PSY 001 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Hermann Ebbinghaus, Noam Chomsky, Tabula Rasa
12 Jun 2018
School
Department
Course
Professor
Psych – Learning
Jadzia Wray
Learning – a proess of hage that ours as a result of a idiidual’s eperiee
- It is a relative permanent change in behavior or mental state based on experience
- It can occur consciously or unconsciously
Types of Learning:
- Non-associative learning - learning about a stimulus, such as sign or sound, in the external
world
- Associative Learning - Learning the relationship between two pieces of information
- Observational Learning - learning by watching how others behave
History of Learning
- Two main fields evolved at the end of the 19th century:
o Sensation and perception
o Learning and memory
▪ Empiricists and nativists
Empiricism
Nativism
Everything we know is based on previous
experience
Born with certain biological constraints. Some
skills are iate fro irth. We do’t hae to lear
everything.
If e did’t eperiee it, the e do’t ko it.
No exceptions.
Noam Chomsky – language; Charles Darwin –
evolution; Immanuel Kant – space and time
John Locke – tabula rasa (blank slate)
Not everything is innate, but some things are.
- Hermann Ebbinghaus – first to empirically test associationist/empiricism principles:
o The more you repeat, the more you learn
o The more time passes between memory and recall, the less you are able to remember it
o Closer items memorized together were more strongly associated. Ex: if you
reeer #, ou’ll reeer ad , not 16.
- Brain Plasticity – the capacity of the brain to change with learning
o You can change depending on how you interact with the environment
Animal Learning
- Simple systems approach – study fairly primitive animals to understand basic processes and
then we extrapolate the findings to more complex species like primates and humans
o Do an experiment on rats to press a lever to get food, see that they learn to do that,
then try it on monkeys and see if the same response is received
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Innate Behavior: behaviors, abilities and capacities an animal has at birth
- Reflexes: movement of a part of a body that can be reliably elicited by presenting the
appropriate stimulus
o Put baby in water and they know what to do at first
o Pretend to drop baby and they cover their face
- Fixed action patterns – sequence of actions, without variation, carried out in response to a
specific stimulus
o Hermit crabs → when they want to find a shell, they go in, circle around, sit in it, and
decide whether to stay in it → innate process
o Ducks → roll their eggs into their nest → change egg to a cube and they still do this
→ innate process
- Reaction chain – sequence of actions, each step of which depends on the presence of a new
stimulus
o Hermit crab → if it went in the shell, saw something broken, and instead it will change
its fixed action pattern because there is a new stimulus so the outcome of their
actions change
- Most learned behaviors are derivatives of these innate behaviors
Habituation: decreased strength of a response after repeated presentation of a stimulus
- Why?
o Evolutionarily advantageous to ignore irrelevant stimuli that are repeatedly
encountered so that we can focus on more important things
- Loud sound that you hear shocks you, but if it keeps happening you become less shocked by
it → at to use that loud soud to puish soeoe ut it o’t ee other the eause
they are used to it
- The brain tries to ignore irrelevant stimuli so as to save energy
- Course of habituation – if the stimulus is continually repeated we will habituate to it
- Effect of time – if there is a gap since the stimulus was presented, you may still have a reaction
to it, but you will habituate it more quickly when it gets presented repeatedly again
o Reaction will be slower
- Relearning effects – you may have to re-learn to habituate to something
o Hear 10 shots at one time before you habituate → some time later it may be 5 shots
then you habituate
- Stimulus intensity – it takes longer if it is a really strong stimulus
o Whe stiulus is there ou do’t respod
- Effects of over-learning – you can over-learn the habituation
- Stimulus generalization – habituate to one thing and then it generalizes to similar things
Sensitization
- It is learning that occurs when a stimulus is repeated, and each time your response to it
increases as it goes on and on
- Strengthening your response to a stimulus by repeatedly being exposed to it
- Public speaking → heart rate increases → person starts to avoid it
o Make person run up stairs so heart rate increases, but then you teach them to calm
their heart rate down
o Have to try to counter the sensitization with habituation
▪ Have to stay with the stimulus so often so that you get used to it
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
- People with anxiety have it come in waves → and it will come back down but at the peak the
perso ats it to oe ak do iediatel ad it does’t ork that a
Definitions
- Conditioned – something that you have learned
- Unconditioned – unlearned – no one taught it to you, you just learned it automatically
- Stimulus – input from the environment
- Response – a reaction shown by the body
Classical Conditioning (good at explaining reflex behaviors but not fear or things that last for long)
- You learn to associate something new with something that happens automatically
o The body has automatic behaviors (puff of eye into ear → blink) (hunger → mouth
waters)
o Associate something else with the stimulus that makes the response happen so that
something else can trigger the same response
▪ Bell rings and your mouth waters instead of being hungry
- Palo’s dogs: ope door, rag ell, ad ould feed dogs after → dogs started to salivate
before even seeing food → door would open, and bell would ring, and dogs mouth would
water
- Unconditioned stimulus (US) – a stimulus that reliable elicits a characteristic response, you
do’t hae to lear it → you have no control over this response
o Food makes you salivate; sun makes you sweat
- Unconditioned response (UR) – the characteristic response to the US → the od’s respose
o Blinking from a puff of air; sweating from the sun
- Conditioned stimulus (CR) – any stimulus that does not initially evoke the UR
o A ell does’t ake ou lik, a light does’t ake ou seat
- Conditioned response (CR) – any response that occurs during the conditioned stimulus but
before or in the absence of the US
o Blinking because of a bell → you have learned to do this
- The goal is to turn the neutral stimulus into a conditioned stimulus that will lead to the same
response, now a conditioned response.
find more resources at oneclass.com
find more resources at oneclass.com
Document Summary
Learning a pro(cid:272)ess of (cid:272)ha(cid:374)ge that o(cid:272)(cid:272)urs as a result of a(cid:374) i(cid:374)di(cid:448)idual"s e(cid:454)perie(cid:374)(cid:272)e. It is a relative permanent change in behavior or mental state based on experience. Non-associative learning - learning about a stimulus, such as sign or sound, in the external world. Associative learning - learning the relationship between two pieces of information. Observational learning - learning by watching how others behave. Two main fields evolved at the end of the 19th century: sensation and perception, learning and memory, empiricists and nativists. Everything we know is based on previous experience. If (cid:449)e did(cid:374)"t e(cid:454)perie(cid:374)(cid:272)e it, the(cid:374) (cid:449)e do(cid:374)"t k(cid:374)o(cid:449) it. Noam chomsky language; charles darwin evolution; immanuel kant space and time. Not everything is innate, but some things are. Ex: if you re(cid:373)e(cid:373)(cid:271)er #(cid:1007), (cid:455)ou"ll re(cid:373)e(cid:373)(cid:271)er (cid:1006) a(cid:374)d (cid:1008), not 16. Brain plasticity the capacity of the brain to change with learning: you can change depending on how you interact with the environment.
