PSYC 100 Lecture Notes - Lecture 4: Empiricism, Reinforcement, Classical Conditioning

• School: Queen's University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 100
• Professor: Jordan Poppenk

Document Summary

Learning: a more-or-less permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential that results from experience. Contingencies: contingency theorists argue that types of learning exist that are not explained by operant and classical conditioning. Contingency theory proposes that for learning to take place, a stimulus must provide the subject information about the likelihood that certain events will occur. Classical conditioning: a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired; a response that is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone. An example is the following experiment: when a bell is rung, the dog gets fed, after multiple times of this happening as soon as the dog heard the bell he started salivating. Conditioned taste aversion: occurs when an animal associates the taste of a certain food with symptoms caused by a toxic, spoiled, or poisonous substance. Generally, taste aversion is developed after ingestion of food that causes nausea, sickness, or vomiting.