ARIOLA, Ma. Jaya A.

Psych11 Reviewer

Chapter 6 - Learning

Learning- permanent change in behavior, occurs as a result of experience

 Associative Learning- behaviorist perspective; external stimuli or an association between a

stimulus and a response
 Classical conditioning- one event follows another
 (e.g. tone is always followed by shock)
 Operant conditioning- response will be followed by a particular consequence
 (e.g. rats are given food whenever they press the lever)
 Cognitive Learning- behavior is not solely due to environmental causes but also to internal
events such as processing information, memory storage, info manipulation
Learning depends on 3 things:
1. Form mental representations
2. Manipulate representations
3. Implement results of representations

Classical Conditioning (by Ivan Pavlov)- an originally neutral stimulus is repeatedly paired with a
stimulus that naturally elicits a response. With repeated pairings, the neutral stimulus begins to elicit a
similar or even identical response.
Basic Stages/Processes in Classical Conditioning:
1. ACQUISITION
 Before Conditioning- the unconditioned stimulus (US) elicits the unconditioned response
(UR), but the neutral stimulus does not
 During Conditioning- the neutral stimulus is paired with the US
 After Conditioning- the conditioned stimulus (CS) elicits the UR even without the US
*Little Albert experiment in 1920 by John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner, involving a rat and a
loud noise to evoke fear
2. EXTINCTION- weakening conditioned responses
 If the CS occurs repeatedly without the US, the response would gradually weaken and be
eventually eliminated
3. SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY- recovering conditioned responses
 The CS-US association is not permanently destroyed in an extinction procedure, only actively
inhibited by the organism
4. Higher Order Conditioning- when pairing an established CS (CS1) with a new neutral stimulus
(CS2), the new stimulus comes to elicit the CR
 Secondary conditional reflex- happens when a new CS bonds with an old CS
5. Generalization and Discrimination
 Stimulus generalization- CRs occur in the face of similar stimuli
 Stimulus discrimination- the learned tendency to respond only to the stimulus used in training
 6. Contiguity and Predictability
Important factors in conditioning:
 Contiguity (closeness in time between CS and US)
 Frequency of pairings
 Predictability of CS
 Blocking- CS overshadows the presentation of new stimulus because it offers no new nor
useful information

Biological Constraints in Classical Conditioning

*Taste Aversion Study- this study shows that it is easier to learn some associations than others. Selectivity
of association exists and fits the ethological view that there are associations genetically preprogrammed
to some extent

Operant Conditioning
Thorndike’s Law of Effect (1898)
- By Edward Thorndike, studied animal intelligence
- Basis of operant conditioning
- The greater the satisfaction or discomfort generated by a response, the greater the strengthening
or weakening of the bond
The Research of B.F. Skinner
*Project Pigeon- pigeons were trained to guide missiles to their targets
- Operant Conditioning (OC) – behavior is strengthened through reinforcement
- No reinforce will occur until the subject makes the required response
- Instrumental conditioning- subject is instrumental to obtaining the reinforcer; organism has an
active role
The three-term contingency
- A contingency rule states that some event B will occur if only if event A occurs
- In OC, the reinforce occurs only if the response occurs
Components:
1. Discriminative stimulus (context or situation in which a response occurs)
2. Response
3. Stimulus reinforcer
Shaping- involves reinforcing behaviors until the desired behavior occurs
Kinds of reinforcement:
 Positive Reinforcement- an event which, when it follows an operant response, increases the
likelihood that the response will recur.
 Negative Reinforcement- an event whose termination, when it occurs following an operant
response, increases the likelihood that the response will recur
o Primary reinforcer- biologically significant appetitive stimulus (e.g. food, water)
o Conditioned reinforcer- surrogate for the reinforcer, increasing the strength of any response that it
follows (e.g. grades, tokens, money)
o Back-up reinforcers – in a token economy, these are the items (e.g. ice cream, candy, toys) in
exchange for the tokens that are administered immediately after a response
Schedules of Reinforcement
- A rule that states under what conditions a reinforcer will be delivered
- Continuous reinforcement (CRF)- reinforce every occurrence of the operant response (e.g. putting
coins in vendo machines)
- *Skinner realized that most behavior is reinforced only intermittently or partially
4 simple schedules:
1. fixed-ratio – fixed number of responses must be made before the reward is administered (e.g.
factory worker is paid P20 after every 12 shirts)
2. variable-ratio – number of responses determines the delivery of reinforcement, but the ratio
changes from reinforcement to reinforcement (e.g. slot machines, gambling joints- keeps people
coming back and guessing when the next pay-off will be)
3. fixed-interval – after a reinforced response, some interval of time passes during which
reinforcement is unavailable. Once the interval is over, the next response is reinforced, thereby
triggering the non-reinforcement interval to start again (e.g. salaried employees who receive their
paycheck every week)
*Scalloping effect- no responses just after a reinforcement and responding begins just before the
next reinforcement
4. variable-interval – period of non-reinforcement varies after each reinforced response (e.g.
waiting for bus, arrives on an average of 10 minutes, thereby reinforcing your waiting behavior
after 10 minutes)
*Ratio schedule- delivery of reinforcement depends on the number of times the learner makes the
response
*Interval schedule- based on the passage of time
The Use of Negative Reinforcement
 Escape learning- a specific behavior is made to terminate or end an aversive event (e.g. dogs
jump to escape electric shock; turning off the volume of the tv to escape loud sound)
 Avoidance learning- a specific behavior is made to prevent or avoid an aversive event (e.g. study
to avoid failing, paying bills on time to avoid cut-off)
Punishment
- An aversive stimulus event is presented after a response, with the end view of suppressing that
response
- The goal is to decrease a response (unlike NR where the goal is to increase a response)
- Effects of punishment can be permanent, like that of positive reinforcement
6 Variables that lead to the effectiveness of punishment:
1. Manner of introduction – introduced at its full intensity (mild punishment will lead to subjects
getting used to it; gradual increase will enable the subjects to adapt- and therefore will have little
effect on behavior)
2. Immediacy of Punishment – the more immediate the punishment, the greater the decrease in
responding
3. Schedule of Punishment – the most effective way to eliminate a behavior is to punish every
response
4. Motivation to Respond – the effectiveness of a punishment is inversely related to the intensity of
the subjects’ motivation to respond
 5. Availability of Alternative Behaviors – the subject is provided with an alternative way to obtain
the reinforcer that has been maintaining some inappropriate behavior (e.g. children punished for
fighting should be reinforced with cooperative play)
6. Punishment as a discriminative stimulus – punishment is ineffective when it functions as a
discriminative stimulus—a signal predicting the availability of a reinforcer or a cue for something
pleasant (e.g. children may get punished but may later be lavished with attention)
Contiguity vs. Contingency: Learned Helplessness
Temporal contiguity- an operant behavior is conditioned when reinforcement immediately follows the
behavior
Controllability – alternative to contiguity; the extent to which the situation or event is seen to be
under or out of one’s control
Learned helplessness effect – when response and consequence are independent, an organism learns
that important environmental events are not subject to its control, thereby producing an inability to
learn in situations where important events may be controllable
*Operant conditioning occurs when an organism perceives contingency or relationship between its
response and reinforcement
Biological Constraints in Operant Conditioning
- In escape learning where an animal acquires a response that is reinforced by the termination of
shock, pigeons learn faster if the response is wing flapping rather than pecking a key.
- However, in the case of reward training where the reinforcer is food, pigeons learn pecking faster
than wing flapping, since pecking is part of the birds’ natural eating activity
- Does not support the assumption of equipotentiality in learning, or the idea that the same laws of
behavior apply to all situations.

Learning by Observation
- Also called vicarious learning
- Possibly accounts for most human learning, because it would be a very slow process if we have to
experience the consequences of every behavior
- *Social learning theorist Albert Bandura conducted several studies that show how we acquire
operants by observing others. He holds that in learning through imitation, 2 important points
must be considered:
 The consequences- there is less imitation when a child sees the model punished rather
than reinforced
 Expectancy of reinforcement- direct reinforcement is not necessary
- 4 factors that determine the occurrence of imitative behavior:
 Attentional processes – pay attention to the appropriate features of the model’s
behavior
 Retentional processes – retain some of the information gathered through observation
if imitation is to occur at a later time. Rehearsal may be important.
*Observational learning in humans involves 2 representational systems:
imaginal and verbal
*verbal descriptions can guide behavior
 Motor reproductive processes – translate some general knowledge into a
coordinated pattern of muscle movements
  Incentive and motivational processes – not necessary, but without which the
behavior may not occur. The individual must have an expectation that the
performance of the new behavior will result in some type of reinforcement.
3 important elements in observational learning:
a) Type and power of the model – authoritative and nurturant, rewardingness
b) Learner’s personality and degree of independence – the less self-confidence a person
has, the more likely the person is to imitate a model
c) Situation – when there is uncertainty about what is considered proper behavior (e.g.
asking dating tips from your peers)

Cognitive Learning
The Gestaltists – Max Wertheimer, Wolfgang Kohler, Franz Koffka, believed that behaviorism could
not account for much of human learning
Phi phenomenon – by Wertheimer, an optical illusion of perceiving a series of still images, when
viewed in rapid succession, as continuous motion (e.g. advertising lights)
- Wertheimer argued that this cannot be explained by simple stimulus-response
- During information processing, subjects add something to incoming data to form the
perception of movement
Animal Experiments
Insight Learning – grasping the relationships inherent in the problem and achieving the solution
through insight
 Sultan (by Kohler) – the most celebrated chimpanzee. He wanted to get the fruit
outside of his cage, and he used the short stick to scratch the long stick towards him
so he can reach the fruit. Another case was when he stacked the crates to get the
bunch of bananas hanging from the ceiling.
 Pigeons (by Epstein) – Conditioned to climb, peck, and push. Eventually, the pigeons
used all of these conditioned behaviors to reach a hanging banana.
Latent Learning – takes place even without any reward. When the reward appears, what has been
learned (latent) is suddenly demonstrated (manifest)
 Rats – In a maze, group 1 was given food when it reached the end, group 2 none, and group 3
none for the first 10 days and given food on the next 7 days. Group 1 performed better than
the 2 groups. However, when group 3 was given food on the 11th day, they started performing
as well as group 1.
*They used a cognitive map (schema) – abstract mental representation used to organize
knowledge and make sense of real-world situations
Cognitive Viewpoint in Learning
1. Learning is a constructive, not a receptive, process – active integration of previous
knowledge with incoming information; construction of personal meaning
2. Structuring knowledge is essential – schemas tell us to what we should give attention, help
us remember relevant things, and guide us in comprehending the world. We often view situations
in terms of our personal schemas.
3. Self-awareness and self-regulation are emphasized – metacognition (thinking about
thinking) has 2 components: a) the knowledge we have about our thinking and b) ability to
regulate our thinking
 4. Learning is influenced by motivation and beliefs – successful learners do not just have
mastery of content, but are also active, motivated, and confident learners
5. Social Interaction is integral to cognitive development – cooperative learning and peer
discussions stimulate learners to clarify and reconceptualize their information via bouncing ideas
off each other and generating constant feedback

Meaningful Learning
- The acquisition of new meanings (David Ausubel, 1970)
 Material to be learned is potentially appropriate for learners
 Learners should transform such material so that it will have personal meaning
- Related to what learners already know
- Discovery Learning (Jerome Bruner) – we tend to remember and comprehend better the
things we have discovered for ourselves

Chapter 7 - Memory

The Processes of Memory

 Encoding – putting something into a form that memory systems can handle (e.g. visually,
acoustically, semantically)
 Storage – maintaining the coded information within the memory systems (executing a skill
you have not done for a long time)
 Retrieval – finding the information in storage and then bringing it to awareness
 Recall – deliberately search through memory for a particular piece of information and
report it if found
 Recognition – the info to be retrieved is actually presented, after which the person
reports whether he/she remembers it or not

The Systems of Memory

 Sensory register – receives all stimuli in your environment
- Holds unanalyzed and untransformed info, and stores an exact replica of sensory info
briefly, just long enough for other processes to extract what they need
- Icon – mental picture (George Sperling, 1960)
- Echo – mental representation for the auditory sense (Crowder and Morton, 1969)
 Short-term memory – once you notice or attend to a stimulus in the sensory register, it is
then encoded in STM
 Long-term memory – likely to be stored in LTM from where it can be retrieved and
deliberately brought back to STM
- Made up of large amounts of semantic info accumulated over the years
 Procedural memory – skills such as swimming, driving, typing
 Declarative memory – various sorts of knowledge
 Semantic memory - facts
 Episodic memory – particular events
Working Memory: Another Model of Memory Systems
- STM may be part of LTM that is active during the completion of a current task
- No need for a separate system
- Baddeley’s (2001) model incorporates LTM into working memory
 Crystallized systems – visual semantics, language, episodic long-term memory
 Fluid systems – central executive (supervises the attention required by most memory
tasks), visuospatial sketchpad (matrices, patterns, locations), phonological loop
(stores and manipulates speech-related info), episodic buffer (connection between the
other parts of the storage systems)

Connectionism: Another Model of Memory Systems

- Parallel distributed processing view
- Memory is made up of networks that in turn are made up of a vast number of connected
units that process information in a parallel and distributed manner

Some Principles Governing Encoding, Storage, and Retrieval

Encoding
 Acoustic encoding of information in short-term memory
 Primacy and recency effects in free recall
 The level-of-processing principle and transfer appropriate processing
o Maintenance rehearsal – repeat the information over and over again
o Elaborative rehearsal – thinking about the material in ways that may relate to other
information you know
*The level of processing during encoding determines the level of memory
performance (Craik and Lockhart, 1972)
*Recall performance depends on whether the processing during encoding is
appropriate to the processing required during retrieval (Morris, Bransford, and
Franks, 1977)
Storage
The storage capacity of STM –7 plus or minus 2 chunks (meaningful units) of information
Chunking – a very effective means of enhancing one’s memory
Decay vs. Interference Theories of Forgetting
o Decay theory – with the passage of time, the memory trace gradually fades until it
disappears completely
o Interference theory – interference from other information stored in memory that may
accumulate as time passes
 Retroactive interference – new info displaces old info (present affects past)
 Proactive interference – old info affects the memory of new info (past affects present)

Retrieval and Reconstruction

Retrieval cue – an explicit prompt or question to recall a particular piece of info
The Encoding Specificity Principle of Retrieval
- A retrieval cue is most effective if it is very similar to the cues during encoding
 - Mood-dependent memory – pleasant events were more often recalled by those in a
positive emotional state, while unpleasant events were more often recalled by those
in a negative emotional state
The Reconstruction of Memory According to One’s Expectations and Knowledge
- Subjects do not only reconstruct memory, but also seem to report memory of events
and objects they did not actually see
- Using post-event misinformation, the subjects were misled into thinking
- Not only do we forget things, but we can also be led to remember things we did not
encode in the first place
People’s Susceptibility to Misinformation
- Discrepancy-Detection Principle – people will more likely be misled by
misinformation when they cannot detect the discrepancy between the misinformation
and the actual information
- People are more likely to be misled if: an event happened long ago; the
misinformation is subtle

Strategies for Improving Memory

 SQ3R Technique – Survey, Question, Read, Recite, Review (Elaborative rehearsal and
deeper levels of processing
 Mnemonics – verbal organization
 Method of Loci – utilizes imagery as a means to facilitate memory, where a person
visualizes each of the items to be remembered in a different spatial location. When it is time
to recall the info, the person inspects each of the chosen spatial locations and retrieves the
item associated with the location (e.g. associate the events of the French revolution with the
buildings you see in your daily walk)
 Peg method – the items to be remembered are attached to or associated with mental pegs by
forming images that comprise the peg and the item to be remembered (e.g. numbers or
nursery rhymes)
 Key-word technique – utilizes easy to recall words
*Good encoding ensures good retrieval
*You are likely to remember info if…
- Study in an organized, meaningful, elaborate way
- Relate or connect pieces of info that are already familiar to you

Memory Disorders
 Anterograde amnesia – difficulty forming new memories
 Korsakoff syndrome – symptoms of anterograde amnesia found among certain alcoholic
patients
 Retrograde amnesia – memory loss for events prior to the event that caused the amnesia
 Alzheimer’s disease – “eating away” of the brain by plaques and tangles, usually starting
with the hippocampus and later on affecting other areas of the brain including those with
memory functions