unit 1 review 1. to say that learning has taken place, we must observe a change in a subject’s...
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Unit 1 Review
1. To say that learning has taken place, we must observe a change in a subject’s behavior. What two requirements must this behavioral change meet before we can conclude that it resulted from learning and not from other processes?
Unit 1 Review
1. First, the behavioral change must be long-lasting. This is to rule out explanations in terms of temporary states like fatigue and motivation.
Second, the change must be the result of some type of experience the subject has had. This is to rule out an explanation in terms of the biological process of maturation.
Unit 1 Review
2. Suppose that no change in behavior takes place as the result of practice or experience. What conclusion can we draw about whether learning occurred? Relate to the concept of latent learning.
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2. If there is no change in behavior, no conclusion can be drawn about whether learning occurred. It may be a case of latent learning, an internal state that creates the potential to perform behavior when there is an incentive to do so.
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Latent learning implies that we have to distinguish between learning, a theoretical internal state, and behavior (or performance), something we can observe directly.
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3. Learning is an “intervening variable”. How are intervening variables different from other kinds of internal states?
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3. Intervening variables are theoretical; they exist only as ideas that help us understand relationships between observable variables.
In contrast, conscious experiences and physiological processes are real phenomena that can be observed directly.
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Conscious experiences can be observed only by the person who has those experiences; they are subjective.
Physiological processes can be observed by others with appropriate instruments; such processes are objective.
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4. According to the behavioral and cognitive traditions in learning theory, what is learned when learning takes place?
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4. The behavioral view is that learning produces associations between specific actions and specific stimuli in the environment. These stimuli may occur either before the behavior (antecedents) or after the behavior (consequences).
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The cognitive view is that learning produces mental representations of the elements that make up a problem. Through practice or experience, we learn how to relate these elements to each other so that we can solve the problem.
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5. What are the two major traditions in philosophy that address the question of where our knowledge comes from?
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5. The nativist view is that basic ideas like space, motion, and causality are inborn.
The empiricist view is that all ideas are learned. Ideas start as simple sensory experiences (sensations). When sensations become associated with each other, they form more complex ideas.
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6. In the empiricist tradition, what two principles have been used most often to explain how associations are formed?
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6. One is the principle of temporal contiguity, which states that we tend to connect events that we experience simultaneously, like seeing a table and a chair at the same time.
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The principle of frequency states that the more often we experience two events contiguously (simultaneously), the more strongly we will tend to associate them.
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7. In classical conditioning, a CR is trained by repeatedly “pairing” a CS with a US. What is a pairing?
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7. A pairing means presenting the CS (ringing the bell) and then quickly presenting the US (putting food in the dog’s mouth). The more times you do this (i.e. as you increase the number of pairings), the stronger will be the CR (the amount of salivation that occurs when you ring the bell).
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8. In classical conditioning, after we train a CR, how can we eliminate it using the extinction procedure?
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8. In extinction, we eliminate a CR by repeatedly presenting the CS without the US. If we keep ringing the bell and don’t give the dog food, he will salivate less and less in response to the bell and eventually he will stop.
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9. In classical conditioning, what is meant by a “contingency” between the CS and the US? Distinguish between positive and negative contingencies.
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9. A contingency means that whether or not the US occurs depends on whether or not the CS occurred before it. If the occurrence of the CS helps you predict whether or not the US will occur, then the US is contingent on the CS.
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A positive contingency means that the CS signals an increase in the likelihood that the US will occur (compared to the period when there was no CS).
A negative contingency means that the CS signals a decrease in the likelihood that the US will occur.
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10. What are excitatory and inhibitory conditioning? How do they relate to positive and negative contingencies?
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10. In excitatory conditioning, the subject learns to perform a certain response, like salivating. In inhibitory conditioning, the subject learns to withold or suppress that response. Theoretically, this is done by learning an unobserved internal response of conditioned inhibition.
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According to contingency theory, positive contingencies produce excitatory conditioning and negative contingencies produce inhibitory conditioning. A positive contingency between bell and food will make the dog salivate when the bell rings. A negative contingency will make him stop salivating when the bell rings (he salivates when the bell is not ringing).
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11. In Rescorla’s experiment on contingencies in classical conditioning, how were positive, negative, and zero contingencies arranged between the tones and shocks?
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11. In the positive contingency, shocks only occurred right after the tones, never before or between the tones.
In the negative contingency, shocks only occurred before or between the tones, never right after the tones.
In the zero contingency, shocks could occur at any time; they were equally likely to occur before, after, and between the tones.
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12. In Rescorla’s experiment, what type of CR, if any, was produced by each contingency?
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13. The positive contingency produced a fear CR, as indicated by an increase in jump rate while the tones were on during the test phase.
The negative contingency produced a relaxation CR (inhibition of fear), as indicated by a decrease in jump rate.
The zero contingency produced no CR, as indicated by an unchanged jump rate during the tones.
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13. Conditioned inhibition is an internal CR that prevents some other response (like salivation) from occurring. To get a CS to produce an inhibitory CR, two requirements must be met. One is that the US never comes after the CS. What is the other requirement?
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13. For conditioned inhibition to develop, the US must sometimes occur in the same place where the CS occurs.
The subject learns an association between the US and contextual stimuli. This produces a CR (like salivation) in that location EXCEPT when the CS occurs. The CS inhibits the CR because there is no US after the CS.
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14. What is the Law of Effect? Why doesn’t it explain why dogs learn to salivate in response to a bell after the bell has been paired repeatedly with food?
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14. The Law of Effect states that behavior changes because of its effects (consequences) in the environment. In classical conditioning, the CR has no effect on the presentation of the US. The dog gets the food whether or not he salivates in response to the bell. The Law of Effect implies that no learning should occur because the CR has no consequences.
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15. What is operant conditioning? Give an example of how it applies the Law of Effect.
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15. Operant conditioning is a process by which behavior is modified as a result of its consequences in the environment. You offer your dog food if he stands. If he doesn’t stand, he doesn’t get the food. The dog repeatedly performs the behavior. In operant conditioning, the learned behavior has consequences—it must be performed to get something.
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16. How is positive reinforcement similar to negative reinforcement? How are these two procedures different?
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16. Both positive and negative reinforcement increase the likelihood that a response will be repeated. The term, positive, means that a stimulus is added to the situation after the response occurs (e.g., presenting a food pellet after a rat’s bar press response). The term, negative, means that a stimulus is removed after the response occurs (e.g., turning off shock after a bar press).
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17. Reinforcers and punishers are consequences of behavior. What two kinds of stimuli are antecedents of behavior? Define and give an example of each.
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17. One type of antecedent is a discriminative stimulus: When it is present, a response may be reinforced. For example, when the doorbell rings, opening the door is likely to be reinforced by seeing someone there.The other type of antecedent is a delta stimulus: When it is present, a response will not be reinforced. If the doorbell didn’t ring, opening the door would not be reinforced.
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18. What is a continuous schedule of reinforcement (CRF)? How is it similar to a fixed-ratio (FR) schedule?
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18. On CRF, reinforcement is given every time a response occurs. For example, pushing up a light switch in a room always turns on the light.On FR, reinforcement is given after a certain number of responses is made, and this number is always the same, like double-clicking a desktop icon to open a program—this is an FR 2 schedule.CRF is a special case of FR with a requirement of 1 response (CRF = FR 1).
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19. Draw a cumulative record, labeling both the X and Y axes. On the graph, show two response patterns: a high, constant response rate and a relatively low, constant response rate.
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19.
Time
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sHigh Response Rate
Low Response Rate
Cumulative Record
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20. On a cumulative record, draw the response pattern that usually occurs on a fixed-interval (FI) schedule (FI “scallop”).
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20.
Time
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sFI Scallop
Response rate gradually increases as the time until the next reinforcement decreases.
= reinforcement
Response rate is positively accelerated.