Chapter 5 Learning

Question 1

What are the seven types of learning?

Answer 1

Habituation
Statistical learning
Classical Conditioning
Operant Conditioning
Observational learning
Rational learning
Active learning

Question 2

What is habituation?

Answer 2

A decrease in response after repeated stimulation reveals that learning has taken place

Question 3

What is statistical learning?

Answer 3

Involves picking up information from the environment, forming associations among stimuli that occur in a statistically predictable pattern

Soaking up the statistics of the world

Ex. Infants use statistical learning to form candidate word forms in the Newport Study

Question 4

Newport Study

Answer 4

Aim:
Infants need to figure out a way to discover candidate word forms, and how they do it
One way to discover candidate word forms is to do transitional probabilities

Procedures:
Exposes subjects to artificial language with no pauses between syllables. (tabido gowami lanito gowami tabido gowani) That is made up of 3-syllable words.
The transitional probability between syllables in words is 100 (higher when they are within words).
While the probability between syllables in different words is 33%. They hear this for 2.5 minutes.
Then wanted to measure which is more surprising to hear on its own? the whole words or part words?
They measured how long the infants looked at the screen.

Findings
Infants begin to discriminate real words from part words, even after 2.5 minutes of exposure
Infants must be tracking local statistics in the input.
Adults act the same way.
Infants are more surprised by the part words than whole words, suggesting they learned the candidate word forms

Question 5

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 5

A form of learning that consists of associating an initially neutral stimulus with a stimulus that always evokes a particular reflexive response

Dog food (US) -> Salivation (UR)
Food (US) + Bell (NS) -> Salivation (UR) (several times)
Bell (CS) -> Salivation (CR)

Question 6

Toronto Heel Prick Study

Answer 6

Ex. Classical conditioning

Procedures:
21 infants of diabetic mothers & 21 matched controls
Only infants of diabetic mothers got repeated heel pricks in the first 36 hours of life
All infants had blood drawn from the hand on the second day of life
Infants’ responses to pain were compared

Findings:
The infants of the diabetic mothers showed more grimacing and crying during skin cleaning and during the procedure than the control infants
No experimental control, so it could be a spurious correlation

Question 7

Follow-up of Toronto Heel Prick Study

Answer 7

Procedures:
A separate group of 12 infants of DB mothers and matched controls was examined when they got injection of vitamin K
Vitamin K injection happens BEFORE daily heel pricks

Findings:
No difference in response to pain

Implications:
Show classical conditioning, but hard to create a study to show this

Question 8

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 8

Shaping voluntary behavior with a contingency

Rewards are introduced to increase a behavior
Punishment is introduced to decrease a behavior

Involves learning the relation between one’s own behavior and the consequences that result

Question 9

What is positive reinforcement?

Answer 9

A reward that reliably follows a behavior and increases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated

Question 10

Descasper and Fifer Study

Answer 10

An example of operant conditioning

Interburst interval of studying a familiar voice
Infants have to either increase or decrease the interburst interval to be rewarded to hear their mother’s voice

Question 11

Mobile Paradigm study

Answer 11

Procedures:
Babies are lying in their cribs and have a specific mobile
First, a baseline is taken, with a string tied to the foot not connected to the mobile
Then they tie a string to the foot of the infant connected to the mobile to see if they move foot (continence of causing movement of the mobile)
After, they go back to baseline without the string being tied to the mobile to see if they try to kick the feet to move the mobile
Babies from a very young age are learning information about the mobile

Findings:
3-month-olds remember the kicking response for about 1 week, whereas 6-month-olds remember it for 2 weeks
Infants younger than about 6 months of age remember the kicking response only when the test mobile is identical to the training mobile, whereas older infants remember it with novel mobiles

Question 12

What is an example of observational learning?

Answer 12

Imitation

Question 13

What is imitation?

Answer 13

Emulation of motor pattern or behavior

Question 14

Early Imitation Study

Answer 14

Newborns (after the birth) imitate the experimenter’s facial expressions
Sticking the tongue out is imitated by the newborn
Debate on what the findings mean
Maybe it is something innate and not really imitation

Question 15

Follow-up Study on early imitation study

Answer 15

Procedure:
6-week-old infants
Immediate and 24-hour delay test of imitation
Between-subject design: random assignment
Infants’ baseline frequency of open mouth and tongue protrusions measured with the E still-face
Infants frequency of open mouth and tongue protrusions measured with E still-face

Findings:
The baby sticks their tongue out immediately more in the TPmid and TPside than compared to other conditions
The baby imitates mouth opening more immediately in the MO condition compared to the other conditions
Seems to be evidence that the type of behavior the baby is going to engage in is influenced by the type of behavior modeled for them

Implications:
No clear, definitive interpretation or consensus
Shuts down the idea that it is innate, and some sense of imitation
Not sure what the imitation really means

Question 16

Study Infants analyze intentions when choosing how to imitate

Answer 16

Procedures:
Two conditions
Hands occupied - pressing the light with the forehead
Hands-free - pressing the light with the forehead
Infants are then allowed to play with the light, and you observe whether they use their head or hand to press the light

Findings:
Infants assume that since their hands are occupied, that is why they had to press the light with their forehead
Infants assume that since their hands are free, that means they are supposed to press the light with their forehead instead of using their hands

Question 17

Imitating Intentions Study

Answer 17

Experimenter fumbles and can’t pull the toy apart
Then hand the toy to the child
Question whether the baby imitates the fumble
But the baby copies the attempt and pulls apart the toy, and not the fumbling
Infants form a model of what the intention was and imitate the intended actions

But it is limited to human acts. Because the same procedures are done, but by a mechanical device. Infants attempt to reproduce the behavior and intentions of other people but not of inanimate objects

Question 18

Infants may even learn grit observationally Study

Answer 18

Procedures:
Conditions of the experiment:
Baseline
Effort condition
No effort condition
Container with a toy inside
Carabiner with keychain
In the effort condition, infants see the experimenter exert a lot of effort to get the toy
In the no effort condition, infants see the experimenter complete the task easily and rapidly
The experiment introduces a music toy to the infant and leaves room for 2 minutes

Findings
In the effort condition, the infants worked harder and persevered longer to try to get the music toy to play
Babies and infants are observing, and it is influencing them

Question 19

What is rational learning?

Answer 19

The ability to use prior experiences to predict what will occur in the future

Question 20

Rational Learning Study

Answer 20

Infants were shown a box containing 75 Ping-Pong balls; 70 were red and 5 were green. The infants then observed an experimenter close her eyes (to suggest a random selection) and draw 5 balls from the box — either 4 red and 1 green or 4 green and 1 red — and put them on display.

The infants looked longer at the display with the 4 green balls, indicating that they were surprised the experimenter drew mostly white balls from a box that was mostly filled with red balls

If the experimenter actually looks at the box, the babies are not surprised at different outcomes. The babies see that the experimenter looking at the box so they see that the experimenter could have selected it and no longer random

Question 21

What is active learning?

Answer 21

Learning by engaging with the world, rather than passively observing objects and events

Active engagement facilitates learning
Children remember information better about the toy they choose than if you just randomly give the child that toy

Infants learn more about objects that surprise us in some way that do something unexpected than the object behaving in a regular way.