Types of Learning

Behaviourism

Outline
Behaviourism
Classical Conditioning
Operant Conditioning

Other Kinds of Learning

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

Deny that internal, private event
measured and observed.
such as hunger, fear causes
Sometimes use those observations to
behaviour
infer internal events
The ultimate cause of any behaviour
It claims that psychology should concern
lies in the observable events that led
itself with the behaviour of organisms
up to the behaviour, not the internal
states

The Raise of Behaviourism

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

1918 Jacques Loebs view of behaviour :

Stimuli

Response

Todays Behaviourists believe that behaviour is a product of not only

the current stimuli but also the individuals 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

Conditioned
stimulus
Injection
procedure

Second
Stimulus
Drug enter
brain

Unconditioned
stimulus
Drug enter
brain

Automatic
Response
Bodys
defenses

Unconditioned
response
Bodys
defenses

Conditioned
stimulus
Injection
procedure

Conditioned
Response
Bodys
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
Forward
(delayed)
conditioning

CS comes first but continues until

US
Conditioning occurs readily

Forward (traced)
conditioning

CS comes first and ends before the

start of US
Conditioning occurs readily but
response is sometimes weak

Forward (traced)
conditioning with
longer delay

Conditioning is weaker

Simultaneous
Conditioning

Cs and US are presented or

terminated at the same time.

Backward
Conditioning

After a few repetition, CS

becomes inhibitory
That is a signal for a time of
absence of the US

Temporal
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

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.

Limitation
Responses must involve a
reflex.

Not all behavior follows

the indentified model.

Some actions are initiated

by an impulse that may not
be under the direct control
of an external stimuli.

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

Other Kinds of Learning

Operant Conditioning

Condition Taste Aversion

Birdsong Learning
Social Learning
Imitation