LEARNING

CHAPTER-6
 DEFINATION
• Learning involves a relatively permanent change in behavior or
knowledge that results from experience.
• Learning is an adaptive function by which our nervous system changes
in relation to stimuli in the environment, thus changing our behavioral
responses and permitting us to function in our environment. The
process occurs initially in our nervous system in response to
environmental stimuli. Neural pathways can be strengthened, pruned,
activated, or rerouted, all of which cause changes in our behavioral
responses.
 TYPES
• Types of learning include classical and operant conditioning (both forms
of associative learning) as well as observational learning.
• Classical conditioning, initially described by Ivan Pavlov, occurs when a
particular response to a stimulus becomes conditioned to respond to
another associated stimulus.
• Operant conditioning, initially described by B. F. Skinner, is the learning
process by which a response is strengthened or extinguished through
the reinforcement or punishment of a behavior.
• Observational learning, initially described by Albert Bandura, occurs
through observing the behaviors of others and imitating those behaviors,
even if there is no reinforcement at the time.
 1. CLASSICAL CONDITIONING
• Classical conditioning is a process by which we learn to associate
events, or stimuli, that frequently happen together; as a result of this,
we learn to anticipate events.
• Ivan Pavlov conducted a famous study involving dogs in which he
trained (or conditioned) the dogs to associate the sound of a bell with
the presence of a piece of meat.
• The conditioning is achieved when the sound of the bell on its own
makes the dog salivate in anticipation for the meat.
• Pavlov (1902) started from the idea that there are some things that a dog does not need to
learn. For example, dogs don’t learn to salivate whenever they see food. This reflex is ‘hard-
wired’ into the dog.
• In behaviorist terms, food is an unconditioned stimulus and salivation is an unconditioned
response. (i.e., a stimulus-response connection that required no learning).
• In his experiment, Pavlov used a BELL as his neutral stimulus. By itself the BELL did not elecit
a response from the dogs.
• conditioning procedure, whereby the ringing bell was introduced just before he gave food to
his dogs. After a number of repeats (trials) of this procedure he presented the bell on its own.
• As you might expect, the sound of the bell on its own now caused an increase in salivation.
• So the dog had learned an association between the bell and the food and a new behavior
had been learned. Because this response was learned (or conditioned), it is called a
conditioned response. The neutral stimulus has become a conditioned stimulus.
 WATSON’S
EXPERIMENT
OF CLASSICAL

CONDITIONING
 Principles of classical conditioning
1. Acquisition

• Acquisition refers to the first stages of learning when a response is

established. In classical conditioning, it refers to the period when the
stimulus comes to evoke the conditioned response.
• By associating the presentation of food with the sound of a tone,
Pavlov was able to condition the dogs to salivate to the sound. The
phase in which the dogs began to salivate to the sound is the
acquisition period.
• In classical conditioning, repeated pairings of the
conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
eventually lead to acquisition.
 2. Extinction

• Extinction is when the occurrences of a conditioned response

decreases or disappears. In classical conditioning, this happens when
a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned
stimulus.
• For example, if the smell of food (the unconditioned stimulus) had
been paired with the sound of a whistle (the conditioned stimulus), it
would eventually come to evoke the conditioned response of hunger.
However, if the unconditioned stimulus (the smell of food) were no
longer paired with the conditioned stimulus (the whistle), eventually
the conditioned response (hunger) would disappear.
 3. Spontaneous Recovery

• Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of the conditioned

response after a rest period or period of lessened response.
• For example, imagine that after training a dog to salivate to the sound
of a bell, you stop reinforcing the behavior and the response
eventually becomes extinct. After a rest period during which the
conditioned stimulus is not presented, you suddenly ring the bell and
the animal spontaneously recovers the previously learned response.
 4. Stimulus Generalization

• Stimulus generalization is the tendency for the conditioned stimulus

to evoke similar responses after the response has been conditioned.
• For example, if a dog has been conditioned to salivate at the sound of
a bell, the animal may also exhibit the same response to stimuli that
are similar to the conditioned stimulus.
• for example, a small child was conditioned to fear a white rat. The
child demonstrated stimulus generalization by also exhibiting fear in
response to other fuzzy white objects including stuffed toys and
Watson own hair.
 5. Stimulus Discrimination

• Discrimination is the ability to differentiate between a conditioned

stimulus and other stimuli that have not been paired with an
unconditioned stimulus.
• For example, if a bell tone were the conditioned stimulus,
discrimination would involve being able to tell the difference between
the bell tone and other similar sounds.
 ACTIVITY
Observe what we learn through classical conditioning and identify
UCS,UCR,CS,CR. For example disliking a food because you experienced
nausea on eating that food during illness.
2. OPERENT CONDITIONING