal learns an expectancy-an awareness of how likely it is that the us will occur.
