LEARNING

§ Any relatively permanent change in behavior brought about by experience or practice

Þ When people learn, some part of their brain is physically changed to record what they’ve learned
Classical Conditioning
§ Learning to elicit an involuntary, reflex-like, response to a stimulus other than the original stimulus that normally produces the response
Þ Stimulus: object, event, or experience that causes a response
Þ Response: reaction of an organism
Ivan Pavlov & the Salivating Dogs
o Built a device to measure amount of saliva produced by dogs when they were fed with a measured amount of food
o Food activates salivary glands to release saliva for chewing and digestion
Þ Reflex: unlearned, involuntary response not under personal control/choice
o Stimulus: food
o Response: salivation
o Soon discovered dogs would salivate due to other circumstances
Þ Lab assistant bringing food, clatter of food bowl, time of day when they are usually fed
Elements of Classical Conditioning:
1. Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)
o Unconditioned: “unlearned”
o Original, naturally occurring stimulus
o Ordinarily leads to involuntary response
o Pavlov’s Dogs: food
2. Unconditioned Response (UCR)
o Automatic, involuntary response to unconditioned stimulus
o Unlearned, occurs due to genetic “writing” in nervous system
o Pavlov’s Dogs: salivation
3. Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
o Conditioned: “learned”
o Almost any kind of stimulus could become associated with the UCS if it is paired often enough
Þ Neutral Stimulus (NS): no effect on UCR
o When NS begins to cause UCR due to repeated pairing
Þ Acquisition: repeated pairing of UCS and NS
o Pavlov’s Dogs: sight of food dish
4. Conditioned Response (CR)
o Response given to conditioned stimulus
Þ Learned response
o Not as strong as UCR
o Pavlov’s Dogs: salivation
Pavlov’s Canine Classic
o Paired the ticking sound of a metronome with the presentation of food
Þ To see if dogs would salivate at the sound
o Metronome started as a NS
o Pairing of UCS and NS causes organism to acquire learning
o CR and UCR: salivation
Þ Differ in strength and stimulus
Þ UCS ® UCR
Þ CS ® CR

Stimulus Generalization
o Tendency to respond to a stimulus that is similar to the original, conditioned stimulus (CS)
Stimulus Discrimination
o Occurs when an organism learns to respond to different stimuli in different ways
o Discriminate between similar stimuli
Extinction
o “Dying” out of conditioned response (CS) when conditioned stimuli (CS) is repeatedly presented with the absence of unconditioned stimuli
(UCS)
Þ Not unlearned, just replaced or lost in memory
Þ Suppressed/inhibited due to lack of association
o CS-UCS association is weakened
Þ CS no longer predicts UCS
Þ CS alone leads to new learning
o Upon acquisition, CS and CR always comes before UCS
Þ UCS serves as a strengthener/reinforcer of the CS-CR association
Spontaneous Recovery
o Conditioned response (CR) can briefly reappear when the original, conditioned stimulus (CS) returns
o Response is usually weak and short-lived
High-Order Conditioning
o Occurs when a strong, conditioned stimulus (CS) is paired with a neutral stimulus (NS)
o Strong, conditioned stimulus (CS) will play the part of an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), and neutral stimulus (NS) will become a 2nd
conditioned stimulus (CS2)

Conditioned Emotional Response

o John B. Watson: “Little Albert” experiment
Þ Classical conditioning of a phobia
Þ Phobia: irrational fear response
o Pairing presentation of the white rat with a loud noise
Þ Baby is naturally afraid of the loud noise but not of the rat
o UCS: loud noise
o UCR: fear of the noise
o CS: white rat
o CR: fear of white rat
Vicarious Conditioning
o Becoming classically conditioned by simply watching someone else respond to a stimulus
Biological Influences
o Conditioned taste aversions
Þ Laboratory rats that were given a sweetened liquid then injected with a drug or exposed to radiation that caused nausea would have
aversions to the liquid previously given
Cognitive Perspective
o Stimulus Substitution: when CS, through association with UCS, activates the same place in the animal’s brain originally activated by the UCS
o CS provides information about the coming of the UCS
o Organism consciously expects something to occur
Operant Conditioning
§ Learning that applies to voluntary behavior
Edward Thorndike
o Placed a hungry cat inside a “puzzle box” where they can only escape by pressing a lever
Þ There is a dish of food outside of the box to motivate the cat to get out
o Observed cat would move around the box, eventually would accidentally push the lever that will open the door
Þ Cat will be fed from the dish located outside the door
o Stimulus: lever
o Response: pushing the lever
o Consequence: escape and food
o Did not learn to push lever right away but after a number of trials, took less and less time to push lever
Law of Effect
o Basic principle behind learning voluntary behavior
1. If an action is followed by a pleasurable experience, it will tend to be repeated
2. If an action is followed by an unpleasant consequence, it will tend not to be repeated
B.F. Skinner
o Gave the name of Operant Conditioning to learning of voluntary behavior
Þ Voluntary Behavior: what people and animals do to operate in the world
o When people perform a voluntary behavior, it is to get something they want or to avoid something they do not want
o Operant conditioning is founded on the effect of consequences on behavior
Þ Learning is dependent on what happens after the response
Reinforcement
o Reinforcement: “to strengthen”
o Anything that, when following a response, causes that response to be more likely to happen again
o Consequence that is pleasurable to the organism
Þ Related to Law of Effect
o Depends on timing and reinforcing only the desired behavior
 Þ Timing: reinforcer should be given immediately after the desired behavior
1. Primary Reinforcers
o Fulfills a basic need
Þ Food, liquid, touch
2. Secondary Reinforcers
o Gets reinforcing properties from being associated with primary reinforcers
Þ Money, praising of a pet (after touch)
o Reinforcing power comes from classical conditioning
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING OPERANT
CONDITIONING
Creation of a new response to a Increases rate of an already
stimulus that did not normally occurring response
produce that response
Automatic, involuntary responses, Voluntary responses, emitted by
elicited by a stimulus organism
Antecedent stimuli are vital in the Consequences are vital in the
formation of an association formation of an association
CS must be immediate before UCS Reinforcement must be immediate
Expectancy for UCS after CS Expectancy for reinforcement after
a correct response
3. Positive Reinforcement
o Reinforcement of a response by the addition or experience of a pleasurable consequence
Þ Reward, pat on back
4. Negative Reinforcement
o Follows a response with the removal or escape from something unpleasant
Schedules:
1. Partial Reinforcement
o Reinforcer after some, but not all, correct responses
Þ Not all actions are rewarded
Þ Only giving a dollar at the end of the week for doing laundry, not giving it every day she does it
o More resistant to extinction than a response that received continuous reinforcement
Þ Continuous Reinforcement: reinforcer for each and every correct response
o Can be accomplished according to different patterns or schedules
Þ Interval Schedule: timing of a response is more important than the number of responses
Þ Ratio Schedule: number of responses is more important than the timing of a response
2. Fixed Interval
o Reinforcer is received after a certain, fixed interval of time has passed
o Payday
3. Variable Interval
o Reinforcer is received after an unknown interval of time
Þ Interval changes from 1 time to the next
Þ Unpredictable
o Pop quizzes, fishing
4. Fixed Ratio
o Reinforcer is received after a certain, fixed number of responses
o Starbucks sticker thing to get a planner
5. Variable Ratio
o Reinforcer is received after an unknown number of responses
Þ Number of responses changes from 1 trial to the next
Þ Unpredictable
o Causes to not take breaks
o Playing slot machines

Punishment
o Opposite of reinforcement
o Any event or stimulus, when following a response, causes that response to be less likely to happen again
o Weakens responses
REINFORCEMENT PUNISHMENT
 Strengthens a response Weakens a response
Positive Something valued/desirable Something unpleasant
(Adding) Getting a gold star for good Getting a spanking for
behavior disobeying
Negative Something unpleasant Something
(Removing) valued/desirable
Fastening a seatbelt to stop Losing privilege, like
alarm from sounding going out with friends
1. Application
o Occurs when something unpleasant is added/applied to the situation after the behavior
o Spanking, scolding
2. Removal
o Occurs when something pleasurable or desired is removed after the behavior
o “Grounding”, placing in time out
NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT BY REMOVAL
REINFORCEMENT
Stopping at a red light to avoid Losing privilege of driving
getting into an accident because of too many accidents
Mailing an income tax return by a Having to lose money to pay the
certain day to avoid paying a penalty fee for late tax filing
penalty
Obeying a parent before they reach Being “grounded” because of
the count of 3 to avoid scolding disobedience
How to Make More Effective:
1. Punishment should immediately follow the behavior it is meant to punish
Þ For it to be associated with the behavior getting punished
2. Punishment should be consistent
Þ Punishment should stay at same intensity or increase slightly, but never decrease
3. Punishment of the wrong behavior should be paired with reinforcement of the right behavior (whenever possible)
Þ Teaches desired behavior rather than suppressing the undesired one
Stimulus Control
o Discriminative Stimulus: any stimulus that provides an organism with a cue for making a certain response in order to obtain reinforcement
Þ Specific cues would lead to specific responses, and discriminating between the cues will lead to success
o Police car will lead to a discriminative stimulus to slow down
Þ Will be followed by a negative reinforcement of not getting a ticket
Shaping
o Small steps toward a goal are reinforced until the goal itself is reached
Extinction
o Involves the removal of reinforcement
Generalization
o Conditioned responses can be generalized to stimuli that are only similar to the original stimulus
o Baby calling other men “dada” but only getting reinforced by her own father
Spontaneous Recovery
o Similar concept with classical conditioning

Cognitive Learning Theory

1. Latent Learning
o Edward Tolman
o Process of learning without the use of reinforcement
o Learning only by yourself once put in that situation with nothing else
2. Insight Learning
o Wolfgang Köhler
o Learning thorough rapid “perception of relationships”
o Could not be gained through trial-and-error learning alone
o Requires a sudden “coming together” of all the elements of a problem that is not predicted by traditional animal learning studies
3. Learned Helplessness
o Martin Seligman
o Tendency to fail to act to escape from a situation because of a history of repeated failures in the past
o Depression

Observational Learning
§ Learning of new behavior through watching the actions of a model
Þ Behavior can be desirable or undesirable
Performance Distinction/Learning
o Albert Bandura
o Learning can take place without actual performance of the action
Elements
1. Attention
o To learn anything through observation, learner must pay attention to the model
2. Memory
o Learner must be able to retain the memory of what was done
3. Imitation
o Leaner must be capable of reproducing/imitating the actions of the model
4. Desire
o Learner must have the desire/motivation to perform the action
MOTIVATION
§ Process by which activities are started, directed, and continued so that physical or psychological needs or wants are met
§ What “moves” people to do things they do

Types:
1. Extrinsic Motivation
§ Person performs an action because it leads to an outcome that is separate from the person
§ Giving money every A on report card, offering a bonus to an employee for good work
2. Intrinsic Motivation
§ Person performs an action because the act itself is fun, rewarding, challenging, or satisfying in some internal manner

Instinct
§ Biologically determined and innate patterns of behavior

Approaches Based on Needs and Drives

§ Need: requirement of some material that is essential for survival of an organism
§ Drive: psychological tension and physical arousal that motivates the organism to act in order to fulfill the need
Drive-Reduction Theory
o Proposes connection between internal physiological states and outward behavior
Þ Homeostasis: tendency of body to maintain a steady state
1. Primary Drives
o Involve survival needs of the body
o If needed, body is in a state of imbalance
o Will stimulate a behavior to bring balance back
2. Secondary/Acquired Drives
o Learned through experience or conditioning
Psychological Needs
1. McClelland’s Theory
o Humans have a psychological need for friendly social interactions and relationships with others
A. Need for Affiliation (nAff)
o Seek to be liked by others and to be held in high regard by those around them
B. Need for Power (nPow)
o Want to have influence over others and make an impact on them
C. Need for Achievement (nAch)
o Strong desire to succeed in attaining goals, not only realistic ones but also challenging ones
2. Self-Theory of Motivation
o Need for achievement is closely linked to personality factors, how one view’s self
o Can affect individual’s perception of the success or failure of their actions

1. Arousal Approach
§ Stimulus Motive: one that appears to be unlearned but causes an increase in stimulation
§ People have an optimal level of tension in order to perform tasks efficiently
§ Sensation Seeker: person who needs for arousal

2. Incentive Approach
§ Incentives: things that attract or lure people into action
§ Behavior is explained in terms of external stimulus and its rewarding properties
Þ Rewarding properties exist independently of any need or level of arousal
Þ Can cause people to act only upon the incentive
3. Humanistic Approach
§ Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs
Þ Self-actualization is the point that is seldom reached; full human potential
Þ Peak Experiences: time in a person’s life in which self-actualization is achieved, temporarily
§ Self-Determination Theory
Þ 3 inborn and universal needs that help people gain a complete sense of self and whole
A. Autonomy
§ Need to be in control of own behavior and goals
B. Competence
§ Need to be able to master the challenging tasks in life
C. Relatedness
§ Need to feel a sense of belonging, intimacy, and security in relationships with others
Hunger
Physiological Components
o Hormonal Influences
Þ Insulin & Glucagon: hormones secreted by pancreas to control levels of fats, proteins, carbohydrates in the body
Þ Insulin: reduces level of glucose in bloodstream
Þ Glucagon: increases level of glucose in bloodstream
Þ Leptin: reduces appetited and increases feeling of being full
o Hypothalamus

Social Components
o Food can be used as a comforting routine, immediate escape from something unpleasant
o Insulin levels that create hunger may increase before food is eaten
Obesity
o Maladaptive eating problem
o Condition in which body weight of a person is over 20% or more over the ideal body weight for that person’s height
o Affected by heredity, hormones, overeating, quality of food being eaten, culture, metabolism

MEMORY
§ Active system that receives information from the senses, puts information into usable form, organizes as it stores it away, then retrieves the
information from storage

Processes
1. Encoding
§ “Putting it in”
§ Getting sensory information into a form the brain can use
§ Set of mental operations performed on sensory information to convert information into a form that is usable for the brain to store
§ Not limited to turning sensory information into signals for the brain
Þ Accomplished differently in each of 3 storage systems of memory
2. Storage
§ “Keeping it in”
§ Holding on to the information for some period of time
Þ Period of time will be of different lengths, depending on the system of memory being used
3. Retrieval
§ “Getting it out”
§ Getting information out of storage

Models
1. Information-Processing Model
§ Focuses on the way information is handled/processes through 3 different systems of memory
Þ Includes encoding, storage, and retrieval
Þ Also known as stages of memory
§ Assumes that the length of time that a memory will be remembered depends on the stage of memory where it is stored
2. Parallel Distributed Processing Model (PDP)
§ Views memory as a simultaneous process
Þ Creation and storage of memories takes place across a series of mental networks across the brain
§ Allows to retrieve many different aspects of memory all at once
Þ Facilitating much faster reactions and decisions
§ Related to connectionism
Þ Connectionism: use of artificial neural networks to explain mental abilities of humans
3. Levels-of-Processing Model
§ Believes that a memory’s duration depends in the depth to which the information is processed/encoded
Þ Depth: effort made to understand the meaning
§

Information-Processing Model

1. Sensory Memory
§ 1st stage of memory
§ Point at which information enters the nervous system through the sensory systems
§ Information is encoded as neural messages in the nervous system
 Þ As long as the neural messages are travelling through the system, people have a “memory” for that information that can be accessed
if needed
A. Iconic
§ Icon: image
§ Visual, sensory memory
§ Only lasts for fraction of a second
§ Helps visual system to view surrounding as continuous and stable
§ Allows enough time for the brain stem to decide if the information is important enough to be brought into consciousness
§ Capacity: everything that can be seen at 1 time
§ Masking: quickly pushing out of previously acquired information by new information
§ Eidetic Memory/Photographic Memory: ability to access visual, sensory memory over a long period of time
B. Echoic
§ Brief memory of something that was heard
§ Lasts for 2-4 seconds
§ Allows to hold on incoming auditory information long enough for the lower brain centers to determine whether or not processing by
higher brain centers is needed
§ Capacity: limited to what can be heard at any 1 moment
Þ Smaller capacity than iconic memory
2. Short-Term Memory (STM)
§ Selective Attention: ability to focus on only 1 stimulus from among all sensory input
Þ How information enters STM system
§ Only a stimulus that is “important” enough will be selected from all of the information in sensory memory to be analyzed for meaning
in STM
§ Tends to be encoded primarily in auditory form
§ Digit-Span Test: 7 items (+/- 2)
Þ Chunking: process of recording/reorganizing information
§ Lasts for 12-30 seconds without rehearsal
§ Maintenance Rehearsal: continuing to pay attention to the information to be held in memory
Þ Information will stay in STM until rehearsal stops
Working Memory
§ Relating to storage and manipulation of information
§ Active system that processes the information present in STM
§ STM can be seen as part of working memory
3 Systems:
A. Central Executive
§ Controls and coordinates the other 2 systems
§ Acts as interpreter for visual and auditory information
B. Visual
C. Auditory
3. Long-Term Memory (LTM)
§ System where all the information is placed to be kept more or less permanently
§ Rote Learning: rotating information in one’s head, saying it over and over again
§ Mental storehouse of meanings of words, concepts, events wanted to keep in mind
§ Elaborative Rehearsal: way of transferring information from STM to LTM by making that information meaningful
Types of Long-Term Information
1. Nondeclarative (Implicit)
o Skills have to be demonstrated, not reported
o Memories for things that people know how to do
o Demonstrated in performance of a task and in memory associations learned through classical or operant conditioning that may not be in
conscious awareness
o Riding a bicycle, tying shoelaces
o Anterograde Amnesia: caused by damage to hippocampal area of the brain
o Not easily retrieved into conscious awareness
2. Declarative (Explicit)
o Memory of facts
Þ Facts: things that are known and can be declared
o All about things people can know
o Easily made conscious and brought from long-term storage into STM
o Semantic Memory: awareness of meaning of words, concepts, terms, names of objects, math skills, etc.
Þ Semantic Network: assumes that information is stored in the brain in a connected fashion, with concepts that are related to each
other stored physically closer to each other
o Episodic Memory: personal knowledge that a person has of their daily life and personal history
Þ Autobiographical Memory
Þ Memories of what has happened each day, certain birthdays, anniversaries, etc.
Þ Meaningful
Retrieval
1. Retrieval Cues
o Stimulus for remembering
o When people try to remember a piece of information by thinking of what it means and how it fits in with what they already know
o Encoding Specificity: tendency for memory of any information to be improved if retrieval conditions are similar to the conditions under
which the information was encoded
A. Context-Dependent Learning
o Refers to physical surroundings a person is in when they are learning specific information
B. State-Dependent Learning
o Refers to particular physiological/psychological state when they are forming memories
2. Recall
o Memories with few or no external cues
o Tip of the Tongue Phenomenon: recall failure
o Serial Position Effect: information at the beginning and end of a list tend to be remembered more easily
Þ Primacy Effect: words at the beginning of a list tend to be remembered better than those in the middle
Þ Recency Effect: last word or 2 was just heard and is still in STM for easy retrieval
3. Recognition
o Involves looking at or hearing information and matching it to what is already in memory
Þ Usually much easier than recall because cue is an actual object, word, sound
o False Positive: occurs when a person thinks that they have recognized something but in fact does not have that in memory
4. Automatic Encoding
o LTM that enter permanent storage with little or no effort
o Flashbulb Memories: when an unexpected event or episode in a person’s life has strong emotional associations
Þ Memories of highly emotional events
Reconstructive Nature
o Constructive Processing: memories are “built”/reconstructed from the information stored away during encoding
Þ Each time a memory is retrieved, it may be altered in some way to include new information or to exclude details that may be left out of
the new reconstruction
Þ Hindsight Bias: revising so they “knew it all along”
o Memory Retrieval Problems
Þ Misinformation Effect: if 1 person tells the other about something they have seen, the other may later “remember” the same details, even
though they did not really see it at that time
Þ False-Memory Syndrome: creation of inaccurate/false memories through the suggestion of others

Forgetting
Forgetting Curve
o Shows that forgetting happens quickly within the 1st hour after learning the lists and then tapers off gradually
o Forgetting is greatest just after learning
o Distributed Practice: produces far better retrieval of information studied in this way than does massed practice
Þ Massed Practice: attempt to study a body of material all at once

Reasons for Forgetting:

1. Encoding Failure
o Failure to process information into memory
2. Memory Trace Decay Theory
o Memory Trace: some physical change in the brain which occurs when a memory is formed
Þ Neuron or activity between neurons
o If traces are not used, they may decay
o STM: Information that is not brought to attention in sensory memory or continuously rehearsed in STM will fade away
o LTM: disuse theory; “use it or lose it”
3. Interference Theory
o LTMs may not always be accessible to attempted retrieval because of interference of other information
 A. Proactive Interference
o Tendency for older/previously learned material to interfere with the learning and subsequent retrieval of new information
B. Retroactive Interference
o When newer information interferes with the retrieval of older information

Neuroscience of Memory
Organic Amnesia
1. Retrograde Amnesia
o Loss of memory from the point of injury backwards
2. Anterograde Amnesia
o Loss of memories from the point of injury forward
o Senile Dementia
3. Alzheimer’s Disease
o Common type of dementia found in adults
o Primarily anterograde amnesia, but progresses to retrograde amnesia
4. Infantile Amnesia
o Type of memory that exists in the 1st few years of life, during infancy
o Early memories tend to be implicit
o Autobiographical Memory: memory for events and facts related to one’s personal life story