Learning prediction and control

Question 1

What is learning?

Answer 1

Process of acquiring new knowledge - could ask them but this isn’t possible in animals or small children

Persistent change in behaviour as a result of experience is a good definition

Necessary to adapt to changes in the environment
Do it throughout our lives, whenever you talk about memory something has been learned
Often unconscious of our learning

Question 2

Why is not all behaviour learned?

Answer 2

Some is innate - hard-wired and evolved

Adaptive for species to deal with fixed features of environment

Question 3

What are responses to stimuli never seen before can’t result from experience and can’t be learned?

Answer 3

Goose continues with behaviour even if egg removed and chooses volleyball over egg

Stickleback responds to most to stimulus that looks least like fish

Question 4

What was Tinbergen and Lorenz study on herring gulls?

Answer 4

• Examine whether presence, colour and position of red patch were important to induce chicks to peck
• presented chicks with models with a red, black, blue or white patch and a model with no patch and one with a red patch on the forehead
• model with black patch received most pecks
• model with red patch on forehead received least pecks
• preference for back was surprising, as he expected that the red patch would receive the most
• Chicks responded primarily to the contrasting spot on the beak

Question 5

What are S-R links?

Answer 5

Sign stimulus: elicits the response

Fixed action pattern: stereotypes response triggered by sign stimulus

Stimulus hard-wired to elicit response: mental link established through evolution

Question 6

What are supernormal stimuli?

Answer 6

Stimuli more effective than naturally occurring sign stimuli

Realism was important, comparing a bill with no head to a head with no bill, there was more pecking and a bill was presented alone with no head

Question 7

What are mental representations?

Answer 7

Mental state accompanying experience of stimulus

Mental state accompanying performance of response > unlearned association meaning experiencing stimulus can automatically trigger response

Question 8

Why can unlearned behaviour look stupid?

Answer 8

Certain aspects of environment are constant for some species

Preprograming appropriate responses to these cues increases survival and so selected for most animals environments are not constant - need to adapt to their lifetimes

Question 9

What is habituation?

Answer 9

Reduction in response to a stimulus after repeated exposure

Short term: response recovers after delay
Long term: reduced response remains

Pre-existing link between stimulus and response becomes less effective but according to this theory, no new associations are formed

Question 10

What are causal relationships?

Answer 10

• A stimulus signal is paired with stimulus outcome
• classical conditioning: stimulus predicts stimulus
• Causal relationship - prediction

Question 11

What occurs when two events are paired?

Answer 11

• Action paired with praise
• A response is paired with a stimulus outcome
• operant conditioning: response predicts stimulus
• Causal relationships - control

Links forms between mental representations of the two events that have been paired, to reflect what happened in the world

Unlike unlearned case, new links form from experiencing the pairings - they have been learned

Question 12

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 12

Predicting what’s going to happen, stimulus predicts stimulus whatever animal does

Learned CR involuntary - not rational or goal directed, reflects what the animal knows will happen

Question 13

What is instrumental conditioning?

Answer 13

Controlling what’s going to happen, response only predicts a stimulus if animal responses

Response voluntary - rational, goal-directed, reflects what animal wants to happen

Question 14

What needs to be done to ensure operant conditioning is successful?

Answer 14

Make sure the response if performed in the first place

Question 15

How do long box autoshaping investigate irrational involuntary CR?

Answer 15

Key followed by grain regardless of whether bird pecks it or not, but bird pecks

Pecking prevented bird from receiving all his grain - irrational, not goal-directed so suggests classical conditioning

Classical conditioning evolutionarily sensible

Question 16

What is voluntary operant response?

Answer 16

Rat trained to press a lever for food - was able to do it quickly after a period of training

Voluntary response

For operant conditioning to be successful, the rat has to respond, so they put sucrose pellets on the lever to make them interested and find the association in the first place “by accident”

Can’t guarantee they will find the association

Question 17

Why can’t we control experience?

Answer 17

In practice, we can’t control all experience

Can control which stimuli are paired but not that animal will experience them

Can pair two stimuli but can’t remove all other stimuli in environment

Can’t stop animal responding – means other pairings might happen