Learning Theory Flashcards

1
Q

What is behavior?

A
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2
Q

Classical ~vs~ Opperant

A

Classical

  • Association between the two stimuli due to an involuntary (reflexive) response to the first stimulus.
  • Passive learning (good vs bad).

Opperant

  • Animals learn that the performance of a voluntary (nonreflexive) response to the situation will be followed by a reinforcing (or punishing) consequence.
  • Active learning (most animal training).
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3
Q

Classical Conditioning Baics

(aka Associative Learning)

A
  • Pavolovian Conditioning
  • The simplest mechanism whereby an organism learns about relations between stimuli.
  • Involves automatic, species typical responses.
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4
Q

Classical Conditioning

How does it work?

A
  • Food (US) = Salivation (UR)
  • Bell (NS) + Food (US) = Salivation (UR)
  • Dog learns that bell = food
  • Bell (CS) = Salivation (CR)

us: unconditioned stimulus
ur: unconditioned respone
ns: neutral stimulus
cs: conditioned stimulus
cr: conditioned response

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5
Q

Classical Conditioning

What happend with Mauka?

A
  • Did not sit at door when requested.
  • Owner yells at pup & forces to sit.
    • yelling = fear, automatic response
  • Pup learns:
    • doorway + yelling = fear
  • Doorway = Fear
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6
Q

Classical Conditioning

Other Examples

A
  • Responses to treat jars.
  • Can openers.
  • Coming to the vet and getting shots.
    • vet = pain
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7
Q

What are the basics of operant, or instrumental conditioning?

A
  • Instrumental conditioning aka trial and error.
  • Particular response results in outcome.

Examples:

  • jumping for attention.
  • barking for food at table.
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8
Q

What is a skinner box?

A
  • Rats placed within the box had to learn to push a lever to get a food reward.
    • operant or instrumental conditioning.
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9
Q

What is a thorndike puzzle box?

A
  • Cat had to learn:
    • to push a lever, pull on a wire loop, lift a latch, or push aside door to escape.
  • Cats were rewarded:
    • by food, which was placed outside the box.
    • by escaping the tight confines of the box.

Operant or instrumental conditioning.

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10
Q

What are the four categories of operant conditioning?

A
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11
Q

In operant conditioning, reinforcement does what?

A

Increases behavior.

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12
Q

In operant conditioning, punishment does what?

A

Decreases behavior.

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13
Q

In operant conditioning, what is reinforcement and what does it do?

A
  • It is anything that increases the likelihood that a behavior will occur again.
  • It increases the chance that behavior will occur again.
    • positive vs negative
    • primary vs secondary
  • EX: if you call your dog and give her a treat when she comes to you.
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14
Q

In operant conditioning, what are postitive reinforcers?

A
  • Addition of something to increase probability of behavior occuring.
  • Timing
  • Must be reinforcing.
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15
Q

In operant conditioning, what are some examples of positive reinforcers?

A
  • food
  • attention
  • play
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16
Q

In operant conditioning, how do positive reinforcers work in the first days of life?

A
  • How to stay warm.
  • Where to find milk.
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17
Q

In operant conditioning, what are negative reinforcers?

A
  • removal of something aversive to increase the probability of a behavior occuring.
  • NOT the same as punishment.
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18
Q

What are some examples of negative reinforcers?

A
  • Escape from pain or restraint.
    • ear pinch
    • head halter

With the ear pinch, hold on with minimum pain. When the dog releases, he then allows the pressure to be removed.

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19
Q

What are primary reinforcers?

A
  • Naturally or biologically reinforcing.
  • Examples:
    • food
    • water
    • sex
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20
Q

What are secondary reinforcers?

A
  • Something intially meaningless paired with a primary reinforcer.
  • Examples:
    • verbal praise
    • clicker
    • can opener
21
Q

What are the two types of reinforcment schedules?

A
  1. Continuous
  2. Intermittent
22
Q

What is continuous reinforcement?

A
  • Reinforce each response.
  • Necessary for shaping.
  • Use for learning then switch to intermittent.
23
Q

What is intermittent reinforcement?

A
  • Reward after
    • certain number of responses.
    • certain length of time.
  • More resistant to extinction.
  • Extinction
    • removal of reinforcement causes behavior to cease.
    • extinction burst.
    • ex: barking at table.
24
Q

What are some examples of intermittent reinforcement?

A
  • Dog getting into trash.
  • Slot machines.
25
Q

What are the rules of reinforcement?

A
  • Must be reinforcing.
  • Must occur within 3 seconds of behavior.
  • Must be continuous initially.
  • When to switch from continuous to intermittent rate of reinforcemtn:
    • Once animal knows request
      • performs 9 out of 10 times.
26
Q

What are some things to keep in mind with reinforcement?

A
  • Intermittent
  • Keep animal interested.
  • If lose interest, find something to reward to get them back in the game.
27
Q

What is extinction?

A
  • Extinction: when no reward follows response.
    • most difficult if it has been reinforced intermittently.
  • Examples:
    • barking at table for food (operant)
    • ignore barking (no reward)
    • barking will stop (extinction), but may get worse before it gets better (extinction burst).
28
Q

What is shaping?

A
  • Set specific criteria.
    • know what you want.
  • Shaping
    • continuously reinforce gradually more challenging behavior.
    • can’t expect to learn complex behavior right away.
    • intermittent reinforcement to maintain.
29
Q

What is punishement?

A
  • Decrease behavior.
  • Types of punishment:
    • Positive
    • Negative

Example: you call your dog and then yell at her and give her a leash correction because she took too long.

30
Q

What is positive punishment?

A
  • The addition of something aversive.
  • Examples:
    • interactive
    • remote

Example: dog raids the garbage can. You hit her with the newspaper while she is doing it. (NOT RECOMMENDED)

31
Q

What is interactive (+) punishment?

A
  • Direct yelling from person.
  • Examples:
    • yelling
    • hitting
    • choke chians
32
Q

Is interactive (+) punishment recommened?

A
  • Rarely recommended.
  • Can produce fear.
  • Can produce aggression.
33
Q

What is remote (+) punishment?

A
  • Person not directly associated with punishment.
  • Examples:
    • bark activated citronella collar.
    • sticky tape.
34
Q

What is negative punishment?

A
  • Removal of something rewarding.
  • Examples:
    • time out
    • walk away
    • turn back
    • leave park
35
Q

How is negative punishment used?

A
  • Timing is important.
  • Use bridge stimulus if >3 seconds.
    • intermediate marker to bridge time until primary punisher.
  • Low frequency sound.

Always pick a neutral area that the animal knows is a place they go when they are bad.

Using a kazoo is a bridge tool. Should start these efforts in the home.

36
Q

Punishment DOES NOT EQUAL?

A

Negative reinforcement.

Punishment: Decreases behavior.

Negative reinforcement: by removing something aversive you increase the likelihood that the behavior will occur.

37
Q

What are the rules of reinforcement?

A
  • Must be reinforcing.
  • Must occur within 3 seconds.
  • Must be continious intitially.
38
Q

What are the rules of punishment?

A
  • Must occur EVERY time.
  • Must occur within 3 SECONDS.
  • Must be a punishment to the animal.
    • stops behavior after <3 pairings.
    • remote punishers work the best.
  • Provide opportunity to perform correct behavior!!
  • Stage misbehavior.
  • Don’t gradually increase punishment (habituation).
  • Dependent on behavior, not punisher.

Let what the behavior does tell you what the punisher must be.

Always give the animal a choice opposing the negative behavior.

Start at a level that is going to stop the behavior and not allow it to continue.

39
Q

How does good communicaiton factor in?

A
  • Need good timing.
    • reward or punish withing a few seconds.
    • if timing is off:
      • with positive reinforcement, animal just learns slower.
      • with positive punishment, animal learns you’re unpredictable and scary.
40
Q

What is habituation?

A
  • Decrease in responsiveness resulting from repeated stimulation.
  • No adverse consequences
    • stimulus
    • owner
  • Used to reduce anxiety-invoking stimuli (seperation anxiety or noise).
  • Animal subjected to stimulus with no pain or injury.
  • Young animals habituate more easily.
  • Acitve process:
    • lose if you don’t continually expose.
    • dishabituation.
41
Q

What are some techniques of habituation?

A
  • Flooding: full force stimulus without the animal being able to flee.
  • Controlled Exposure: little worried then calms back down.
  • Desensitization: stay so far below the threshold that you never see the behavior you are treating. If you see the behavior you are doing something wrong.
42
Q

What is flooding?

A

A habituation technique where:

  • Full strength exposure continuously.
  • Usually unintentional.
  • Cannot let animal escape.
  • Continue until animal relaxes.
  • Unethical as a treatment option?
  • Not suitable for extreme fears or phobias.
  • Follow-up with counterconditioning to make happy in situation instead of neutral.
43
Q

What is systematic desensitization?

A
  • Gradual exposure to a provocative stimulus to minimize a response.
  • Used to change emotional reactions.
    • replaces aversive emotional response with neutral emotional response.
44
Q

How is systematic desensitizaion used?

A
  • Identify stimulus.
  • Test stimulus.
  • Establish gradient.
    • intensity
    • distance
  • Gradually increase stimulus.
  • Do not force animal to experience stimulus.
  • Avoid full stimulus.

Change them from not wanting to see it to really wanting to see the object that makes them nervous.

Start outside of the animals threshold.

45
Q

What is counterconditioning?

A
  • Supplements desensitization.
  • Replaces aversive emotional response with postivie emotional response.
    • response is behaviorally and physiologically incompatible with another response.
    • relaxed instead of fearful.
46
Q

How do systematic desensitizaion and counterconditioning work together?

A
  • Evoke positive emotional response incompatible with the aversive state.
    • give animal something that you know makes him happy (food, petting, toy).
47
Q

Guidelines for DS/CC

A
  • Safety
  • Neutral Environment
  • Establish a gradient.
  • Short duration (3-5 minutes).
  • High frequency.
  • End on a good note!
48
Q

Conclusions to learning theory:

A
  • Communicaiton
    • Read the animals body language.
    • Make sure your body language is appropriate.
  • Learning occurs with every interaction.
    • Starts when they’re born.
    • Ends when they die.
  • All animlas can learn.
    • Don’t blame the animal.
    • Find their motivation.
    • If not learning, figure out what you are really reinforcing.
    • Use learning theory to find another way.