Psychology 2062A/B Lecture Notes - Lecture 5: Reinforcement, Time, Operant Conditioning

• School: Western University
• Department: Psychology
• Course: Psychology 2062A/B
• Professor: Stephanie Kelly

Document Summary

Learning: process through which experience causes permanent change in knowledge or behaviour. Behavioural learning theories: explanations of learning that focus on external events as a the cause of change in observable behaviour. Basic assumptions of behaviourism: people"s behaviours are largely the result of experiences in their environment, learning is described in terms of relationships among observable events (stimuli and responses). Not internal processes like personality, etc: learning involves a behaviour change, learning is more likely to take place when stimuli and responses occur close together in time. Contiguity is the occurrence of two or more events at the same time. The association of two events from a pairing: people are born as blank slates, many species of animals (including humans) learn in similar ways. There was a deliberate protest towards behaviourism, and away from psychoanalysis (freud). Behaviourists believe that psychoanalysis is not truly scientific because it is not observable.