Lecture 5: behaviourism

Question 1

Why is behaviourism important

Answer 1

Important development in psyc
Set methodological practices
Key stage in psychology

Question 2

elaborate on structuralism

Answer 2

Relied on introspection
Questionnaires - not used as much in cognitive psychology =usually to get info about people’s history

Question 3

describe empiricism

Answer 3

How we measure and document world, informs theoretical perspectives, data essential to forming theories
Knowledge based on experience and experimentation
Experimental science is paradigm of knowledge
Experience and experiment, rarely produce complete certainty
Mathematics = tool to describe experience

Question 4

describe empiricism ex

Answer 4

Behaviorism= empiricist, rejected all forms of higher order cognition - say its unstudyable
Introspection = thought higher order drives cognition

Question 5

describe rationalism

Answer 5

Idealism, traditional perspective
Assume things about reality and deduce nature of reality via math and stuff, experiments secondary to overall theoretical framework
Knowledge = based on use of reason or logic
Mathematics= paradigm of knowledge
Genuine knowledge is certain
Relation to experience = experience does not produce certainty and does not conform to reason, thus experience = at best second class knowledge

Question 6

describe rationalism ex

Answer 6

Chomsky = rationalist, does not care about data, cares about documenting language and mathematical properties of language

Question 7

describe internal vs external theories of cognition

Answer 7

Behaviourism touches on this
Are we adaptive - changing behaviours in response to envir
Or is envir changing behaviour so can better function here?
Behaviorists = learn from envir = adapt behavior based on patterns of stimuli = external
Info processesing approach = more internal, modern approaches = mix of ext and int

Question 8

ian Pavlov - background

Answer 8

• Russian physiologist - studied learning in dogs
• Discovered classical conditioning
• Received Nobel prize in 1904
• Start of the behaviorist movement in psychology
  fundamental rule of how learning operates, classical conditioning = powerful forms of learning

Question 9

descartes nervous reflex

Answer 9

Pavlov’s theorization came from Descartes
Mind body dualism = body mechanical and mind = soul interacts with brain to pineal gland
Motor control - nerves, when touch hot = thought message in form of animal spirits sent from your senses and goes to brain and animal spirits made motor response sent down to msucles
Major development, popular thought

Question 10

metaphor in cognitive theory

Answer 10

Descartes,
Plumbing
Knee reflex = garden with incredible plumbing - brain as a complicated web of plumbing

Question 11

describe classical conditioning = generally

Answer 11

A procedure to demonstrate acquisition or learning of a new stimulus-response pathway/association
* UCS = Unconditioned Stimulus
* UCR = Unconditioned Response
* CS = Conditioned Stimulus
* CR = Conditioned Response

= get conditioned stimulus to produce unconditioned response = replace stimulus that leads to desired response, once response conditioned = now considered conditioned response
Ucs = dog see food, ucr= dog salivate
Happens automatically

Question 12

describe ex of classical conditioning = dog with food

Answer 12

Ucs= food
Ucr= dog salivate
Neutral stimulus = bell
Then acquisition = pair bell with food
After = conditioned stimulus = bell and conditioned response = dog salivate
= now dog salivates to bell =
Trained a new association by pairing conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus together
Replace old stimulus response patterns, Simple’s form of learning across species

Question 13

describe ex of classical conditioning = Blinks

Answer 13

Hear bell = blast air in eye = blink
The blink only if bell
Unconscious

Question 14

describe graph of classical conditioning = extinction

Answer 14

2 phases = acquisition trials and extinction trails
Slope changes =
number of trials = increase probability of constructing desired response
How strong unconditioned stimulus is = if less strong have slower acquisition, initial strength of stimulus and response = main driver
Extinction trails = only present conditioned stimulus= get them to forget stimulus response association = forget association without reward

Question 15

describe graph of classical conditioning = spontaneous recovery

Answer 15

Can be reinstated but lower rate

Question 16

John b Watson = background

Answer 16

Formed behaviorism
* American psychologist
* Early proponent of behaviorism
* Published a “Behaviorist Manifesto” in 1913

Question 17

John b Watson = interest

Answer 17

Psychology as the behaviorist views it is a purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behavior. Introspection forms no essential part of its methods, nor is the scientific value of its data dependent upon the readiness with which they lend themselves to interpretation in terms of consciousness. The behaviorist, in his efforts to get a unitary scheme of animal response, recognizes no dividing line between man and brute. The behavior of man, with all of its refinement and complexity, forms only a part of the behaviorist’s total scheme of investigation
Watson = behaviourist = wanted to be considered a real scientist
Try to understand response animals made
Usually consciousness never talked about
Complete dissociation of ideas of Galton/genesis, Watson says we are all juts like rats
Experiments on animals = rats

Question 18

Little Albert experiment = set up

Answer 18

One of the most infamous psychology experiments, Conditioned a 9-month-old to be scared of a white rat
Tried to develop phobia - Freudian psych = problems adults face come from trauma as child
Unconditioned stimuli = rats, blankets
Ucs = loud noise and ucr = cry
Pair objects with loud noise = baby’s becomes scared of fuzzy objects

Question 19

Little Albert experiment = results

Answer 19

When see other animals like rabbits and dogs and furry objects like beard or masks = also elicit a fear response = transfer learning (scared of anything soft, if stimulus similar = transfer associations)
Was not deconditioned
Watson raised his own children with behaviorist principles – all eventually attempted suicide, Thought that parents should treat children as young adults

Question 20

watson’s s-r system

Answer 20

• Thought the use of introspection and terms like consciousness were unscientific (moved away from them)
• Proposed Stimulus – Response patterns as the basis of behavior
• Did not propose mathematical systems to quantify things like association strength or extinction rates
• Fired in 1920 for having an affair with his student (Continued writing popular science books related to parenting and worked
  in the advertising industry)
• Popularity of his work led to behaviorism becoming dominant focus in North America- Acceptance of this form of psych being scientifically valid (classical conditioning), establish psychology as science

Question 21

bf skinner = background

Answer 21

• Very influential behaviorist
• Was a “radical behaviorist”
• Like Watson, considered the social ramifications of behaviorism
• Published a utopian fiction novel in 1948
• Created operant conditioning

Question 22

what is operant conditioning = gen

Answer 22

Skinner distinguished between type s and type r conditioning

Question 23

what is operant conditioning = type s

Answer 23

Classical conditioning
S-r relationship already exists before conditioning (like food triggers salivation) and conditioning transfers control over the response from a Ucs (food) to a new stimulus (tone)
Modify existing stimulus response (s-r) pattern

Question 24

what is operant conditioning = type r

Answer 24

Operant behaviour (learning new stimulus response pattern )
Operants = any behaviour that animals do somewhat spontaneously
Type r learning involves gaining stimulus control over behaviour, so that some stimulus will cases behavior to occur regularly

Question 25

describe skinner box

Answer 25

* Skinner placed rats in boxes equipped with a lever * Rats would spontaneously hit the lever (the operant behavior)- interact/explore and see what happens * Skinner developed methods to systematically predict and control lever-pressing behavior in the box Hit level = get reward Initially = no association but by exploration - rat acquires stimulus response association Operant conditioning - more important for learning in advanced species, important in learning New stimulus response pattern

Question 26

describe simple operant conditioning

Answer 26

All responses to lever = reinforced Pick up on how to get food = learn stimulus response pattern After 4 times hitting level = then learns association and presses a LOT

Question 27

describe simple operant conditioning = results

Answer 27

* Skinner showed operant forms of learning that were similar to Pavlov’s conditions (complementary to) * He set out to develop an abstract description system capable of predicting and controlling lever pressing * Skinner’s system involved his own set of terms and lawful relationships * The laws were supposed to be empirically verified regularities in behavior Wanted to explain nature of behaviour itself Interested in behavior as a separate thing from cognition

Question 28

ec tolman = background

Answer 28

Questioned skinner * Early “Cognitive” Behaviorist * Studied maze-learning abilities in rats * Proposed that behaviors are things in and of themselves that could be studied, irrespective of their “molecular” units * Argued that a science of behaviorism should include description of goals, purposes, and cognitive aspects of behavior, and memory - thought behaviour should include things about state of organism ‘Behavior’ has distinctive properties all its own. These are to be identified and described irrespective of whatever muscular, glandular, or neural processes underlie them. These new properties, thus distinctive of molar behavior, are presumably strictly correlated with and, if you will, dependent upon, physiological motions. But descriptively and per se they are other than these motions. Understand behaviour as a separate thing - include things we now consider as higher order cognition

Question 29

describe maze learning

Answer 29

Tolman built many mazes to determine how rat’s behaviors are influenced by various factors * One example: manipulated level of hunger and whether the rat got a food reward at the end of a maze

Question 30

describe maze learning = Hunger

Answer 30

Results: hungriest rats that were rewarded fastest to learn the maze Required an explanation more than stimulus-response = had to give it some internal motivation state as to why it was learning better Hungry rats had more “purpose” or “motivation” to learn the maze Less hungry no reward = slowest Less hungry reward - faster, not as motivated Hungry non reward = hungry and tried to finish maze Hungry reward = much more efficient at doing maze and learning

Question 31

describe maze learning = pathways

Answer 31

Gingerelli (1930) gave a maze where rats have many options to get from start to finish Result: Rats learned to take the shortest paths - irregardless of reward Inference: Rats were showing adaptive optimization of their behavior = just adapting to envir - from conditioning perspective = should not happen, rats should only learn in response to reward Problem for behaviourism

Question 32

describe maze learning = temporal discriminations

Answer 32

See if rats could remember time = Tolman and Sams (1925) detained rats in left or right room * One room would be closer to exit than the other * Would detain rats in rats for different periods of time in either room * Rats took shortest path to exit from each room * Seemed to “remember” where they were based on time So took shortest path depending on room they were in

Question 33

describe maze learning = latent learning

Answer 33

See if info accumulated into memory Three groups of rats: * Group I always got food at the end * Group II and III did not get food until a specific day afterwards (See how learning behaviour shifted= did rats learn a lot about maze then capitalize on it and navigate more efficiently to did they not learn be no reward) * Results: groups II and III had faster learning after receiving food * Inference: rats were accumulating “knowledge” of room Group 1 and 2 = siamilr, group 2 behaviour drops down to same level as group 1 So = rats still accumulate info, but no motivation to go through faster, once rewarded = become very good at maze, rats understand and learnt structure of maze and stored in memory, just not suing info bc no point, once point - food = use memory, after reward = had learnt same as first 2 groups

Question 34

tolman 1948 = cognitive maps in rats and men

Answer 34

Proposed that rats and humans have “cognitive maps” that they use to navigate around their environment Difficult to account for in a purely stimulus-response framework Needed something “in mind” to account for data Simailr to mental imagery Turning point = shift from stimulus response patterns to memory and memory functioning Memory = one of first developed areas of cog psych bc seemed necessary to behaviourism ideas Rats have Memory Integrate notions of cognitive like processes into explanations of behaviour