VARIATIONS OF

LEARNING
PREPAREDNESS
 theconcept that evolution has
prepared us to learn some
associations more easily than
others
 Animalsare evolutionarily
prepared to learn the associations
that are useful in their natural
habitat
 Psychologists were at one time
convinced that learning occurs only
between events happening within
seconds of each other. However, that
generalization fails in certain
situations. Why?
CONDITIONED TASTE
AVERSION
 First documented by John Garcia
 Animals,including people, learn to
avoid foods, especially unfamiliar ones,
if they become ill afterward. This type
of learning occurs reliably after a
single pairing of food with illness,
even with a long delay between them.
Illness is associated much more strongly
with foods than with other stimuli.
WHAT IS THE EVIDENCE?
 In nature, the food you eat
predicts whether you will feel
full or hungry, healthy or sick.
It doesn’t predict pain on your
skin. In contrast, what you see or
hear might predict pain, but it
seldom has anything to do with
nausea.
 In an experiment by John Garcia and Robert
Koelling (1966), water-deprived rats were
offered a tube of saccharine-flavored water
set up such that when a rat licked the spout
of the tube, it turned on a bright light and a
clicking sound. Each rat experienced the
taste, light, and noise. Half the rats
received mild foot shock two seconds after
they licked the tube while half of the rats
received x-rays, which produced mild nausea.
The procedure was repeated multiple times
after recovery. In the final test, rats could
drink from a tube containing saccharine-
flavored water, or from a separate tube
containing unflavored water but connected to
the light and clicking sound.
Result and Interpretation
 Ratsthat had been shocked avoid the
tube with lights and noises while rats
that had been nauseated by x-rays
avoid the saccharine-flavored water.
 Whena rat (or almost any other
animal) receives shock to its feet, it
learns to avoid the lights or sounds
that it detects at the time. When it
becomes nauseated, it learns to avoid
something that it ate.
BIRDSONG LEARNING
 Infantbirds of some species must
hear their songs during a
sensitive period early in life if
they are to develop a fully normal
song the following spring. During
the early learning, the bird makes
no response and receives no
reinforcement.
 Formost species, song is limited
to males during the mating season.
Some have built-in songs but some
have to learn it.
 Songlearning is unlike standard
examples of classical and operant
conditioning. During sensitive
period, infant only listens, with
no response and reinforcement.
 The following spring, bird starts
to sing in a trial-and-error
process.
 Mixture of Sounds —> Elimination of
Sounds —> Rearrangement of Sounds
to match the song he heard last
summer.
 Later in life, he may modify his
song defending on competing noises.
In Birdsong Learning,
learning occurs even when
learner makes no response or
receives no reinforcement.
SOCIAL LEARNING
 Welearn about many behaviors by
observing the behaviors of
others.

• Modeling and Imitation

 Youmodel your behavior after
others or imitate others.
WHY DO WE IMITATE?
 other people’s behavior often
provides information
 other people’s behavior
establishes a norm or rule
 you automatically imitate many
other actions that you see, often
with no apparent motivation
 Albert Bandura, Dorothea Ross,
and Sheila Ross (1963) studied
the role of imitation for
learning aggressive behavior.
 Witnessing violence increases
the probability of violent
behavior.
 • Vicarious Reinforcement and
Punishment
 We tend to imitate behaviors that
lead to reinforcement for other
people. We are less consistent in
avoiding behaviors that are
unsuccessful for others.
 Vicarious Reinforcement works better
than Vicarious Punishment, because
most people do not identify with
someone who failed or received
punishment.
 • Self-Efficacy in Social
Learning
 the belief of being able to perform
the task successfully
• Self-Reinforcement and Self-
Punishment
 Once people have decided to try to
imitate a certain behavior, they set
goals for themselves and sometimes
provide their own reinforcements.