Learning and motivation Flashcards
(234 cards)
1
Q
Is behaviour defined or on a continuum?
A
On a continuum
2
Q
Why is behaviour important?
A
• Behaviour is critical for satisfying biological needs
o Feeding
o Fighting
o Sexual Behaviour
3
Q
Are behaviours often species specific?
A
Yes
4
Q
Do behaviours change with developmental and biological changes?
A
Yes
5
Q
Can behaviour run in families?
A
Yes
6
Q
How did early behaviourists see how behaviour can be measured?
A
• Scientifically measured through stimulus-response (early behaviourists)
o Focused on observable causes of behaviour
Contingencies between stimuli and responses that conditioned behaviour
• Classical conditioning
• Instrumental learning
7
Q
What is stimulus-response learning?
A
Learning creates an association between stimuli and responses, and the individual becomes predisposed to elicit the response in the presence of the stimuli
8
Q
How are habits formed?
A
Through repetition and learning
9
Q
How is behaviour strength determined?
A
determined by the strength of the habit and the strength of the underlying motivational state
10
Q
How do simple processes make complex behaviours?
A
Due to positive and negative feedback
11
Q
What are contemporary views on how behaviour should be measured? What are the benefits this approach?
A
• Goal directed behaviour measurement (contemporary views)
o Animals can anticipate and plan
o Contemporary learning theories incorporating internal variables
o Techniques for experimental analysis of behaviour and changing behaviours clinically
• Automatic/implicit behaviour can modify controlled/explicit behaviour
• Study of environmental causes of behaviour and emotions allowed for the development of techniques to modulate them
o Behavioural therapies
o Advertising technique
o Utopian ideals of sociocultural change through manipulation of environmental variables
12
Q
What is classical conditioning?
A
- Whenever neutral stimuli are associated with psychologically significant events
- The procedure in which an initially neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus, or CS) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (or US). The result is that the conditioned stimulus begins to elicit a conditioned response (CR).
13
Q
What is instrumental learning?
A
• When a behaviour is associated with the occurrence of a significant event
14
Q
What is the law of effect?
A
When a behaviour has a positive effect or consequence, it is likely to b repeated in the future. When a behaviour has a negative consequence, it is less likely to be repeated in the future.
15
Q
What is the difference between classical and instrumental learning?
A
Classical learning
- Passive and involuntary behaviour
- Associates stimulus with a significant event
- Response is elicited
Instrumental learning
- Active and voluntary behaviour
- Associates a behaviour with a significant event
- Response is emitted
16
Q
What does CS mean?
A
• CS- Conditioned stimulus
o Signal that has no importance to the organism until it is paired with something that does have importance
17
Q
What does US mean?
A
• US-Unconditioned stimulus
o The stimulus that elicits the response before conditioning occurs
18
Q
What does CR mean?
A
• CR-Conditioned response
o The response that is elicited by the conditioned stimulus after classical conditioning has taken place
19
Q
What does UR mean?
A
• UR-Unconditioned response
o An innate response that is elicited by a stimulus before (or in the absence of) conditioning
20
Q
What does Sd mean?
A
Discriminative stimulus
21
Q
What does operant mean?
A
behaviour that is controlled by its consequences
22
Q
What does Rf mean?
A
Reinforcing stimulus
23
Q
What is a reinforcer?
A
Any consequence of a behaviour that strengthens the behaviour or increases the likelihood that it will be performed again
24
Q
What is a punisher?
A
- A stimulus that decreases the strength of an operant behaviour when it is made a consequence of the behaviour
25
What are different types of reinforcement?
o Positive- add appetitive stimulus following correct behaviour (giving a treat when the dog sits)
o Negative
Escape- remove noxious stimuli following correct behaviour (turning off an alarm clock by pressing the snooze button)
Active avoidance- Behavior avoids noxious stimulus (studying to avoid getting a bad grade)
26
What are different types of punishment?
o Positive- Add noxious stimuli following behaviour (spanking a child for cursing)
o Negative- Remove appetitive stimulus following behaviour (telling the child to go to his room for cursing)
27
What is blocking in classical conditioning?
The finding that no conditioning occurs to a stimulus if it is combined with a previously conditioned stimulus during conditioning trials. Suggests that information, surprise value, or prediction error is important in conditioning
28
What is prediction error in classical conditioning?
When the outcome of a conditioning trial is different from that which is predicted by the conditioned stimuli that are present on the trial. Prediction error is necessary to create Pavlovian conditioning. As learning occurs over repeated conditioning trials, the conditioned stimulus increasingly predicts the unconditioned stimulus, and prediction error declines. Conditioning works to correct or reduce prediction error
29
What is preparedness in classical conditioning?
The idea that an organism’s evolutionary history can make it easy to learn a particular association.
30
When is classical conditioning the strongest?
o The CS and US are intense or salient
o If CS and US are relatively new the organism and hasn’t been frequently exposed to them before.
o If the organism’s biology has prepared it to associate a particular CS and US
31
What is the tripartite contingency in instrumental learning?
o Antecedent: The stimulus controlling behaviour;
The Discriminative stimuli (Sd)
o Behaviour: The response being reinforced
The operant- the precise aspect of the response that determined reinforcement
o Consequence: The immediate outcome of a behaviour:
The reinforcing stimulus (Sr)
32
What is the quantitative law of effect?
A mathematical rule that states that effectiveness of a reinforcer at strengthening an operant response depends on the amount of reinforcement earned for all alternative behaviours. A reinforcer is less effective if there is a lot of reinforcement in the environment for other behaviours
33
Why are reinforcers valuable to behaviourists?
o Defined by its observed effect on behaviour and not by its subjective qualities
34
How are secondary reinforcers given value, and what are some examples of secondary reinforcement?
Pairing something with a primary reinforcer makes the neutral stimuli take on reinforcing properties
• Acquire their reinforcing properties through experience
Social reinforcement
Sensory and activity reinforcers
Tokens
• Independent of motivational state
35
What are the factors affecting the effectiveness of a reinforcer in instrumental conditioning?
- Temporal contiguity
- Contingency
- Value
36
What is the best temporal contiguity for a reinforcer to have a good effect and why?
a. Small/no interval between response and reinforcement produces stronger learning in (almost) all cases of instrumental and classical conditioning because of:
i. Memory decay
ii. Interference of other events
b. An exception to this is conditioned taste aversion conditioning
i. When a flavour is associated with a negative consequence
37
What is contingency?
Statistical probability between events
38
What contingency is needed so that the reinforcer is effective?
b. There needs to be a high contingency that the response will produce the reinforcement
39
What is shaping?
Principle of successive approximation
40
How does shaping occur?
* Reinforce behaviours that are closer and closer to a target behaviour
* Behaviour evolves through reinforcement of successive approximations of a desired response
* Gradually make the conditions of reinforcement more stringent, more precise
41
How can shaping be made effective?
be effective, behaviour shaping must adhere to the basic principles of reinforcement:
o Close temporal contiguity between R and reinforcement
o High contingency
o Avoid reinforcing the wrong behaviour- develops superstitious behaviour
42
What is response chaining and how is its employment different from animals to humans?
• Response chaining involves shaping a sequence of responses
o Behaviours in the chain are glued together by discriminative stimuli
These discriminative stimuli both reinforce the preceding behaviour as well as set the occasion for the behaviour that follows
o For animal training, start reinforcing with the last (most proximal) response and then work your way backwards to the first (most distal) response
Place training
o Most of the time does not work this way for humans
43
Are primary rewards guaranteed 100% of the time in real life? If not, what do we instead?
• In animal training and real life, primary rewards are rarely guaranteed 100% of the time
• In that case, we have:
o Secondary reinforcement
o Partial reinforcement
• Often desirable for practical reasons
• Produces slower but more persistent responding
44
What is an advantage of partial reinforcement?
Results in slower extinction
45
What are the two types of reinforcement schedules?
Ratio (responses)
--Engender true action-outcome learning
Interval (time period)
--Generate habit
46
What are the two types of ratio reinforcement schedule and what are they?
- Fixed
- --Reinforcer occurs every N responses
- Variable
- --Reinforcer occurs on average every N responses
47
What are the two types of interval reinforcement schedule and what are they?
- Fixed
- --Reinforcer available after N sec/min
- Variable
- --Reinforcer available on average after N sec/min
48
What type of behaviour does ratio reinforcement encourage?
o Rapid behaviour
Fixed:
• Post reinforcement pause, then large encouragement
Variable:
• Not as big as a post reinforcement pause
------More sensitive to reinforcer devaluation effect than interval
49
What type of behaviour does interval reinforcement encourage?
```
o Slower but more consistent response
Fixed
• Behaviour intensifies in lead up to time cut off
Variable
• Slow and steady rate of response
```
50
What is extinction in learning?
• Extinction- Decrease in the strength of a learned behaviour that occurs when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus in classical conditioning, or when the behaviour is no longer reinforced (in instrumental conditioning). The term describes both the procedure (the US or reinforcer is no longer presented) as well as the result of the procedure (the learned response declines). Behaviours that have been reduced in strength through extinction are said to be extinguished.
o It is now thought that extinction is new learning- a second competing memory is made that the US did not occur. This inhibits the original learning and reduces the response. Spontaneous recovery is the weakening of this inhibition over time
51
What is acquisition in learning?
Repeated presentations of the CS with the US result in an increase in the CR
52
What are uses of extinction in learning?
o Basis for many therapies that clinical psychologists use to eliminate maladaptive and unwanted behaviors
o Conducting extinction therapies in contexts where patients might be vulnerable to relapsing might be a good strategy for enhancing the therapy’s success
53
Is extinction permanent? If not, what are different ways in which it can fail?
```
After the passage of time (change of temporal context)
• Spontaneous recovery
With a change in context
• Renewal effect
With exposure to the US
• Reinstatement
CRS can be rapidly relearned
• Rapid reacquisition effect
```
54
What is autoshaping?
• Autoshaping-conditioning in which the conditioned response has not been reinforced by reward or punishment, but is a modified instinctive response to certain stimuli.
55
What type of learning is extinction learning?
Inhibitory
56
What experiment did Lewis and Duncan do on the Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect?
* Differently programmed slot machines (those with 100% chance of winning to 0% chance of winning) were given to participants. Halfway in the experiment, the slot machines were programmed to never give a payoff and the time taken for people to give up depending on the slot machine they had before was measured.
* The less reliably a response is reinforced, the more persistent it is during extinction
57
What is discrimination?
the extent to which a subject does not behave the same way towards other stimuli
58
What is stimulus control?
• Stimulus control- Instrumental behaviours are controlled by stimuli with which they are associated
o One behaviour per stimulus
o Behaviour is observably different in the presence vs the absence of a particular stimulus
o Stimulus control is acquired through differential Rft
59
Can a particular stimulus feature of stimulus dimension control behaviour? If so, what happens when that feature is manipulated?
• A particular stimulus feature or stimulus dimension can control behaviour
o Variations in response rate when the feature is manipulated
60
What does discrimination between stimuli mean in terms of behaviour and when is this applicable?
• Discrimination between stimuli means behaving differently towards them. This applies when:
o The stimuli are easy to tell apart
o The stimuli are confusable (the difference between them is not obvious)
61
When does instrumental behaviour become controlled by situational cues and what does discriminative stimulus do to the R-Rft association?
• Instrumental behaviour only becomes controlled by situational cues if and only if these cues signal whether the response is going to be reinforced or not
o Discriminative stimulus act to facilitate/inhibit the R-Rft association
62
What are examples of discriminative stimuli?
```
• In experiments, discriminative stimuli are usually discrete events (light, tones,etc.) but can also be:
o Contexts
Situational cues/environment
o Emotional/physiological states
o The passage of time
o The reinforcer itself
```
63
Describe the Karazinov experiment and its discriminative stimulus
* Placed rat in runway with a curtain/chamber at the end that contained food
* Placed food in chamber on odd days and no food on even days
* Measured how fast the rat ran on different days in anticipation of food
* Found that rat speed decreased on even days
* Discriminative stimulus: whether the rat had eaten or not on the previous day
64
Can the PREE be explained through discrimination? If so, how?
• The Partial Reinforcement Extinction Effect may be explained through discrimination
o How often they receive reinforcement for their efforts can affect their ability to determine whether they are in a new context in which reinforcement will never come- contextual cue
65
What is generalisation?
• Generalisation is the extent to which a subject behaves the same way towards other stimuli
66
What is the generalisation gradient?
• The generalisation gradient- The greater the difference between testing and training cues, the worse the performance becomes
o Generalisation is highest for physically similar stimuli
o Decreases as the stimuli share less and less in common
o Generalisation gradient can be across a stimulus continuum or across a collection of discrete features
67
How does generalisation occur and why could this be?
• Generalization occurs as a failure to discriminate
o Organism cannot discriminate (sensory limitation)
o Organism doesn’t discriminate (lack of stimulus control)
Finer discriminations can be learned through Rft
68
What is peak shift and what is an example of this?
• Peak shift- Displacement of the peak of the gradient away from SD in the direction opposite of SΔ (stimulus in which no reinforcement is given)
o An example of this is caricatures: easier to recognise someone’s face with exaggerated features than someone’s face without exaggeration (in which the SD is the features and the SΔ is other people’s faces)
69
Can animals learn to categorize conceptually? Use an experiment as proof and discuss the results
Watanabe experiment
• Trained pigeons to discriminate between Monet and Picasso
o It worked: generalisation gradient was there too, with works in between Monet and Picasso being responded to appropriately
• Animals can learn to discriminate between complex stimuli, even on seemingly conceptual grounds
o But they take a thousand trials to learn
However, what looks like the learning of a prototype or category might be learning about the features of that category that each member shares without having a conceptual understanding
70
What is motivation?
Motivation- why individuals initiate, choose, or persist in specific actions in specific circumstances
71
What do deprivation and satiation affect?
Activity and preferences
72
What can internal state affect?
Performance of previously learned responses
73
What is frustration and what is its effect?
o E.g. Frustration is a motivational response to the omission of an expected reward
o Frustration can produce a paradoxical reward effect
Responding seemingly strengthened by the omission of a reward
o Frustration does not result in extinction at first: organism will respond more for a short period of time (this is temporary and extinction will follow)
o Explains the PREE- regularly frustrated: learns that will get reinforcer if frustrated and hence responding is thought to be more resilient
74
What is Thorndike and Skinner's view on learning and what is the problem with that?
• Thorndike’s law of effect assumes that the reinforcer has to be satisfying at all times or learning/stimulus stamping will not occur- relies a lot on motivation
• Satisfaction results in S-R learning
• Postulates that there is no learning without the reinforcing outcome
• But what is reinforcement and what is a reinforcer?
o Reinforcement- Increase in response when paired with reinforcer
o Reinforcer- stimulus/event that causes reinforcement
• Circular logic
75
What is latent learning?
• Latent learning-no obvious behaviour to indicate to experimenter that they are learning internal change that allows behaviour to change
76
What did Tolman do and what did he find?
o Tolman’s study of latent learning
Rats were timed for how long it took them to find the end of the maze
Rats in food group always found food at the end of the maze, rats in ‘No food’ group never found food at the end of the maze.
On day 11, ‘food available’ rats suddenly started finding food at the end of the maze, and ‘Food removed’ group stopped finding food there
• So those who had no food beforehand suddenly had food, and those who had food beforehand suddenly found no food
o Results;
Rats who had no food prior to the 11 day mark demonstrated an extremely steep learning curve while those who had had food demonstrated a trial and error process error curve
Suggested that the rats learned with no reward
The learning was revealed when there was motivation to display it
• Reinforcement provides impetus to perform
Possible to learn something without direct external evidence of it
77
Describe Hull's general drive theory:
```
• Organisms suffer deprivations
• This produces needs
• Needs activate drives
• Drives active behaviour
• Behaviour is determined by learning
• Reduction of drive is reinforcing
• That is:
o There is a need for A
o All primary sources of need generate a tension, which makes the drive uncomfortable
o This energises random behaviours
o A behaviour that reduces drive will be reinforced and be associated with the situation (Sd)
If done enough, it becomes a habit
```
78
Behaviour strength=
Habitxdrive
79
Are drives only internal?
o Drives can be internal or external
80
What is the advantage of Hull's general drive theory?
o Animals learn how to reduce drive, so no need to infer specific drives for each biological need
81
What is the disadvantage of Hull's general drive theory?
o Not general- motivational states select specific sets of behaviours rather than energizing everything blindly
o Doesn’t explain how preferences form for qualitative differences in rewards
E.g. preferences in taste in something that is equally nutritious to the other
o Drive frustration can still be reinforcing
Some people do thing to arouse their drive, knowing that it will not be satisfied
o Reinforcement is not necessary for learning to occur (latent learning)
o It doesn’t explain goal-motivated behaviour
o Lots of things that seem reinforcing don’t have biological needs
82
What is Premack's view on reinforcement?
• Reinforcement involves behaviour of its own
• Reinforcement= increasing access to preferred behaviours
o Given sufficient freedom, you can determine what an organism prefers to do depending how much time each organism spends on that activity
• Reinforcement depends on the current preference of the individual (reinforcement is dynamic)
83
What is Premack's principle?
• Premack’s principle/relativity theory of reinforcement: the more probable behaviours will reinforce less probable behaviours
84
Describe the Domjan experiment
o Two experimental groups: one he gave unlimited water to and another limited water and made them run
o The one with unlimited water: running reinforces drinking
o The one with limited water: drinking reinforces running
85
What is the reinforcer devaluation effect?
The finding that an animal will stop performing an instrumental response that once led to a reinforcer if the reinforcer is separately made aversive or undesirable (through pairing O1 with aversive outcome, or through satiation using only O1)
86
Describe an example of the reinforcer devaluation effect (steps to make this happen), and what can be an exception to it
o Rat is first trained to perform two instrumental actions (a lever on the left and a lever on the right) each paired with a different reinforcer (sweet sucrose solution and a food pellet)
o At the end of this training, rat tends to press both levers, alternating between the sucrose solution and the food pellet
o In a second phase, one of the reinforces (the sucrose) is then separately paired with illness (classical conditioning)
o This conditions a taste aversion to the sucrose
o In a final test, the rat is returned to the skinner box and allowed to press either lever freely
o No reinforcers are presented during this test, so behaviour during testing can only result from the rat’s memory of what it has learned earlier
o The rat chooses not to perform the response that once produced the reinforcer that it now has an aversion to
o The behavior is said to be goal-directed because it is influenced by the current value of its associated goal
o However, if a rat perform the instrumental actions frequently and repeatedly over a large amount of time, the action can become a habit
o After all the practise, the instrumental response is no longer sensitive to reinforcer devaluation
87
What is a habit?
o Habit- instrumental behaviour that occurs automatically in the presence of a stimulus and is no longer influenced by the animal’s knowledge of the value of the reinforcer. Insensitive to the reinforcer devaluation effect
88
Describe the S-R theory
o Insensitive to changes in motivation for the outcome
o Response occurs relatively automatically, without much mental processing of the relation between the action and the outcome and the outcome’s current value
o Habitual
89
Describe the two process theory and an experiment on this
o S-O learning
As S is associated with O, it elicits emotional state (appetitive or aversive)
• Significant in reinforcer devaluation effect
Cigarette craving in smokers (Dar)
• Flight attendants on short/long flights rate their craving
• Flight attendants had high craving when plane about to land- craving when situational cues that they can start smoking again
• Even if didn’t smoke between one flight and the next, craving rating were as low on the plane as if they had smoked beforehand
90
Describe S(R-O) learning
o S acts as an occasion setter
One stimulus enhances the response to another stimulus
Stimulus can signal that the R-O relationship is now in effect
o Goal director
o Stimuli in environment can affect motivational state
91
What were early studies of punishment like? (Thorndike and Skinner)
o Punishment not effectively able to be studied
o Thorndike punishment:
Instrumental behaviour to be learned- a wrong response lead to the supervisor saying “wrong”- not effective
o Skinner (rats)
Slap rat on paw when it did something wrong
Did not work
o But electric shock was effective as a punisher
92
Describe the Yerkes and Dodson experiment, as well as their findings
o Placed rats in middle chamber at start of each trial
o Needed to choose one of the two doors to run through- leads to the safe base, one’s floor is electrified (not pleasant)
3 levels of difficulty in discrimination (in the form of comparative door colours)
o Look how quickly animal learns to consistently run through correct door
o Found that:
Weak punishment doesn’t work
For an easy task, strong punishment is best
For intermediate and hard, an intermediate punishment is best
93
What is the Yerkes-Dodson law?
Therefore, intensity of punishment determines effectiveness, and depends on difficulty
94
What does punishment involve?
Involves delivery of an aversive stimulus
95
What are examples of punishment?
```
o Physical and emotional punishment
o Punishment with associations
o Painful/startling/intrinsically unpleasant
o Overcorrection- If get problem wrong, repeating same problem over and over and over until got it right 100 times.
o Monetary fines
o Time out
o Electric shocks…
o Buzzing noise
```
96
What does omission do to a response, what is a problem with it and how could you get around that problem?
• Omission- response decreases probability of an appetitive outcome (negative contingency)
o Problem- the expectations are quite vague (when are they expecting it?)
o Train up discrete signal to inform animal that reward is being omitted
Associate discrete stimulus with feeling of disappointment
97
What are the factors affecting punishment?
- Stimulus control
- Path dependence
- Delay
- Punishment schedule
- Contingency
- Availability of other responses
98
How does stimulus control affect punishment?
o Discriminative stimulus that informs organism that punishment is likely serves to reduce behaviour in that discriminative stimulus
Reduction of response for SD but not SΔ
99
How does path dependence affect punishment, and what is it?
o History of learning that has got to that point (strength of learning up to that point)
If a rat has a weak electric shock at first that gets stronger, whilst the second rat has strong electric shocks that get weaker, the second rat will be more effectively punished
Starting with a strong punisher and getting weaker is more effective because of:
• Resistance/ habituation
o Most evident in punishment, but can be used for reinforcement
100
How does delay affect punishment?
o Shorter delay is better than longer
| o Temporal contiguity
101
How does the punishment schedule affect effectiveness of punishment?
o Continuous punishment is more effective than partial punishment
102
How does contingency affect the effectiveness of punishment?
• Contingency is critical between response and punishment
103
How does the availability of other responses affect punishment?
o If alternative ways of behaving, then can more effectively get rid of a response
104
Describe the Herman and Azrin study
Gave smokers cigarettes for reinforcement but punish how they get to that cigarette in the first place
• Inmates have to push a button to get cigarette- button releases loud, irritating noise
• If give other form of action that leads to cigarette, then the extent to which they’ll perform the punished response, the punished response will go to 0.
105
Describe the Thompson experiment
Mild punishment of compulsive behaviour (punishment (mild restraint) stops self-harm behaviours)
In the 1st run, punish response but don’t give him anything else to do
In the 2nd run, punish response but give him something else to play with during their free time
2nd run resulted in better punishment- maximum reduction of behaviour
106
How does punishment interact with reinforcement?
• If working with punishment, you are working against reinforcement
• Punishment of a reinforced response
o Trade-off between reward and aversive outcome
o Reduce instrumental response to some degree
• But punishment can increase a reinforced response (could be to do with motivational states)
107
How does punishment affect interval and ratio schedules differently?
o Ratio schedules- longer pauses between behaviour
More punishment it’s receiving, the longer the pause
Until it gets its reward, will respond like crazy, and then finally take a pause
o Interval schedules- drop in overall rate of responding
Slower, more gradual change
108
Can the way punishment is delivered reinforce behaviour? What is an experiment on this?
o Way punishment is delivered can reinforce behaviour
o Brown experiment:
Light comes on when electric shock will be delivered in one room- rat learns this and runs to another room when the light is on
Then experimenters electrified the corridor and removed initial electric shock (now being punished for running away)
• 1st group: whole corridor is electrified
• 2nd group: part of corridor is electrified
• 3rd group: corridor not electrified
2 groups that are given electric shocks are the two groups that consistently run through corridor- groups that are punished for running away are running away
3rd group: stops running
109
How can the effects of punishment be/not be explained?
• The negative law of effect
o Thorndike abandoned idea
• Premack principle still applicable:
o If trying to discourage preferred behaviour, can discourage organism from doing that by pairing with a less-preferred behaviour
• Conditioned emotional response
o Fear conditioning
Suppression through fear conditioning
Strong effect on strong instrumental responses
o Punishment involves strong emotional reactions
• Avoidance learning
o Learning of a incompatible (competing) response
o Unpleasant event avoided by performing alternative response
110
What are the side effects of punishment?
```
• Neurotic symptoms
• Aggression
o Elicited by pain, frustration
o Modelling of behaviour
• Fear/anxiety
o Shock elicits fear
o Fear conditioning not specific to the undesirable response
Fear of caning in school = fear of school
o Generalization of fear
```
111
What is an experimental example of fear generalization?
Little Albert (J.B. Watson)
Watson and Rayner (1920) set out to test generalisation of learned fear in an infant “Albert B”
Albert had a normal response to animals such as rabbits, dogs, rats…
• Was not scared
• These responses were measured as a baseline
Over the next bit, they put a rat in front of little Albert and repeatedly stood behind little Albert and scared him with a loud clang
After a while, he learned to associate the rat with fear
Although these were never put in front of him, he also became scared of the dogs and rabbits, as well as fur coats
His fear transferred to other furry things
• US- Loud clanging noise
• UR- Fear/shock
• CS- white rat
• CR-Fear elicited by the rat
112
What are alternatives to punishment to decrease a behaviour?
```
• Extinction
o Undesirable behaviour= no reward
• Differential reinforcement of other behaviours:
o Undesirable behaviour= nothing
o Other behaviour= reward
```
113
What are the features of effective punishment?
* Immediate
* Consistent
* Contingent on undesirable response
* Delivered under variety of conditions
* Sufficiently aversive from the outset but
* Not too severe
* Delivered in the presence of alternative responses
* In case of humans, accompanied by a rational explanation
114
When involving negative reinforcement, what two types of response are there in the lab?
- Escape
| - Avoidance
115
What does the escape response involve, and when does it occur?
Response- escapes present shock
| Occurs early in training
116
What does the avoidance response involve, and when does it occur?
Response- avoids future shock
Aversive event no longer experienced by animal
Occurs later in training
Signaled (or discriminated avoidance)
117
How does a shuttle box work?
o Warning cue in one chamber, when signal comes on the animal needs to jump over hurdle to other chamber
118
What is the problem of avoidance patterns for behaviourists?
• Avoidance involves something not happening
o No response= shock, whilst response= nothing
Problem for behaviourists (skinerian psychology)
119
What needs to be learnt in avoidance learning?
- Need to learn about absent events
| - Latent learning to be considered
120
What is the two process theory of avoidance and what does it assume?
• Two process theory:
o Classical conditioning: Warning signal (CS) paired with shock (US) CS elicits fear
o Instrumental conditioning: Avoidance behaviour (R) leads to reduction of fear (Rft)
o Two process theory assumes avoidance behaviour is motivated and maintained by fear
Classical (fear) conditioning must come first
Treats avoidance as escape from a tangible event and disregards the shock itself
121
Describe Kamin's experiment on avoidance
• 4 groups:
o Both avoidance and classical trained up instrumental response
o Avoidance group given avoidable shock in another chamber
o Classical group are not given chance to avoid (nothing can do about it) in different chamber
o Put warning signal in instrumental chamber and put rats in there
Classical conditioning- amount of fear increases with increasing trials
Avoidance- amount of fear increases then decreases with increasing trials- after 27 trials, only experience mild fear but still run away
o Not a tight relationship
122
What is an example of maintenance of avoidance (in general)
```
o Buzzer (CS) paired with shock (US)
o Buzzer elicits fear (CR)
o Avoidance (R) reduces fear
o Shock no longer experienced
o Extinction of buzzer-shock
o Buzzer no longer elicits fear
o Buzzer no longer triggers avoidance
o Avoidance response diminishes
o And it goes back around
o Therefore needs to occasionally get shocked in order to reinforce that association
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Can all responses be easily trained as avoidance responses? Which ones are the easiest ones to train?
• Not all responses can be easily trained as avoidance responses
o Easier to train rodent to run than to stand to avoid shock
• Natural fear responses (species-specific defence reactions) are easier to condition
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What is the safety from the aversive outcome signalled by?
o Offset of the warning signal
o Stimuli associated with escape (e.g. doorway)
o The avoidance response itself and the appropriate feedback from that action
125
What do safety signals do?
o Improve acquisition of avoidance
o Maintain avoidance in the absence of overt fear
o Protect warning signals from extinction
Prevent extinction of conditioned fear
o Conditioned inhibition of fear
Safety signals come to inhibit fear (learn that warning cue IN COMBINATION of the safety signal is nothing to be afraid of)
o Negative occasion setting
Safety signal inhibits association between warning signal and shock
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Is direct exposure to aversive outcome necessary for the development of avoidance? What are some examples? Explain
o Direct exposure to aversive outcome is not necessary for the development of avoidance
o Observational learning in monkeys
o Development of phobias
o Perceived threat is sufficient
Perception of threat is important, not whether or not you’ve experienced something nasty involving it
o Emotional state (fear/anxiety) is the critical outcome
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What is superstitious avoidance and why is it a problem?
o Superstitious avoidance
o Many people have ritual objects to ward off unpleasant events (reduce fears)
o Triggered by negative thoughts, which elicit unpleasant reaction: performing ritual inhibits fear (ritual is safety signal)
o Vigilant performance of ritual makes it harder to extinguish
Less opportunity to observe the real consequence of the eliciting stimulus
Ritual protects stimulus from extinction
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What is cognitive behavioural therapy useful for?
-Useful for PTSD and phobias (but terrible record for relapse)
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How does cognitive behavioural therapy work (treatment of avoidance)?
o Extinguish CS-fear association
o Problem- the individual avoids the CS
o Solution- Must enforce exposure to the CS
Flooding
• Throw subject into situation
• Either fast extinction or make it worse
Systematic desensitization
• More progressive extinction
o Treatment- Prevention of avoidance response
o CBT addresses both maladaptive behaviours and maladaptive faults (change their beliefs about situations.
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What are problems with treatment of avoidance?
o Problems with treatment of avoidance
o Rate of relapse is a problem
o Problems with exposure therapy:
Exposure in the context of therapy obviously different
o Pavlovian conditioning (inhibition of fear)
Therapist acts as safety signal
Original association with fear is protected
Different context
131
What is contiguity?
• Contiguity-if 2 (or more) sensations are felt at the same time
o Strength of conditioned response depends on the ISI
Smallest the ISI, the bigger the strength of the response
132
What were Seligman and Maier's discovery that prompted them to do the tripartite design experiment?
• Reason study occurred:
o Had shuttle box studies and classical conditioning studies with dogs that did both studies – thought what would happen in one wouldn’t affect the other
o When did shuttle box experiment first, got nice avoidance learning, and when put into Pavlovian studies afterwards, got nice results as well.
o When Pavlovian studies first, got nice results but when tried to acquire avoidance behaviours, the dogs would not learn these things.
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What was Seligman and Maier's tripartite study?
o Put dogs in a room with harness
o 1/3 of the dogs- nothing happened to (control)
o 1/3- when came into the room, were harnessed and received nasty shock-learned that if pushed the metal plate with their nose in front of them, they could turn the shock off
o 1/3- also received electric shocks and had the metal plate in front of them, but when they pressed on metal plate, nothing happened
o This is tripartite design
Normal control- did not receive any aversive experience
Escape group received an aversive experience but learned how to turn it off
Yoked control-had same experience as escape group but did not control anything (escape group dogs controlled it for them)
o After this, put in shuttle box experiment (warning signal-floor electrified-need to escape)
Escape and normal control learn how to get away faster than yoked control and did not learn any avoidance behaviours
Not just experience with aversive experience- your control over it will affect your learning
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What was the tripartite design component of the Seligman and Maier study?
o Escape and yoked control matched exactly on exposure to stressor
o Only difference was controllability of stressor
o Compare against normal non-stressed controls to determine if effect is positive or negative
135
What are the long term effects of uncontrollable stressors?
o Cognitive impairments
No longer learn about successful use of behaviour to change outcomes
Transituational impairments- failure in one task can generate failure to learn in another task
• Persist for a long time
o Motivational impairments
Failure in one task leads animals and people to stop any responding in later tasks
• Become apathetic
o Emotional impairment
Development of a depressive like state- eating, sleeping, activity, sociality…. Compromised
• Transference of what they’re learning to other tasks (animals and people)
• Exposure to long term stressor produces motivational and emotional impairments (like depression)
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When does conditioning happen based on contingency?
o Conditioning occurs when the S reliably predicts or signals the O
If this link is reduced, you get less conditioning
o The O is contingent on the S
O occurs if and only if the S occurs first
o Learning about the causal, structural and predictive relations between events and stimuli (and responses and outcomes for instrumental learning)
• For learning, we need both contiguity (events occur at similar times) and contingency (one event (the S or the R) is a reliable signal or is a cause for the other event (the O))
137
What two pieces of information do you need to determine contingency?
o Probability that Y will occur after X, p(Y/X)
| o Probability that Y will occur in the absence of X, p(Y/noX)
138
What is the formula for contingency?
o ΔP= p(y/X)-p(Y/noX)
139
When do people report a subjective feeling of control?
• People report a subjective feeling of control if:
o Positive relation between response R and consequence C (R can induce C)
ΔP= p(C/R)-p(C/noR) >0
o Negative relation between response R and consequence C (R can inhibit C)
ΔP= p(C/R)-p(C/noR) <0
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What is the formula for learned helplessness?
o No relation between R and C
| ΔP= p(C/R)-p(C/noR) = 0
141
What is learned helplessness?
* Learned helplessness- experience with non-contingency interferes with learning about contingencies
* A perceived or real absence of control over outcomes in a situation
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What are features of the learned helplessness effect?
o Transituationality
It transfers from one domain to another (one task to another)
• Will show reduction in ability after a hard task
o Innoculation
Prior experience with control reduces the impact of loss of control
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What are the different dimensions of how you look at events?
```
Internal vs external
• Were you or others to blame?
Global vs specific
• Does it happen everywhere or just here?
Permanent vs temporary
• Does it always happen or just now?
```
144
Do pleasant events ensure happiness? According to whom?
• Seligman, Teasdale, Abramson and attributional style
| o It’s not whether you have a life of pleasant events, it’s how you attribute the cause and stability of those events
145
Describe the difference between optimistic success/failure and negative success/failure
o The 3 dimensions above determine if you’re optimistic or pessimistic
Optimistic success: succeed because of:
• Internal factors
• Global timescale
• Permanent success
Optimistic failure: failed because of:
• External factors
• Specific factors
• Temporary factors
Pessimistic failure and success opposite
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What can learned helplessness be linked to and why/why not?
• Attempt to link LH with depression
o Similar behavioural, motivational and emotional characteristics
o Similar neurochemistry- can be prevented and cured by anti-depressants
o But not sole root of depression- not requirement for depression
147
What is hopelessness depression and what information is needed to determine it?
• Hopelessness depression- when going through temporary loss
o Is negative event important and stable?
o Are consequences important and stable?
o Does it affect self-esteem?
148
What is the concept of depressive realism and an experiment that accompanies it?
o Depressed peopled detect contingencies more accurately than non-depressed people
o Depressed people have better idea of true structure of the world than non-depressed people
o Experiment Sharot
Video game where you have to shoot a truck, but are told the truck has mines on it: if it explodes it’s either because you shot it or the mines blew it up
Play with probabilities to see what people considered they controlled
Optimistic people overinflate their control amount
People who have no clinical signs of depression tend to overinflate their state of control
Those who are moderately depressed are the ones that give the most accurate ratings
Therefore, moderately depressed people are more accurate in predicting the likelihood that positive and negative events will occur compared to people who are not depressed
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What is an optimism bias? What is an experiment that explains it?
• Optimism bias-
o Overestimation of the likelihood of positive events, and underestimation of the likelihood of negative events
o Healthy people over-estimate the likelihood that positive events will occur to them
o Sharot:
Ask people to get diary and fill out and write down number of positive/negative/neutral events that happened to them
People tend to overestimate the number of positive events that will happen to them
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What are two ways to measure an optimism bias and what are the usual results?
o Direct measure:
Most people think good things will happen to them more than the typical person (personal bias)
o Indirect measure:
Subjectively, people think they experience more positive events when objectively they don’t
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What is optimism bias moderated by and what is the result of this (support with an experiment)
The sense of control over the event
o The more control you think you have over the event, the more/less likely that you think that event will occur
o Optimism bias encourages risky behaviours (such as driving risky)
o Experiment Weinstein:
Optimism bias predicts whether or not person is going to engage in a risky behaviour (such as smoking)
• They believe they can give up whenever they want to and they have better judgment then their peers – surprise when they lose control of their behaviour
• Minimize size of risk
• Resist the idea that the risks are personally relevant
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What experiment did Atkinson and Litwin do on expected utility of success?
* People throw ring and choose how far away they are
| * 3 m was commonly chosen as it is a tradeoff between reward of achieving it vs probability of achieving it
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Why do people choose moderately difficult tasks?
o People have an idea of self-efficacy
Tend to avoid simple task because there is no payout
Tend to avoid difficult things because there is low probability of success
• The harder the task, the better the achievement
o But people go for moderately difficult because they know they can get something back from it
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Expected utility of an action-
value of goal*probability of obtaining goal
155
Utility of success (Us)
1-Probability of success (Ps)
156
What does the expected utility of an action depend on?
• The expected utility of an action depends on how likely it is that the action will succeed:
157
Expected utility of success=
o EU= Us* Ps
| o EU= (1-Ps)*Ps
158
Deci proposed that the energy that drives a behaviour is:
o Awareness of potential satisfaction activates behaviours designed to lead to the goal
o Awareness that goals can be obtained
159
What are the two types of rewards?
```
o Extrinsic (satisfying an expectation) or
o Intrinsic (feeling of competence) and/or affective (happiness)
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160
What do you need to change the behaviour of an individual to do a specific goal? How does this impact risk taking behaviours?
o Learn that the goal is valuable
o Learn the behaviour that leads to the goal
o Learn that they are capable of successfully obtaining that goal with this behaviour
• Importance for risk behaviours as well:
o Some do the risky activity because they believe they can avoid the negative consequences
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What is an experiment which demonstrated the Dunning-Kruger effect and what was it inspired by?
Experiment: (inspired by robber Macarthur Wheeler who put lemon juice on his face and thought he was invisible)
• Got people to engange in a SAT test and put them in quantiles
• People who did better underestimated their performance, whilst people who did extremely badly thought they did extremely well
• Failure to acknowledge and perceive amount of skill realistically motivates engaging in activities (and feeling as if you’re doing them well) that you have no knowledge in
o People who know little about something think they know loads: as their experience grows, they start to realise how little they know.
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What is extrinsic motivation and how is it used by behavioural psychologists and economists to explain behaviour? What picture does it paint of human society?
• Behaviour driven by external rewards:
o Tangible:
Money
o Psychological
Fame, praise, stats
• Extrinsic reinforcement and incentives are mainly used by behavioural psychologists and economists to explain motivated behaviour:
o Behaviour psychologists: behaviour has been learned/ selected for from past rewards
o Economists: Behaviour is rational to obtain rewards
• Extrinsic motivation refers to doing something because it leads to a separable outcome
• Only way to make humans do something is through bribery due to our greed: our other state is sloth and hence through the denial of what humans want behaviour can be coerced from them, which can be ensured through constant surveillance
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What is intrinsic motivation and when is it shown in daily life?
• A lot of human behaviour, especially high performance, is done without clear extrinsic rewards
o Labour required to gain expertise (playing an instrument…)
o Some behaviours have a high risk of danger or injury (soldiers with poor pay…)
• Intrinsic motivation refers to doing something because it is inherently interesting or enjoyable of challenging
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Describe the lepper and greene experiment (with art and children) and what it found?
• Tested the overjustification hypothesis- the proposition that a person’s intrinsic interest in an activity may be decreased by inducing him to engage in that activity as an explicit means to some extrinsic goal
• Children exposed to 3 conditions:
o Expected award condition- subjects agreed to engage in the target activity to obtain an extrinsic reward
o Unexpected award condition- subjects had no knowledge of the reward until after they had finished with the activity
o No award condition – neither expected nor received the reward
• Subjects in the expected-award condition showed less subsequent intrinsic interest in the target activity than subjects in either of the other two conditions
• Early explanation of the reduction of intrinsic motivation by external rewards
o Individuals justify their behaviour by referring to extrinsic rewards
o If these rewards are no longer available, there’s no longer a justification for behaviour
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What is self-determination theory and who was it developed by?
* Developed by Deci and Ryan
* Theory of motivation-defines role of intrinsic and types of extrinsic motivation in cognitive and social development and in individual differences
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What are factors of self determination theory?
• Factors of SDT motivation:
o Competence
Seek to control the outcome and experience mastery
o Relatedness
Is the universal want to interact, be connected to, and experience caring for others
o Autonomy
The universal urge to be causal agents of one’s own life
People like to achieve things under their own power- more likely to be engaged in a task if doing it under own volition
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How is intrinsic motivation linked to the self-determination theory?
o Feedback acts to signal increased competence
o Signals for autonomy must be available for people to see that their behaviour is self-determined
o Aversion to being controlled
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Describe the two facets of task dependent reward and its effect on intrinsic motivation
Performance independent:
• Reward for doing task, regardless of quality
Task completion dependent:
• Reward for finishing task, regardless of quality
• Task dependent reward reduces intrinsic
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Describe performance-dependent reward/quality-dependent reinforcement, its effect on intrinsic motivation and why it increases intrinsic motivation
Rewarded when performance exceeds some meaningful standard
Increase intrinsic motivation because:
• Reduces the aversiveness of effort
• Signals increased competence/achievement
• Increase perceived self-determination
• Reinforcement for minimal effort may convey task triviality
• Conversely, reward procedures requiring high performance convey a task’s importance, its personal or social significance
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Describe Eisenberg and Cameron's experiment and what it describes
• Asked adults to solve problem games such as making words out of letter strings
• One group- given reward every time they made a word
• Other group- given reward every time they made 5 words
o Criteria increased every time as they got better and better
• Found that the ones who got rewards every time for just doing the task chose not to do further problem solving while it was the opposite for the quality group
171
Describe Brummelman et.al's experiment on praise
• Brummelman et.al.
o Praise the process, not the child
When praise child, praise something inflexible and internal
Process- not internal, changeable
If they fail at the task, child will think it is their failing and won’t engage in trying to do better if praised child
If they fail at the task with process praise, will try at the task in a different way and won’t think it is something internal
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Describe Blackwell et.al's experiment on belief and what is shows
• Teaching a belief in change increases intrinsic motivation and promotes change
o Blackwell et.al
Went to school to see if children believed intelligence was innate/unchangeable or could change
Children who thought intelligence could be acquired were the ones who were more academically successful in their high school
Children who thought intelligence could be unchanged were the ones who stagnated in their education
Those with intervention to change their views also improved after the intervention to show them that they could improve
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Describe Reuben's experiment and what it shows/
• Beliefs in competency feed back onto praise and opportunity
o Stereotypes damage beliefs in some competency
o Reuben-
Gave adding task to do
Performance men vs women no difference in performance
Split them up again boys vs girls and some were job seekers and some were employers
Told that they were doing accounting field with heavily mathematical basis
Found that:
• Females less likely to be hired when they were given no information about their past ability on the addition task (regardless of their performance)
• When interview panel were given information on how well they did, still a bias against women
• Women were just as biased against women as men were
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What is behaviour influenced by?
• Our behaviour is influenced by present circumstances and shaped by past experiences
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Why does behaviour need to be analysed?
• The problem then is to analyse behaviour to try to assess what are the factors that are driving it, and then use these to improve a person’s situation
176
What are the basic assumptions in behaviour analysis?
o Behaviour follows regular patterns
o If the laws of behaviour are known, behaviour can be controlled
o The capacity to control behaviour is desirable
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What is done in behavioural management?
• Behavioural management- identify triggers and try to modify them
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What are the problems of behavioural control? What are 3 examples of ethical dilemmas?
o There are serious moral issues with designing systems to modify people’s behaviour- and people resent it
o This is despite the fact that our behaviour is already extremely controlled
Societal norms and morals, government etc.
o Three examples of ethical dilemmas:
Classroom management vs education
Institutional care- no consent for behaviour correction
Mass marketing and easy credit: mass reinforcement of impulsivity and greed
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How can we circumvent problems of behavioural control and what does it involve?
• One way to avoid problems of feeling of control or coercion is the behavioural contract
o Parties agree on what behaviours are to be changed and the conditions under which the consequences will be applied
o Allow the subject to determine the nature of the contract and see the benefit from it. Also becomes implicit in its use
o Usually most effective if reciprocal in nature
o Very effective for changing behaviours in a family setting or with relationship problems
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What is a criticism of behavioural therapies?
• One popular criticism of behavioural therapies is that they don’t treat the underlying cause of the behaviour
o A view that a focus on behaviour is merely fixing a symptom of the problem rather than the root cause of the problem
181
What is relapse?
the return of the original problem with time or a change in circumstances
182
What is symptom substitution?
the development of a new behaviour derived from the original cause
183
What is an example of psychoanalysis, what is it driven by and is it a useful method?
o Driven by a desire to know the person rather than treat a specific problem
o Unfortunately, no evidence that psychanalysis has any therapeutic efficacy
o Goldiamond: Scheherazade effect-the possible tactics used to appeal to a man’s conversational skills in order to keep them around
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Why is behaviour sometimes hard/long to change?
o In most cases though, there is not a clearly identifiable traumatic cause
o Usually a long slow process whereby behaviours, emotions and beliefs have been conditioned and selected by subtle but stable processes across the lifespan
o Recovery is similarly a long slow effortful process
Reconditioning, formation of new habitual ways of behaving and thinking
185
What are the main ways to increase desired behaviours?
```
• Reinforcement (+/-)
• Shaping
o If behaviour not done in the first place
• Prompting
• Modelling
• Conditioning
• Etc.
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What are premackian reinforcers and why are they useful?
o Premackian reinforcers-
That some behaviours are reinforcing if they are highly likely to be performed in a situation
Access to these activities can be used as reinforcers:
• Cheap and intrinsic
Allows insight into what events might be reinforcing for people who find usual reinforcers uninteresting
187
Why are tokens useful in reinforcement?
* Do not interfere with behaviour
* Not subject to satiety
* Can be given immediately
* Universal reinforcers can cater to individual tastes
* Portable
* Can be indicator of progress and change- important aspect to make something intrinsic
188
Describe the Ann case study
o Ann case study- Allen et.al
Ann was unsociable preschool girl who liked adult attention (positive reinforcer)
Adult attention was only given when she was with other children- become more sociable and maintained this
189
What are the main ways to decrease undesired behaviours?
* Extinction
* Punishment (+/-)
* Counter-conditioning
* Flooding
* DRO (differential reinforcement of other behaviours)
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What is differential reinforcement of other behaviours?
o Reinforce an alternative and increase frequency of alternative
o Activities counter to negative behaviour
o Replace a problematic behaviour with more functional behaviour
o Sidestep punishment but still encouraging person
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What are the main ways to maintain behavioural therapy?
• Partial reinforcement
o People tend to persist with behaviour longer
• Generalisation
• Self-reinforcement
o Teaching to reinforce yourself and come up with own management plan
• Importance of building intrinsic interest and competence
• Etc.
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What do we need when focusing on behaviours?
• When focusing on behaviour, need to determine what we want to change? What is the function of behaviour and if change that behaviour do we get the result wanted?
193
When do we need to change behaviours?
o Identified as requiring change
o Identified as contributing to ongoing functional problems
o Identified as contributing to distress
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Why is measurement essential when changing behaviour?
• Some quantifiable aspect of behaviour is determined
o Measurement is essential
Gives us marker about how severe a problem might be (especially if have normative data in situation)
Track to see where changes occur (see if intervention is doing something)
o Ensure that what is measured represents what needs to be changed to improve a situation
o Track whether change occurs
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What are the steps and their description of the empirical assessment needed when changing behaviour?
• In practice, we can never be sure that the theory is right so any strategy of behavioural change requires empirical assessment
o Observation and data collection
What are the triggers driving the behaviour
o Interpretation
Start to come up with hypothesis of what factors are
o Intervention
Based on hypothesis
o Assessment
Measure the behaviour. Does the behaviour change?
Test hypothesis
• Arrange conditions so that you know if a change in behaviour is due to the intervention
o Continuous assessment important in therapies
196
What is an advantage of focusing on behaviour?
• Advantage of focusing on behaviour is that it is easily defined and easily measured/tracked
197
What are examples of consequences that contribute to behaviour?
• Consequences contributing to behaviour
o Reinforcing or punishing events subsequent to the behaviour
o They may still be present (and thus can be modified)
o Or they may have occurred in the past (and thus need to be counter conditioned)
198
What are examples of antecedents contributing to behaviour?
o Triggers of habits
o Structure of the environment that facilitate or prevent a behaviour
o Triggers of emotional states that motivate behaviours
E.g. avoidance behaviours
E.g. appetitive motivation
o Discriminative stimuli that inform what consequence will follow a behaviour
199
How do you treat habits?
If reinforced behaviour from the past, can trigger habits which are extremely hard to change
Need to identify what triggers are and change these triggers
200
What initiates smoking?
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o Social status
o Doctors used to prescribe it
o Social facilitation
o Make them thin by reducing appetite
o Modelling
o Relaxant
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201
What maintains drug taking, converting use to abuse?
o Habit forming
Once habitual, don’t attack by goal, but attack with cues or classical conditioning to counter habit
o Withdrawal
o Reduces anxiety
202
What contribution to drug taking behaviour do classical conditioning processes play?
o Environment linked with smoking triggers craving
| Effect linked to environment
203
How can you treat insomnia?
Stimulus control- insomnia: antecedent control
• In many cases insomnia is due to a loss of stimulus control over sleeping.
o Treatments focus on restoring the association between bed and sleep (Bootzin)
First is to reduce all non-pleasurable non-sleep activity from bedroom
Second is to only go to bed when tired and to leave the bed if not sleeping. Eventually the tiredness will increase so that sleep will occur
Keep a regular sleep pattern to maintain internal cues- only try to sleep after a certain time, wake up at the same time each morning and look at light
204
What did Seligman and Maier conclude in their dog experiment?
o Concluded that:
Dogs exposed to initial inescapable shock had a motivational deficit and a cognitive/emotional deficit
Immunisation effect- dogs exposed to escapable shocks before exposure to inescapable shocks protected the animals from these deficits
Demonstrated learned helplessness
• Response has signalling attributes- escapable shock is less detrimental than inescapable shock because the response works like a Pavlovian cessation cue
205
Which rewards are the worst for intrinsic motivation?
Large reward can lead to quicker extinction : reward effects are relative- whether a reward has positive or negative effect can depend on many factors
206
What can PREE increase?
General persistence- not being reinforced sometimes on one thing can make you more persistent in other things
207
What is learned industriousness?
learned industriousness is when rewarding effort on one task can increase the persistence and effort that we spend on other tasks.
208
What is the difference between negative and positive contingency?
In a negative contingency, the US is less probably when the CS is on than when it is off
• This is the opposite of positive contingency, when the US is more probable when the CS is on than when it is off
209
What is the difference between avoidance and escape learning?
Avoidance learning- when a behaviour prevents a bad S, the behaviour increases in strength
Escape learning-when a behaviour terminates a bad S that is already present
210
Is extinction important in autoshaping?
Extinction is a crucial process in behaviour change- want to eliminate behaviours that are not reinforced.
211
Why is taste aversion learning a thing?
To allow animals to learn about slow acting poisons
212
What determines the reinforcement effect in the Premack principle?
• It is the strength of the preference that determines the reinforcement effect
213
What are problems of the Premack principle?
o Problem of how to arrange preference tests- not always easy to know how to determine preferences
o When you make a preferred behaviour contingent on another behaviour, you necessarily deny access to preferred behaviour that would ordinarily fill some time – they will instrumentally participate in another activity to fill the time
o Access even to a less-preferred behaviour can be reinforcing if its baseline level has been denied or deprived
214
What is fading?
Fading-the idea to gradually transfer stimulus control from easy stimuli to harder stimuli by presenting both together and then fading the easy stimulus out
215
What is a primary reinforcer?
Stimuli or events that reinforce because of their intrinsic properties
216
What is continuous reinforcement schedule
When a behaviour is reinforced every time it occurs
217
What plays a critical role in extinction and how does it do this?
• Context, both internal and external plays a critical role in extinction
o Context node connects with another node on the CS’ inhibitory association
o This second node activates the final inhibitory association, but only if both the CS and the right context are present
o When CS is presented in the extinction context, the inhibitory link will be activated, and the animal will not respond to the CS
o But when the CS is presented outside the extinction context, especially when presented in conditioning context, the inhibitory link will not be activated, and renewed responding will occur
218
What is exemplar theory?
Exemplar theory- animals would use generalisation of other pictures that came beforehand to estimate whether or not it should respond to new picture
219
What does the steepness of the generalisation gradient indicate?
The steepness of the generalisation gradient- the rate at which responding declines as the stimulus is changed- indicates how much the responding actually depends on a particular stimulus dimension
220
What can the shape of the generalisation gradient be affected by?
Learning
221
What is transposition?
• Transposition- suggests that the animal responds to the relationship between two stimuli rather than their absolute properties
222
What suggests that behaviour is motivation-driven?
Variability and persistence of instrumental behaviour
223
What is incentive learning?
o Incentive learning (Dickson and Ballein)- effects of motivational state on instrumental behaviour depend crucially on the animal’s knowledge of how the reinforcer actually affects the motivational state
224
Biologically, what is motivated behaviour organised by?
Motivated behaviour is organised in anticipation of-rather than in response to- need
225
Is learning essential to motivated behaviour?
o Learning is essential for motivated behaviour (e.g. eating more food in a room associated with food)
226
What is sensory specific satiety and what is a potential use of it in operant learning?
It is when an animal is tired of a substance or flavour, and is used for the reinforcer devaluation effect.
227
What are 3 things to remember during operant learning?
• Three things to remember during operant learning
o Organism associates its operant behaviour with the outcome that the operant behaviour leads to
o The organism decides what to do based on how it currently values the reinforcer associated with each action
o Value is assigned through incentive learning
For this process to take place, the animal must experience the reinforcer to know how much the animal likes it in that state
228
What is a way to avoid habit formation during training?
Habit formation can be avoided/minimised by:
• Exposure to more than one R-O relationship in the same situation, which may encourage the animal to maintain attention to its different behaviours, or, because it requires not performing one R while engaging in the other R, it maintains variation in response rate and reward rate
229
Why is punishment not always effective?
Because it can support either stimulus learning (only stopping the behaviour in a specific context- pavlovian piece which is easier and seems to dominate) or response learning (which is what you want)
230
What is conditioned suppression?
When fear suppresses a response
231
What are the factors in Mowrer's 2 factor theory?
- The Pavlovian fear conditioning/warning stimuli
| - Reinforcement of the instrumental response through fear reduction
232
What is the impact of species-specific defence reactions on avoidance learning?
o Two important SSDRs are flight (getting out of a dangerous situation) and freezing (a common behaviour in which an animal stops dead in its tracks)
o Warning signal importance differs on whether or not escape behaviour is species-specific: if it is, then warning signal not very important and its end does not necessarily reinforce behaviour
o The success of avoidance learning depends at least partly on the degree to which the response required is a natural defensive response
o There is a lot of Pavlovian learning in avoidance learning
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Why are escapable shocks less harmful than inescapable shocks?
Because the escape response signals shock cessation. This might weaken the aversiveness of shock through a process like counterconditioning;association of the shock with the positive properties of the response might make the shock less aversive.
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What are essential to produce learning when pairing a CS and a US
To get conditioning, the CS had to predict an increase in the probability of the US
