Introduction Flashcards
What is an event that happens to you
sight, sound, smell, taste, touch
could be internal – itch, pain, cold?
Stimulus
What is the process of acquiring new knowledge?
The persistent change in behaviour (responses) as a result of experience is a good definition?
Learning
Can’t do this in animals, small children but can measure their behaviour
What is something you do voluntary – under your control
or involuntary – e.g. breathing?
A response
Not all behaviour is learned (evolved), some is innate meaning its hard-wired at birth
Some adapt for species to deal with fixed features of the environment but what do these examples show?
Goose continues with behaviour even if egg is removed – and chooses volleyball over egg
Stickleback fish respond most to stimulus that looks least like a fish (attacking it)
What does this show?
Response to stimuli never seen before can’t result from experience
Animals show reliable responses to stimuli never seen before in the wild.
- Thus behaviour can’t be learned (is innate)
The contrast of the beak not the colour:
Tinbergen’s aim was to examine whether presence, colour and position of red patch were important to induce chicks to peck. They presented chicks with models with a red, black, blue or white patch, and a model with no patch and one with a red patch on the forehead. The model with a black patch received most pecks, followed, in decreasing order, by a model with a red, blue, white or no patch, with fewest pecks towards the model with the patch on its forehead. The preference for black surprised Tinbergen, as he expected that the red patch would receive most pecks. He concluded that the chicks responded primarily to a contrasting spot on the beak.”
Sign stimulus – elicits the response; experiments needed to find out what it is – size of ball, red underbelly of fish
Fixed action pattern: stereotyped response triggered by sign stimulus; e.g. egg-rolling
stimulus hard-wired to elicit response
(mental link established through evolution)
What is a stereotyped response triggered by sign stimulus; e.g. egg-rolling?
Fixed action pattern
What elicits the response; experiments needed to find out what it is – size of ball, red underbelly of fish?
Sign stimulus
Supernormal stimulus: stimuli more effective than naturally occurring sign stimuli; the snooker ball, model fish
conversely pairing the herring gull head with food didn’t seem to do anything; this isn’t learned behaviour
Which type of stimuli is more effective than naturally occurring sign stimuli; the snooker ball, model fish?
Supernormal stimulus
What is happening in the mind: Mental representations
mental state accompanying performance of response lead to unlearned association meaning experiencing stimulus can
automatically trigger response
experiencing stimulus is accompanied by neural activity in the brain (activation of the mental representation) in order to process stimulus, same with response
when you see the stimulus, it activates a mental representation, stimulus sets off something in your head as well as a response.
Unlearned behaviour can look stupid, certain aspects of the environment are constant for some species, but some need to learn to adapt to fit into their changing environment.
Pre-programming appropriate responses to these cues increases survival and so selected for is unlearned behaviour enough?
For most animals environments are not constant – need to adapt within their lifetimes
Learning:
as animals need to addapt in their lifetime
What is learning?
Persistent change in behaviour as a result of experience. Necessary to adapt to changes in the environment.
Do it throughout our lives
Whenever you talk about memory, something has been learned
Types of learning:
What is the reduction in response to a stimulus after repeated exposure?
Habituation
- you keep on doing it, it becomes increasingly not bothered
the problem in the environment becomes weaker and weaker, until the animal is not bothered and becomes used to it - initially the unconditioned response of annoyance to the stimulus is quite strong, but it gets weaker until nothing
a response is paired with a stimulus outcome is known as?
Operant/ Instrumental conditioning
Which type of conditioning leads to control of environment?
Operant/ Instrumental conditioning
a stimulus is paired with a stimulus outcome is known as?
Classical conditioning
Which type of conditioning leads to prediction of environment?
Classical conditioning
In theory doing classical and instrumental conditioning are distinct
S over S or R over S
In practice things can get messy as we can’t control all experience
e.g. can control what a response produces but can’t make animal perform it
Why do they put the sucrose on the lever?
to try and get cc done first as instrumental started is more difficult as they have to learn the response and what it produces
shaping a rat to press a lever – for operant conditioning to be successful you have to make sure the response is performed in the first place; here classical conditioning might be helping
Long box autoshaping for pigeons
- cc is irrational as making the response gives them less food
Key followed by grain regardless of whether bird pecks it or not
but bird pecks
pecking prevented bird from receiving all his grain
– irrational, not-goal directed; suggests classical conditioning
cannot allow addaptation in a rational way
Classical conditioning evolutionarily sensible
e.g. salivation prepares you for eating food;
this can make them appear rational; but it is
inflexible – can’t adapt to circumstances in
a rational way
When animals are adapting to their new environment, which conditioning may make it irrational and harder to adapt due to their prior predictions of the environment?
CC
Classical conditioning Can predict:
which stimuli are paired but not that animal will experience them
what animal will experience but not which stimuli are paired
both paired stimuli and experience?
if pigeon faced the wrong way, might miss the key, or the food
which stimuli are paired but not that animal will experience them
What type of training is used to establish whether conditioning is clasical or instrumental?
Omission training
Omission training
example:
Keylight S predicts food - classical
but conditioned pecking cancels/ prevents food
bird knows that if she pecks no food will come out, so she does little air pecks
Which conditioning is where the learner has control?
Operant/ Instrumental
(shaping)
