Learning

1. Learning- Nature of learning

2. Principles and applications of
Classical Conditioning, Operant Learning,
Observational Learning
3. Cognitive Learning in brief
Basic Questions
• What is Learning?

• What is ‘Conditioning’?
Definition of learning
A process by which experience and or practice
produces a relatively enduring change in an
individuals' behavior or capabilities.

What is not learning?

•Changes due to biological maturation
(e.g., changes in height as a child grow)

•Any short-lived change due to the effects

of a drug or fatigue.
• The term capabilities highlights a
distinction b/w
versus

• Experience may provide us with

immediate knowledge (e.g., how to
boil an egg)

• But in science we must measure

learning by actual changes in
performance (e.g., actually boiling
an egg).
Simple forms of Learning: Habituation
• Imagine that you are a participant in an experiment. You’re sitting alone in a quiet laboratory
when suddenly a loud comes.

• Your body jerks slightly, you become aroused, and you look toward the source of the sound.
But as you hear it again and again, your startle response diminishes & eventually you ignore
the sound.

• Habituation is a decrease in the strength of response to a repeated stimulus.

Habituation serves a key adaptive function.

Habituation also plays an
important role in
If an organism responded to every stimulus
observing behavior.
in its environment, it would rapidly become
overwhelmed.
Before collecting data,
o b s e r ve rs o f te n a l l o w
By learning not to respond to, organisms
subjects to habituate to
conserve energy and can attend to other
their presence.
relevant stimuli.
Simple forms of Learning: Mere Exposure effect

• A learned preference for stimuli to which we have been

previously exposed.
• It is our general preference for familiar stimuli as contrasted
with novel stimuli.
• It probably accounts for the effectiveness of much
advertising .
• It also helps explain our attraction to people we see often at
work or school and for songs we have heard at least a few
times.
Complex Forms: Classical conditioning

• Russian Physiologist, Ivan Pavlov

(1849-1936)

• CC occurs when 2 stimuli (X and Y) become

associated with one another, such that…

• One stimulus (Y) now triggers a response

that previously was only triggered by the
other stimulus(X).
 Pavlov’s classic experiment
• Pavlov was a renowned physiologist,
conducting research on digestion in dogs
that won him the Nobel Prize in 1904.

• To study digestion, Pavlov presented food

to dogs and measured their salivary
response.

• Pavlov noticed that with repeated testing,

the dogs began to salivate before the
food was presented…

• F o r e xa m p l e w h e n t h e y h e a r d t h e
footsteps of the approaching
experimenter.
Pavlov’s classic experiment
• Further study by Pavlov’s (1923/1928) research team confirmed
this observation.

• Dogs have a natural reflex to salivate to food but not to tones.

• Yet when a tone was presented just before food powder was
given, soon the sound of the tone alone made the dog salivate.

This process of Learning by Association came to be called Classical or

Pavlovian conditioning, because now the TONE riggered the same responses
as the FOOD.
Basic principles
Acquisition: The period during which a response is being learned.

• Unconditioned stimulus (UCS): A stimulus that elicits a reflexive or innate

response (the UCR) without prior learning….FOOD

• Unconditioned response (UCR), a reflexive or innate response that is elicited

by a stimulus (the UCS) without prior learning…..SALIVATING TO FOOD

• Conditioned stimulus (CS): A stimulus that, through association with a UCS,

comes to elicit a conditioned response similar to the original UCR….BELL

• Conditioned Response(CR), a response elicited by a conditioned

stimulus….SALIVATING TO BELL
 Unconditioned Stimulus : Food Neutral Stimulus: Bell

Unconditioned Response: Salivation to the Repeated paired with food on LEARNING

food TRIALS

Conditioned Stimulus: Bell

Conditioned Response: Salivation to the Bell
Factors effecting CC
1. During acquisition, a CS typically must be paired multiple times with a US to
establish a strong CR (Repeated pairing of bell & food).

2. Pavlov also found that a tone became a CS more rapidly when it was followed by
greater amounts of food.

3. But when the UCS is intense and aversive—such as an electric shock or a traumatic
event—conditioning may require only 1 CS-UCS pairing.

• Carol’s case illustrates this one-trial (single-trial) learning. Carol had an accident in
her car and then developed a phobia of cars.
4. Time interval between US & CS is short

5. The CS is distinctive and stands out from other competing stimuli (bell stands out
from other noises in the room)

6. Sequence involves ‘forward-pairing’

 Classical conditioning
• US (accident ) UR (fear)

• Car (Neutral stimulus) No fear

• Pairing of US (accident ) + car

• Car (CS) CR (fear)

4 types of CS-US pairing
1. FORWARD-SHORT DELAY PAIRING/DELAY CONDITIONING: CS (Tone) is
presented first and is still present when US (food) is presented.
• It produces the most rapid learning.

2. FORWARD TRACE PAIRING/TRACE CONDITIONING:

• The CS (tone) is presented.
• It stops and then the US (food) is presented.
• Trace refers to the memory of the CS (tone) that one still may have.
• Optimal gap b/w CS & US is 2-3 seconds

3. SIMULTANEOUS PAIRING: CS & US are presented together. Produces less

rapid learning

4. BACKWARD LEARNING: US (food) is presented first, followed by CS (tone).

It produces the slowest learning.
 Principles
1. Acquisition

2. Extinction:
•Occurs when CS (e.g, bell) is presented repeatedly without US (e.g., food).
•CR (e.g., salivation to bell) weakens & eventually disappears.

•Each occurrence of CS without US is called an Extinction Trial.

•Occasional pairings of CS & US (e.g., bell & food) are needed to maintain CR.

•However some CRs are more resistant to extinction that others.

3. Spontaneous Recovery: Re- appearance of a previously extinguished CR (Eg.,
salivation to bell) after a rest period without new learning trials.

However the spontaneously recovered CR is usually weaker and extinguishes more

rapidly in the absence of US.

4. Generalization: Once CR is acquired the organism responds not only to the original
CS but also to stimuli similar to it.

The greater the similarity, the more the chances the CR will occur
• Discrimination: occurs when the CR is demonstrated to one
stimulus BUT NOT TO ANOTHER STIMULUS.

• Higher order conditioning: A neutral stimulus becomes a CS

after being paired with an already established CS.

• The higher order CS produces a CR that is weaker and

extinguishes more rapidly than the original CR.
Re-learning
• Is always faster than original learning

• Once CR (e.g salivation to bell) is extinguished...

• ....... if CS & US (bell & food) are paired again...

• ..... CS (bell) quickly re-gains its ability to produce CR

(salivation).
ACQUIRING AND
OVERCOMING FEARS:

LEARNING FEARS:
Little Albert experiment (1920)
 Merz et al (2010):

Humans and other mammals

become afraid of neutral stimuli
when they are paired with shock.
OVERCOMING FEARS

• Little Peter Experiment (1924) by MARY COVER JONES

Overcoming fears
• Foreshadowed It involves exposing the person to the
feared object (e.g car /CS) in a safe situation.

• The hope is that if no danger occurs, the learnt fear will become
extinct.

• Instead, the person will learnt to associate car (CS) with something new
(safety). The new association will replace the old one.

• Mental imagery (in-vitro) or real life (in vivo) situations can be used.

• Systematic desensitization also based on CC & developed by Wolpe

during the 1950s.
3 phases to the treatment

1 . Pat i e n t i s ta u g h t a d e e p m u s c l e
relaxation technique & breathing
exercises.

2. Patient creates a fear hierarchy.

3. Patient works their way UP the fear

hierarchy....

starting at the least unpleasant stimuli &

practising their relaxation technique
as they go ahead.
FLOODING
• Te a c h i n g p at i e nt s s e l f - re l axat i o n
techniques and then exposing them
abruptly & directly to fear-evoking
stimulus.

• Unlike systematic desensitization,

flooding is rapid & abrupt exposure.

• E.g. A therapist may take a person who

is afraid of dogs into a kennel to expose
them to a large number of dogs in a
controlled situation.
 Attraction and Aversion

• Aversion therapy: Attempts to create aversion to a

stimulus (e.g. Alcohol) that triggers unwanted
behaviours by pairing it with a noxious US (e.g.
Electric shock)

• Produces short term changes that extinguish with

time

• Attraction: Advertisers sell goods by associating

them with good things/celebrities.
 Conditioned Food Aversions
• Ever eaten something that lead to food poisoning? Just the sight of that
food may have given you nausea for years.

• Learning to avoid a food associated with illness has .

• That’s why we readily form an association b/w illness and food— more
readily than b/w illness & a nonfood stimulus (e.g. a plate or spoon).

and Robert Koellin (1966) first recognized this highly selective

CS–UCS connection.

• Rats readily learned an association between flavored water and illness, yet
the rats could not be conditioned to associate flavored water with the pain
of an electric shock.
“Wired in”
• Conditioning depends not only on nurture but also nature. What any organism
can learn in a given setting is to some extent a product of its evolutionary history.

• The tendency to develop taste aversions appears to be “wired in” as part of our
biological nature rather than purely learned.

• Biological predispositions may also impact the timing involved in acquiring a

conditioned aversion.

• For example, food aversions can develop even when the time interval b/w eating
& illness extends over several hours—as compared with just a few seconds in
Pavlov’s experiments.

• Psychologists now believe that many common fears arise from genetic
preparedness, built into us from our ancestral past- : snakes, spiders, blood,
lightning, heights.
Real-World Applications
• Garcia demonstrated how aversive conditioning can dissuade
wild coyotes from attacking sheep.
• They did so by wrapping toxic lamb burgers in sheepskins and
stashing them on sheep ranches
• When coyotes ate these meaty morsels, they became sick &
developed a distaste for lamb meat. The result was a
whopping 30 to 50% reduction in sheep attacks!

Need help getting to the gym?

If you listen to your favorite music only while

working out, chances are you’ll start getting that
pumped-up, “feels good to exercise” feeling when
you hear it—and then you can use it as a stimulus to
get yourself to the gym!
Sickness and health

1. ALLERGIC REACTIONS: by pairing a neutral stimulus (odour) with a

substance that naturally triggers an allergic reaction (US)...

...... the neutral stimulus can become a CS that elicits a similar allergic reaction.

By pairing the neutral stimulus (A novel drink) with anti-allergic substance

(antihistamine), the stimulus can itself reduce allergy
2. Anticipatory nausea and vomiting

• Chemotherapy/ radiation therapy save countless lives but often cause nausea & vomiting.

• Many cancer patients eventually develop anticipatory nausea and vomiting (ANV); they become
nauseated before a treatment session.

• ANV is a classically conditioned response (Parker et al., 2006).

• Initially neutral stimuli, such as needles, the hospital room, become associated with the
treatment (the UCS) and act as conditioned stimuli .

• Fortunately, psychological treatments can help patients.

• The patient may first be taught how to relax physically, and then the conditioned stimuli that
trigger ANV are paired with relaxation and pleasant mental imagery
Taste Aversions & Chemotherapy

• Jena is about to undergo her first round of chemotherapy- The

nurse enters the lab, but with a dish of licorice flavored ice cream.

• Most patients who undergo chemotherapy experience nausea,

which can make them quit eating, just when their body needs
nourishment.

• If we give patients an unusual food before their chemotherapy,

they usually develop an aversion only to that food- “scapegoat”
stimulus.

• By consuming candies or ice cream with unusual flavors before

treatment, patients develop taste aversions only to those special
flavors.
 Immune system
3. Robert Ader:
• Experiments on rats
• Sweetened water (neutral stimulus) + injections of a drug (UCS) that SUPRESSES
IMMUNE SYSTEM ACTIVITY (UR)
• ......the sweet water becomes a CS that suppresses the immune system.

• De Moranville et al (2000): CC can also increase immune system functioning.

• German researchers gave volunteers:
Sweet sherbet + shot of adrenalin (which increases immune system activity to attack
tumours).

• Compared to a control group, people who received the sherbet-adrenalin pairing,

subsequently reacted to the sherbet alone with stronger immune system response.
Ader & Cohen (1982):

• Study on mice suffering from an illness that causes the

immune system to attacks its own bodies.

• Researchers conditioned a sweet taste (CS) to trigger immune

suppression (CR) & reduced the mice’s mortality rate.

• Later a similar conditioning procedure was used with drug

therapy to treat an 11 year old with a disease in which her
immune system was overactive.