PSY 102 Lecture 7: Lecture 7
30 Apr 2018
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March 15, 2018 PSY102 – Lecture 7
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LEARNING: CONDITIONING
Learning
• Change in an organism’s behaviour or thought as a result of practice, study, or experience
Two Types of Learning
• Non-associative learning – learning that does not involve forming associations between
stimuli; it is change resulting from experiences with a single sensory cue
• Associative Learning – a change as a result of experience where two or more stimuli
become linked
Non-Associative Learning
• Habituation - weakening of response to a stimulus after repeated presentation
• Sensitization - a strong stimulus results in an exaggerated response to the subsequent
presentation of weaker stimuli
• Dishabituation - a recovery of attention to a novel stimulus following habitation
Learning via Association
• Large amounts of learning occur though association
• Simple associations provided the mental building blocks for more complex ideas
• Classical and Operant Conditioning
Ivan Pavlov
• Russian physiologist and 1904 Nobel Prize winner
• Most famous for work on digestion of the dog
• First work on classical conditioning
Classical Conditioning
• A form of learning in which the conditioned stimulus comes to signal the occurrence of a
second stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus
o Animals are born that way or they have learnt it through their environment
▪ Dogs smell food, they drool
▪ Ring a bell at a dog, they might be confused.
▪ Classical conditioning is important for operant conditioning: reward the
dog to touch the wall with classical conditioning (ringing a bell) first
• Involves five primary components:
o Neutral stimulus (NS) (becomes CS) → Show the dog a bell and the dog doesn’t
do anything because it doesn’t know what is happening
o Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) → Food
o Unconditioned response (UCR) → Drool → Genetic, or they already know how
to do it
March 15, 2018 PSY102 – Lecture 7
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o Conditioned stimulus (CS) → At the second time, the dog drools (learning is in
progress)
o Conditioned response (CR) → After the bell is rung continuously (i.e., 20-30
times) with the food, then the dog responds (they have learnt that the bell means
food)
Classing Conditioning Steps
1. Setup:
a. Neutral stimulus (NS): does not elicit a particular response (time = 0)
i. i.e. a tone
b. An unconditioned stimulus (UCS), already elicits an unconditioned response
(UCR)
2. Pair the NS repeatedly with the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), which elicits an
unconditioned response (UCR)
3. Eventually, the NS becomes a conditioned stimulus, eliciting a conditioned response
a. The organism reacts the same way to the previously NS (now CS) as it did to the
UCS
Classical Conditioning Phases
• Acquisition
o The learning phase during where a conditioned response is established
o Increases progressively in strength
o Works best when the CS and UCS are paired closely in time
• Extinction
o the reduction and elimination of the conditioned response
o Happens after the conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without
the unconditioned stimulus
o when the behaviour no longer produces any rewards
• Spontaneous Recovery
o The reappearance of the behaviour after extinction and timeout
Classical Conditioning Principles
• Stimulus generalization
o When a stimulus similar to the conditioned stimulus elicits a conditioned response
▪ For Example: Ice cream machine, different tone, music, but you will
figure out it’s the ice-cream truck
• Stimulus discrimination
o When we exhibit a conditioned response only to certain stimuli, not similar others
Higher Order Conditioning
• Process where organisms develop classically conditioned responses to CSs associated
with the original conditioned stimulus
Document Summary
Learning: change in an organism"s behaviour or thought as a result of practice, study, or experience. Learning via association: large amounts of learning occur though association, simple associations provided the mental building blocks for more complex ideas, classical and operant conditioning. Ivan pavlov: russian physiologist and 1904 nobel prize winner, most famous for work on digestion of the dog, first work on classical conditioning. Higher order conditioning: process where organisms develop classically conditioned responses to css associated with the original conditioned stimulus. Psy102 lecture 7: new classic conditioning on the old classic conditioning, becomes weaker the farther from the original cs (4th order conditioning) E. l. thorndike: discovered principles of the law of effect after experimenting with cats in puzzle boxes, found no insight in cats. B. f. skinner: followed up on watson and thorndike"s work on behaviour, designed the skinner box to more effectively record activity. Because you want the behaviour to be recurring and to have immediate reinforcement.
