Learning

Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior that is the result of

experience.
There are four basic kinds of learning:
(1) habituation and sensitization.
(2) classical conditioning.
(3) instrumental conditioning.
(4) complex learning.
Habituation is a type of non-associative learning that is characterized by a
decreased behavioral response to an innocuous stimulus. For example, the
sound of a horn might startle you when you first hear it. But if the horn toots
repeatedly in a short time, the amount that you are startled by each sound
progressively decreases. In contrast, sensitization is a type of non-associative
learning whereby there is an increase in a behavioral response to an intense
stimulus. Sensitization typically occurs when noxious or fearful stimuli are
presented to an organism. For example, the acoustic startle response to a
horn is greatly enhanced if you enter a dark alley right before the loud sound.
CLASSICAL CONDITIONING

Ivan Pavlov, a Russian physiologist who had already received the Nobel Prize
for his research on digestion, made an important discovery in the early years
of the twentieth century. For his research, he was measuring dogs’ salivation
in response to food – any dog will salivate when food is placed in its mouth.
But Pavlov noticed that the dogs in his laboratory began to salivate at the
mere sight of a food dish. It occurred to him that the dogs had perhaps
learned to associate the sight of the dish with the taste of the food, and he
decided to see whether a dog could be taught to associate food with other
stimuli, such as a light or a tone.
The elegant experiments that Pavlov designed to study this question have
contributed much to our understanding of one of the most basic processes of
learning: classical conditioning (often referred to as ‘Pavlovian
conditioning’).
Classical conditioning is a learning process in which a previously neutral
stimulus becomes associated with another stimulus through repeated pairing
with that stimulus. The neutral stimulus can be a light that flashes every time
before giving food to dogs, the light was originally a neutral stimulus: it did not
lead to a salivation response.
However, the food itself does cause salivation when it is placed in the mouth
of the dog. After food and light are presented together (‘paired’) repeatedly,
the mere sight of the light is enough to cause a salivation response. The dog
has learned that two events (the light, and the taste of food in the mouth) are
associated.
Extinction happens when pairing stop for an enough time the association will
also stop, which means when repeated flashing of the light is not paired with
food, the light will no longer stimulate salivation.
INSTRUMENTAL CONDITIONING

In classical conditioning, the conditioned response is a response that was part

of the animal’s natural repertoire – like salivation. But how do dogs learn new
‘tricks’, like rolling over and playing dead? If you have ever trained a dog to
perform such tricks, you know that it involves rewarding the dog whenever it
does what you want it to do. Initially, you will reward the dog for
approximating the desired behavior, but eventually you will only reward it if it
performs the entire trick.
Reinforcement versus punishment

In instrumental conditioning, an environmental event that follows behavior

produces either an increase or a decrease in the probability of that behavior.
Reinforcement refers to the process whereby the delivery of a stimulus
increases the probability of a behavior. Reinforcement can be done by giving
an appetitive stimulus (positive reinforcement) or by the removal of an
aversive stimulus (negative reinforcement).
In other words: there may be either a positive or a negative contingency
between the behavior and reinforcement. A positive contingency means
that something is given: for example, bar pressing is followed by food. A
negative contingency means that something is taken away: for example, bar
pressing terminates or prevents shock.
Punishment is the converse of reinforcement: it decreases
the probability of a behavior, and consists of the delivery
of an aversive stimulus (positive punishment, or simply
‘punishment’) or the removal of an appetitive stimulus
(negative punishment or ‘omission training’)
Schedules of reinforcement

Ratio schedules Interval schedules

Fixed Fixed ratio (FR): Reinforcement is provided Fixed interval (FI): Reinforcement is
after a fixed number of responses provided after a certain amount of
time has elapsed since the last
reinforcement

Variable Variable ratio (VR): Reinforcement is Variable interval (VI): Reinforcement is

provided after a certain number of provided after a certain amount of
responses, with the number varying time has elapsed since the last
unpredictably reinforcement, with the duration of
the interval varying unpredictably
Observational learning

Humans, too, learn many things without immediately being reinforced for the behavior.
Consider how you learned to give a presentation in class: when you prepared for it, you
probably considered how others go about giving a lecture, and you might have even picked
up a book for some advice on how to structure your presentation. Clearly, you did not learn
how to give a successful presentation through simple conditioning, which would involve
randomly trying out many possible behaviors and repeating only those that were rewarded
with a good grade. Rather, you learned through imitation and observational learning: you
copied the behavior of others, whose behavior you observed to be successful.
Memory
There are three stages of memory: encoding, storage, and retrieval.
There is increasing biological evidence for these distinctions. Recent brain-
scanning studies of long-term memory indicate that most of the brain regions
activated during encoding are in the left hemisphere and that most of the
regions activated during retrieval are in the right hemisphere.
There are three kinds of memory that differ in terms of their temporal
characteristics: Sensory memory lasts over a few hundreds of milliseconds;
short-term store (now called working memory) operates over seconds; long-
term store operates over times ranging from minutes to years.
Short-term memory (working memory) is, as just indicated, the next repository of
information. Short-term memory has the following characteristics. First, it can be
roughly identified with consciousness; information in short term memory is
information that you are conscious of. Second, information in short-term memory is
readily accessible; it can be used as the foundation of making decisions or
carrying out tasks in times on the order of seconds or less. Third, all else being
equal, information in short-term memory will decay – will be forgotten – over a
period of approximately 20 seconds. Fourth, information can be prevented from
decaying if it is rehearsed, that is, repeated over and over, Fifth, information that is
rehearsed, as just defined, or that undergoes other forms of processing,
collectively known as elaboration (for example, being transformed into a suitable
visual image) is transferred from short-term memory into the third repository of
information, long-term store.
Working memory is conceptualized as being divided into an ‘auditory’ part, the
phonological loop and a ‘visual’ part, the visual-spatial sketchpad
The auditory storage capacity is limited to 7 +- 2 chunks. The amount of
information in working memory can be increased by increasing the amount of
information in each chunk, e.g., by chunking sequences of letters into meaningful
units like words.
Retrieval from working memory slows down as the number of items in working
memory increases. Working memory is used in solving various kinds of problems,
such as mental arithmetic, geometric analogies, and answering questions about
text. Working memory acts as a buffer from which information may be transferred
to long-term memory. Experiments with the hippocampus and surrounding brain
areas support a qualitative distinction between working memory and long-term
memory
Long-term store is, as the name implies, the large repository of information in
which is maintained all information that is generally available to us. Long-term
store has the following characteristics. First, as just indicated, information
enters it via various kinds of elaborative processes, from short-term memory.
Second, the size of long-term store is, as far as is known, unlimited. Third,
information is acquired from long-term store via the process of retrieval and
placed back into short-term memory where it can be manipulated and used
to carry out the task at hand.
Information in long-term memory is usually encoded according to its
meaning.
Forgetting in long-term memory is due to retrieval failures (the information is
there but cannot be found) and to interference by new information. Some
forgetting from long-term memory is due to a loss from storage, particularly
when there is a disruption of the processes that consolidate new memories.
The biological locus of consolidation includes the hippocampus and
surrounding cortex. Recent research suggests that consolidation takes a few
weeks to be completed.
Retrieval failures in long-term memory are less likely when the items are
organized during encoding and when the context at the time of retrieval is
similar to the context at the time of encoding. Retrieval processes can also be
disrupted by emotional factors
Different memories for different kinds
of information

Explicit memory refers to the kind of memory manifested in recall or

recognition, when we consciously recollect the past. Implicit memory refers to
the kind of memory that manifests itself as an improvement on some
perceptual, motor, or cognitive task, with no conscious recollection of the
experiences that led to the improvement.
Although explicit memory – particularly recall and recognition of facts –
breaks down in amnesia, implicit memory is usually spared. This suggests that
there may be separate storage systems for explicit and implicit memory
Childhood amnesia

One of the most striking aspects of human memory is that everyone suffers
from a particular kind of amnesia: Virtually no one can recall events from the
first years of life, even though this is the time when experience is at its richest.
This curious phenomenon was first discussed by Freud (1905), who called it
childhood amnesia. Freud discovered the phenomenon by observing that his
patients were generally unable to recall events from their first three to five
years of life.
CONSTRUCTIVE MEMORY

a memory is constructed and reconstructed on the basis of expectations and

knowledge. In this sense, memory for some event often shows systematic
departures from the event’s objective reality.
Memory reconstruction can occur at the time the memory is originally formed
via perceptual errors of various sorts
Memory reconstruction forms the basis for memories that, although
systematically incorrect, seem very real and are recounted with a great deal
of confidence. This is critical in various practical settings, notably the legal
system, which often relies heavily on eyewitness memory