Psychology of learning ch 5

happens through trial, error, and accidental success

A Gestalt psychologist who helped developed INSIGHT LEARNING based on experiments with a chimp trying to get bananas.

(chimp tried to get banana and couldn't figure out how, sulked, then it hit him that he had to stack boxes)

-tries to disprove kohler's insight theory-used cats and a puzzle box (pull string, press peddle, throw lever)turned into consequence based learning

aka Operant Conditioning by Skinner-Coined the formal definition for Reinforcement & Punishment-Based on a Functional Perspective

Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by: -favorable consequences become strengthened, (stamped in) -behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become weaker, (stamped out)

as result of Watson's behaviorism book and Thorndike's law of effect, he came up with Consequence Based Learning-He thought if he could control all nurture (the environment) that he could predict behavior

Anything that will result in an INCREASE of behavior-is it increasing the target behavior?

Anything that will result in a DECREASE of behavior-is it decreasing the target behavior

Reinforcers that meet an organism's basic needs, such as food, water, and sex.-natural and unconditioned

Learned reinforcers, such as money, that develop their reinforcing properties because of their association with primary reinforcers. (money buys food)-conditioned

Antecedent- the discriminative stimulus (vending machine) and knowing the appropriate behavior towards that DS to receive the consequence. Behavior-the selection of a candy bar by feeding coins (a certain amount) and pressing a button.

Consequence- is the dispensing of a candy bar

...

ADDING a stimulus -was something added?

REMOVING a stimulus-was something removed?

-Mickey puts his dollar in the soda machine and gets a coke-Nathan tells a good joke and his friends all laugh-Sam studies and gets an "A"

(ESCAPE & AVOIDANCE) to escape from getting something-I put on sunscreen to AVOID a sunburn-Alana Buckles her seatbelt to ESCAPE the alarm-Drives speed limit to AVOID to get a ticket

-You fall asleep under the sun, you get a sunburn-The rat presses a lever and gets a shock-You climb on a railing of a balcony and fall

-Bobby fights with his sister and does not get to watch tv that night-You come to work late and you get suspended-Casey makes a "C" and gets her phone taken away

An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of a desired goal-clapping when does good-booing when does bad

Each step of a sequence must be learned and must lead to the next until the final action is achieved-accumulative

-Contingency-Contiguity-Magnitude-Deprivation

The probability that reward will follow this act

The time between action and reward-best if it is as short as possible

The size of the reinforcement-humans are influenced by this

The organism is deprived of reinforcement -most powerful

The removal of contingency between the target behavior and the reinforcer (removing the reinforcing nature of the problem behavior)

Behavior will appear again even stronger

"Extinction Bursts" will try behavior 20 times looking for reinforcement.-putting baby to sleep

assumes that we are motivated to act because of biological need to attain or maintain some goal that helps with survival*based on the REDUCTION of a drive state.

. getting hungry, thirsty, ect. -PROBLEMS: no framework for secondary reinforcers >Reinforcers are a special class of stimuli

Theory of reinforcement that considers reinforcers to be behaviors NOT stimuli and that attributes a reinforcer's effectiveness to its probability relative to other behaviors.-the act of eating the food is reinforcing not the mere presentation of the food-PROBLEMS: can't account for secondary reinforcers; empirical evidence has demonstrated that under some circumstances Low Probability behavior can serve to reinforce High Probability behaviors

-Returns to idea of reinforcers as behaviorsAny behavior DEPRIVED below its free-running baseline can serve as a reinforcer

1) Hull's Drive Reduction Theory2) Premack's Relative Value Theory3)Allison & Timberlake's Response Deprivation Theory

ESCAPE- removing current aversiveAVOIDANCE- evading the aversive altogether

-both classical and operant-the discriminative stimulus has become a CS eliciting fear-negative reinforcement (removing aversive to increase a behavior)PROBLEM: sometimes extinction occurs, sometimes notCONCLUSION: still around, but not widely accepted

-Only operant learning -negative reinforcement (absence of the experienced aversive is reinforcing)PROBLEM: context cues could be the CS; sometimes extinction occurs, sometimes notCONCLUSION: still debated, but more accepted