Types of Learning Behaviourism 

Behaviourism

Classical Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

Other Kinds of Learning

Outline

BEHAVIOURISM What is Behaviourism? It refers to the school of psychology founded by John B. Watson based on the belief that behaviours can be measured, trained, and changed.

Schools of Behaviourism :

Methodological Behaviourism

Radical behaviourism

Studies only the events that they can be measured and observed.

Sometimes use those observations to infer internal events

It claims that psychology should concern itself with the behaviour of organisms

Deny that internal, private event such as hunger, fear causes behaviour

The ultimate cause of any behaviour lies in the observable events that led up to the behaviour, not the internal states

The Raise of Behaviourism

In the early 1900s, Structuralists, studied people’s thoughts, ideas, and sensations by asking people to describe them.

1918 Jacques Loeb’s view of behaviour :

Stimuli Response

• Today’s Behaviourists believe that behaviour is a product of not only the current stimuli but also the individual’s history of stimuli and responses and their outcomes, plus the internal state of the organism, such as wakefulness or sleepiness

Assumptions Of Behaviourism

1. Determinism

Behaviourists assume that we live in a universe of cause and effect meaning we always act upon our greatest drive.

“animals deprived of food will increase the rates of behaviours that lead to food.”

2.The Ineffectiveness of Mental Explanations

In everyday life we commonly refer to our motivations, emotions, and mental state. However, behaviourists insist that such statements explain nothing.

3.The Power of the Environment to Mold Behaviour

Behaviours produce outcomes. The outcome determines how often the behaviour will occur in the future

Classical Conditioning

Classical Conditioning

• Classical means it has been studied for a long time

Pavlovian conditioning

• process by which an organism learns a new association between two paired of stimuli which is a neutral stimulus and one that evokes a reflexive response

How Pavlov Found Classical conditioning?

He was on his digestion research

Found out that the dog in the lab secret saliva when it saw the lab worker who customarily fed the dog

Think on why the dog secret saliva by only looking at the lab worker but not the food itself

Then he name it the psychological process

Example Of Classical Conditioning

Drug Tolerance as an Example of Classical Conditioning

Drug Tolerance

• users of certain drugs experience progressively weaker effects after taking the drugs repeatedly

Cause of Drug tolerance

• Chemical Changes • Classical Conditioning

First Stimulus

• Injection procedure

Second Stimulus

• Drug enter brainConditioned

stimulus

• Injection procedure

Unconditioned stimulus

• Drug enter brain

Conditioned stimulus

• Injection procedure

Conditioned Response

• Body’s defenses

It is noted that conditioning is dependent on the timing between CS and UCS.

Activity in the UCS center

automatically activates the UCR center.

After sufficient

pairings of the CS and

UCS, a connection

will develop between

them.

When the activity in

the CS center

flows to the UCS center, it excites

the UCR center.

Different conditionings

• CS comes first but continues until US• Conditioning occurs readily

Forward (delayed)

conditioning

• CS comes first and ends before the start of US

• Conditioning occurs readily but response is sometimes weak

Forward (traced)

conditioning

• Conditioning is weakerForward (traced) conditioning with

longer delay

• Cs and US are presented or terminated at the same time.

Simultaneous Conditioning

• After a few repetition, CS becomes inhibitory

• That is a signal for a time of absence of the US

Backward Conditioning

• Respondent conditioning in which US is presented at regular intervals, for instance every 10 minutes

• Conditioning is said to have occurred shortly before each US

Temporal Conditioning

The longer the delay between CS and

UCS, the weaker the conditioning.

However, it is essential for them to

occur more often together than apart.

Conditioning of CS also depends on all

other stimuli present in the conditioning

situation.

US is predicted by the sum of the

associative strength of all stimuli present.

Blocking effect

The previously established association blocks the formation of an association to the added stimulus

Classical Conditioning plays an important role in a variety of important behaviors.

• Emotional Responses• Behavioral therapies• Neural basis of learning and memory• Drug tolerance

“Pavlovian” is sometimes used to define simple, mechanical and robotlike behavior.

It is a way to respond and a way to prepare us for what is likely to happen.

That is why it is also called respondent conditioning.

Strength

It prepares an individual for likely events.

It has positive impact on research methodology – drew attention to observation and measurement of

behavior.

Therapists use it to address problems – panic, irrational fear.

OPERANT CONDITIONING

Thorndike and operant conditioning Edward Thorndike is famous in psychology for his work on learning theory that lead to the development of operant conditioning within behaviourism.

It is called operant conditioning because the subject operates in the environment to produce outcome

Whereas classical conditioning depends on developing associations between events, operant conditioning involves learning from the consequences of our behaviour.

Puzzle box and cats

Thorndike devised a classic experiment, in which he used a puzzle box to empirically test the laws of learning, a box which cats could escape by pressing a lever, pulling a string, or

titling a pole. Sometimes,he placed food outside the box.Thorndike would put a cat into the box and time how long it took to escape. 

Puzzle box and cats

The cats experimented with different ways to escape the puzzle box and reach the food. Eventually they would stumble upon the lever which opened the cage.  When it had escaped it was put in again, and once more the time it took to escape was noted.  In successive trials the cats would learn that pressing the lever would have favourable consequences and they would adopt this behaviour, becoming increasingly quick at pressing the lever

Puzzle box and cats

Thorndike concluded that learning occurs only when certain behaviours are strengthened at the expense of others. He added that animals learn by trial and error. When something works to the animal's satisfaction, the animal draws a connection or association between the behaviour and positive outcome

Reinforcement and Punishment

Reinforcement is an event that increases the future probability of the most recent response .

While Punishment is the opposite of reinforce , it decreases the possibility of response.Eg. ( food and Pain )

However, Punishments are not always effective; as we see that the threat of punishment could not stop or decrease the rate of crime.

Primary and Secondary Reinforcement Reinforcement is divided into: Primary (Unconditioned) reinforces : they are

biological like; food, drink, and pleasure . Secondary(Conditioned) reinforces : like money, and

grades in schools. Most human reinforces are secondary, we spend

most of our time working for secondary reinforcers. Many secondary reinforcers are surprisingly

powerful. Consider, for example, how hard some children will work for a little gold star that the teacher pastes on an assignment.

Punishment and Skinner Experiment Skinner did a lab experiment on rats, he

trained rats to press a bar to get food. The rats failed to get the food and they even got slapped every time they press the bar. They temporarily stopped pressing the bar but in the long run they continued pressing the bar which he concludes that punishment temporarily suppresses behavior but produces no long term effect.

Four categories of Operant Conditioning

Skinner and the Shaping of Responses:

Shaping is a conditioning paradigm used primarily in the experimental analysis of behaviour. The method used is differential reinforcement of successive approximations. It was introduced by B.F. Skinner  with pigeons and extended to dogs, dolphins, humans and other species.

We first give the bird food when it turns slightly in the direction of the spot from any part of the cage. This increases the frequency of such behaviour. We then withhold reinforcement until a slight movement is made toward the spot

We continue by reinforcing positions successively closer to the spot, then by reinforcing only when the head is moved slightly forward, and finally only when the beak actually makes contact with the spot. ... The original probability of the response in its final form is very low; in some cases it may even be zero

Applications of Operant Conditioning:

Operant conditioning has become a very influential area of psychology, because it has successfully provided practical solutions to many problems in human behaviour.

Behaviour modification is the application of operant conditioning techniques to modify behaviour.

For example, people with the eating disorder anorexia nervosa have been helped to gain weight, and animals such as primates have been trained to assist physically disabled individuals by feeding and caring for them.

Other Kinds of Learning Conditioned Taste Aversions

Associating eating something with getting sick in which someone has a bad experience with a food and avoids it because of the experience.

Conditioned taste aversion is a very unique form of classical conditioning.

There is a long gap or lag of time from when the person eats the

food and then becomes sick (often hours). 

Birdsong Learning What The bird Say ? For most species song is limited to males during the mating season. Mockingbirds copy all the songs they hear and defend their territory

against intruders of all species sometimes even squirrels, cats, people, and automobiles.

Social Learning

According to the social-learning approach (Bandura, 1977, 1986), we learn about many behaviours before we try them.

Much learning, especially in humans, results from observing the behaviours of others and from imagining the consequences of our own behaviour.

Modelling and Imitation If you visit another country with customs unlike your own, you may

find much that seems bewildering. Even the way to order food in a restaurant may be unfamiliar.

You model your behaviour after others or imitate others. Imitation relates to an exciting discovery in brain functioning known

as ‘’mirror neurons, which are activated while you perform a movement and also while you watch someone else perform the same movement, such as reaching to grab an object.

Conclusion Behaviourism:Methodological and

Radical .The raise Of Behaviourism

Assumptions of Behaviourism

Classical Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

Other Kinds of Learning

Condition Taste Aversion Birdsong Learning

Social Learning Imitation