Learning Definitions

Main law behind learning theory:

Law of Association:

When a new experience is associated (paired) with a familiar experience, people will learn to respond the same way to the new experience as they respond to the familiar experience.

New kid in school: you have no response at first.
New kid starts hanging around with kid you hate.
New kid is associated with kid you hate.
Soon you hate new kid.

Learning Theory: Some Definitions

Stimulus: anything in the world that can affect us.
Conditioning: the process of learning.
Response: a behavior we could do.

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): a stimulus that already produces a response, without learning.

Meat (UCS) produces drooling response in dogs.

Unconditioned Response (UCR): a response to an unconditioned stimulus, we make this response without learning it.

Meat produces drooling response (UCR) that dogs don’t have to learn.

Pavlov's dogs always saw the same assistant feed them meat.
For the dogs, the assistant became associated (paired) with meat.
Eventually the dogs started to drool when they saw the assistant.

This is Classical Conditioning: learning about something new by what it’s paired with in your environment.

Conditioned Stimulus (CS): The stimulus that has been paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

The assistant was the conditioned stimulus paired with meat.

Conditioned Response (CR): The response to the conditioned stimulus.

The drooling was the conditioned response the dog had to the assistant.

Stimulus generalization: a stimulus that is similar to the conditioned stimulus will produce the same conditioned response.

Phobia: intense fear of object or event.

Getting Rid of Phobias Using Classical Conditioning

Phobia: intense fear of object or event.

Little Albert learned to have a phobia about rats:

BANG! ----------------------> Crying (fear)
Unconditioned Unconditioned
Stimulus Response

BANG! ----------------------> Crying (fear)
Paired with Rat

Finally:

Rat ----------------------> Crying (fear)

Extinction: When a person is exposed to the Conditioned Stimulus (CS) without the Unconditioned Stimulus it was originally paired with.
If the CS stops being paired with the UCS, eventually the CS won't produce its Conditioned Response any more.

If Little Albert sees the rat (Conditioned Stimulus) and no longer hears the loud noise (Unconditioned Stimulus) any more, eventually Little Albert will stop crying and being afraid (Conditioned Response) when he sees the rat.

Extinction Therapy for Phobias:
1. Separate the Unconditioned Stimulus from the Conditioned Stimulus
2. Eventually The Conditioned Stimulus Won't Produce the Conditioned Response.

Flooding:
Have the person with the phobia experience a very strong example of the conditioned stimulus they have a phobia about, without allowing anything bad to happen to them.

It's hard to get people to do flooding.

Systematic Desensitization:
Have the person with the phobia start with a weak example of the conditioned stimulus, then relax. Then increase the strength of the conditioned stimulus.

Operant Conditioning:

What is the relationship between responses (behaviors) and reinforcers (stimuli that come after them)?
How do we change responses through reinforcers?
Organisms learn to repeat behaviors (responses) that have positive outcomes for them, or that allow them to avoid negative outcomes.

Reinforcement: applying or removing a stimulus to make a behavior more likely.

Positive Reinforcers: Pleasant stimulus/reinforcer comes after organism's response. Response will be done more often.

Negative Reinforcers: Unpleasant stimulus/reinforcer goes away if you perform a response. Response will be done more often.

Extinction Training: A response is no longer followed by a reinforcer/stimulus. Response is done less often.

Punishment: Unpleasant stimulus/reinforcer comes after an organism's response. Response will be done less often.

Punishment must be immediate (right after response) or it won't work.

Problems with Punishment

It only stops the behavior when punishment is likely,

When punisher is nearby is only time behavior will stop

By itself it doesn't teach other, more successful behaviors

The person or animal has to learn something else to do

Being punished can make a person or animal hostile to the punisher

People may begin to dislike authority figures

Punishment can teach a person or animal to be aggressive or violent

If you're punished violently you'll learn to do the same to others

What helps punishment work?

Timing: punishment must be right after behavior is done
Intensity: use the minimum amount of punishment to stop the behavior
Consistency: punishment must always happen when behavior is done