What occurs when a strong conditioned stimulus is paired with a neutral stimulus?

Think Like a Psychologist: Principles in Action

MACHINE

The mind is a product of a physical machine, the brain.

In animals, fear conditioning such as Little Albert experienced is the result of changes in a brain region called the amygdala. People with damage to the amygdala don’t seem to be afraid of anything, so it would be impossible to induce fear conditioning in them.

UNCONSCIOUS

We are consciously aware of only a small part of our mental activity.

People subjected to classical conditioning report that they do not consciously produce the conditioned response; it seems to happen on its own, in a reflexive fashion. Little Albert’s fearful responses certainly appear reflexive. If Albert Barger was indeed Little Albert, and if his dislike of dogs was a result of Watson’s manipulations, he was unaware of the connection.

SOCIAL

We constantly modify our behavior, beliefs, and attitudes according to what we perceive about the people around us.

Whichever child was the true Little Albert, he was available for Watson’s study because his mother, pregnant out of wedlock, had few options to support them. This was the result of social attitudes at the time, which heaped shame on unwed mothers. Was Watson more willing to conduct his experiment on a child in such circumstances than a child of middle-class parents?

EXPERIENCE

Our experiences physically alter the structure and function of the brain.

Whatever Little Albert’s true name, he became terrified of many furry objects as a result of experiencing the pairing of such stimuli with loud, startling sounds. Indeed, all instances of learning result from experience. It is possible that Albert Barger’s lifelong dislike of dogs was a result of his experiences as an infant.

Critical Thinking Exercise

�    What is the most important thing you have learned outside of a classroom?� Why?

�    Any relatively permanent _____________ in behavior brought about by experience.

�  Classical Conditioning

�  Operant Conditioning

�  Cognitive Learning

�  Observational Learning

Classical Conditioning

�    Learning to make a ___________ response to a stimulus other than the original, natural stimulus that normally produces the reflex.

Ivan Pavlov

�    Russian physiologist (person who studies the workings of the body) who discovered __________________ through his work on digestion in dogs.

Pavlov�s Observation (1926)

�    Studied digestion in dogs

�  Presented meat powder and measured salivation

�  Dogs started salivating ____________ food was presented

�  Why?

Pavlov�s Experiment: Phase 1

�    Food (US): salivation (UR )

�  Reflexive response

�    Tone: nothing

Pavlov�s Experiment: Phase 2

�    CS is repeatedly paired with the US

�  A tone is sounded before the food is presented

�  Acquisition

Pavlov�s Experiment: Phase 3

�    Eventually, the CS elicits a new CR

�  Classical conditioning is complete when hearing the tone by itself causes salivation

Classical Conditioning Concepts

�    Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) - a _______________________ stimulus that leads to an involuntary response.

�  Unconditioned means �______________� or �naturally occurring.�

�    Unconditioned response (UCR) - an __________________ response to a naturally occurring or _______________ stimulus.

�    Conditioned stimulus (CS) - stimulus that becomes able to produce a learned reflex response by _________________________ the original unconditioned stimulus.

�    Conditioned response (CR) - learned ________________ response to a conditioned stimulus.

�  The CR behavior is always the _________ behavior as the UR.� What distinguishes them is what they occur _____________ to (US vs. CS).

Classical Conditioning: A More Relevant Example (College Spring Break)

�    Unconditioned Stimulus =

�    Unconditioned Response =

�    Conditioned Stimulus =

�    Conditioned Response =

��Conditions� for Classical Conditioning

�    The CS must come _____________ the UCS.

�    The CS and UCS must come _________________________ in time�ideally, only several seconds apart.

�    The neutral stimulus must be paired with the UCS _____________ times, often many times, before conditioning can take place.

�    The CS is usually some stimulus that is _______________ or stands out from other competing stimuli.

Classical Conditioning Concepts

�    Stimulus generalization - the tendency to respond to a stimulus that is only _________________ to the original conditioned stimulus with the conditioned response.

�    Stimulus discrimination - the tendency to stop making a _____________ response to a stimulus that is _____________ to the original conditioned stimulus because the similar stimulus is never paired with the unconditioned stimulus.

�    Extinction - the ________________ or weakening of a learned response following the removal or absence of the unconditioned stimulus (in classical conditioning) or the removal of a reinforcer (in operant conditioning).

�    Spontaneous recovery � the _________________ of a learned response after extinction has occurred.

�  Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior.

�    Higher-order conditioning - occurs when a strong conditioned stimulus is paired with a neutral stimulus, causing the neutral stimulus to become a _______________ conditioned stimulus.

Conditioned Emotional Response

�    Conditioned emotional response (CER) - emotional response that has become _____________________________ to occur to learned stimuli, such as a fear of dogs or the emotional reaction that occurs when seeing an attractive person.

�  CERs may lead to phobias � irrational ___________ responses.

The Case of �Little Albert�

�    �Little Albert� was conditioned to fear a _________________ and other similar stimuli (Watson & Rayner, 1920)

Other Conditioned Responses

�    Vicarious conditioning - classical conditioning of a reflex response or emotion by watching the ______________ of another person (Bandura & Rosenthal, 1966).

�    Conditioned taste aversion - development of a ___________________ or aversive response to a particular taste because that taste was followed by a nausea reaction, occurring after only one association (Garcia & Koelling, 1966).

�  Biological Preparedness - tendency of animals to learn certain associations, such as taste and nausea, with only one or few pairings due to the ___________________ of learning (Gustavson et al., 1976)

Operant Conditioning

�    Operant conditioning - the learning of _______________ behavior through the effects of pleasant and unpleasant ___________________ to responses (Skinner, 1938).

�    Thorndike�s Law of Effect - law stating that if a response is followed by a pleasurable consequence, it will tend to be ___________________, and if followed by an _________________ consequence, it will tend not to be repeated (Thorndike, 1911).

B.F. Skinner�s Contribution

�    Behaviorist; wanted to study only _____________, measurable behavior.

�    Gave �operant conditioning� its name.

�  Operant - any behavior that is _______________.

�    Learning depends on what happens ____________ the response � the consequence.

Skinner�s Rats

Operant Conditioning Concepts

Reinforcement

�    Reinforcement - any event or stimulus, that when following a response, __________________ the probability that the response will occur again.

�  Positive reinforcement - the reinforcement of a response by the addition or experiencing of a __________________ stimulus.

�  Negative reinforcement - the reinforcement of a response by the removal, escape from, or avoidance of an ______________ stimulus.

�Types of Reinforcers

�    Primary reinforcer - any reinforcer that is ______________ reinforcing by meeting a basic biological need, such as hunger, thirst, or touch.

�    Secondary reinforcer - any reinforcer that becomes reinforcing after being paired with a _____________________, such as praise, tokens, or gold stars.

Punishment

�    Punishment - any event or object that, when following a response, makes that response _____________________ to happen again.

�  Punishment by application - the punishment of a response by the addition or experiencing of an ________________ stimulus.

�  Punishment by removal - the punishment of a response by the removal of a ________________ stimulus.

How to Make Punishment More Effective

�         Punishment should ________________________ the behavior it is meant to punish.

�         Punishment should be ________________.

�         Punishment should be _________________ aversive.

�         Punishment of the wrong behavior should be paired, whenever possible, with reinforcement of the ____________________.

Negative Reinforcement vs. Punishment

�    Negative reinforcement ________________ the likelihood of a behavior, whereas punishment _________________ the likelihood of a behavior.

Other Operant Conditioning Concepts

�    Shaping - the reinforcement of ___________________ in behavior that lead to a desired, more complex behavior.

�  Successive approximations - small steps in behavior, one after the other, that lead to a particular goal behavior.

�    Extinction � occurs if the behavior (response) is not _______________.

�    Operantly conditioned responses also can be generalized to stimuli that are only ______________ to the original stimulus.

�    Spontaneous recovery (reoccurrence of a once ___________ response) also happens in classical conditioning.

Schedules of Reinforcement

�    Fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement - schedule of reinforcement in which the number of ________________ required for reinforcement is always the same.

�    Variable ratio schedule of reinforcement - schedule of reinforcement in which the number of responses required for reinforcement is _________________ for each trial or event.

�    Fixed interval schedule of reinforcement - schedule of reinforcement in which the interval of time that must pass before reinforcement becomes possible is always the ______________.

�    Variable interval schedule of reinforcement - schedule of reinforcement in which the interval of ____________ that must pass before reinforcement becomes possible is different for each trial or event.

Behavior Modification

�    Behavior modification - the use of _____________________ techniques to bring about desired changes in behavior.

�    Token economy - type of behavior modification in which desired behavior is _________________ with tokens.

�    Time-out - a form of _______________________ by removal in which a misbehaving animal, child, or adult is placed in a special area away from the attention of others.

�    Applied behavior analysis (ABA) � modern term for a form of behavior modification that uses ________________ techniques to mold a desired behavior or response (Lovaas, 1964).

Cognitive Learning

Cognitive Learning Theory

�    Early days of learning � focus was on _______________.

�    1950s and more intensely in the 1960s, many psychologists were becoming aware that ______________, the mental events that take place inside a person�s mind while behaving, could no longer be ignored (Kendler, 1985).

Latent Learning

�    Edward Tolman�s best-known experiments in learning involved teaching three groups of rats the same maze, one at a time (Tolman & Honzik, 1930).

�  Group 1 � rewarded each time at end of maze.

�  Learned maze quickly.

�  Group 2 � in maze every day; only rewarded on 10th day.

�  Demonstrated learning of maze almost immediately after receiving reward.

�  Group 3 � never rewarded.

�  Did not learn maze well.

�    Latent learning - learning that remains ____________ until its application becomes useful.

Learned Helplessness

�    Learned helplessness - the tendency to fail to act to escape from a situation because of a history of repeated ________________ in the past (Seligman, 1975).

Insight

�    Insight - the _______________ perception of relationships among various parts of a problem, allowing the solution to the problem to come quickly (Kohler, 1925).

�  Cannot be gained through trial-and-error learning alone.

�  �__________� moment.

Observational Learning

�    Observational learning - learning new behavior by watching a _________ perform that behavior.

�    Learning/performance distinction - referring to the observation that learning can take place without actual ________________ of the learned behavior.

Albert Bandura�s Famous BoBo Doll Experiment (1961)

�    Two Groups

�  Group 1: models played nonaggressively

�  Group 2: models played aggressively

�    Children _________________ the actions of the model they saw

Four Elements of Observational Learning

�     ATTENTION - To learn anything through _______________, the learner must first pay attention to the model.

�     MEMORY - The learner must also be able to ______________________ of what was done, such as remembering the steps in preparing a dish that was first seen on a cooking show.

�     IMITATION - The learner must be capable of ___________________, or imitating, the actions of the model.

�     MOTIVATION - Finally, the learner must have the ________________ to perform the action.

���

When a neutral stimulus is paired with a conditioned response?

What is it called when a neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned stimulus?

What happens when a conditioned stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus?

What happens when you pair a neutral stimulus with a conditioned stimulus that produces a conditioned reflex?