Chapter 8. Learning

Chapter Resources

Dinesh Ramoo

Key Terms

Key Terms

  • acquisition: period of initial learning in classical conditioning in which a human or an animal begins to connect a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus will begin to elicit the conditioned response
  • associative learning: form of learning that involves connecting certain stimuli or events that occur together in the environment (classical and operant conditioning)
  • classical conditioning: learning in which the stimulus or experience occurs before the behaviour and then gets paired or associated with the behaviour
  • cognitive map: mental picture of the layout of the environment
  • conditioned response (CR): response caused by the conditioned stimulus
  • conditioned stimulus (CS): stimulus that elicits a response due to its being paired with an unconditioned stimulus
  • continuous reinforcement: rewarding a behaviour every time it occurs
  • extinction: decrease in the conditioned response when the unconditioned stimulus is no longer paired with the conditioned stimulus
  • fear conditioning: a type of classical conditioning that elicits a fear response
  • fixed interval reinforcement schedule: behaviour is rewarded after a set amount of time
  • fixed ratio reinforcement schedule: set number of responses must occur before a behaviour is rewarded
  • higher-order conditioning (second-order conditioning): using a conditioned stimulus to condition a neutral stimulus
  • insight: the sudden understanding of a solution to a problem
  • instinct: unlearned knowledge, involving complex patterns of behaviour; instincts are thought to be more prevalent in lower animals than in humans
  • latent learning: learning that occurs, but may not be evident until there is a reason to demonstrate it
  • law of effect: behaviour that is followed by consequences satisfying to the organism will be repeated and behaviours that are followed by unpleasant consequences will be discouraged
  • learning: change in behaviour or knowledge that is the result of experience
  • model: person who performs a behaviour that serves as an example (in observational learning)
  • negative punishment: taking away a pleasant stimulus to decrease or stop a behaviour
  • negative reinforcement: taking away an undesirable stimulus to increase a behaviour
  • neutral stimulus (NS): stimulus that does not initially elicit a response
  • observational learning: type of learning that occurs by watching others
  • operant conditioning: form of learning in which the stimulus/experience happens after the behaviour is demonstrated
  • partial reinforcement: rewarding behaviour only some of the time
  • positive punishment: adding an undesirable stimulus to stop or decrease a behaviour
  • positive reinforcement: adding a desirable stimulus to increase a behaviour
  • primary reinforcer: has innate reinforcing qualities (e.g., food, water, shelter, sex)
  • punishment: implementation of a consequence in order to decrease a behaviour
  • radical behaviourism: staunch form of behaviourism developed by B. F. Skinner that suggested that even complex higher mental functions like human language are nothing more than stimulus-outcome associations
  • reflex: unlearned, automatic response by an organism to a stimulus in the environment
  • reinforcement: implementation of a consequence in order to increase a behaviour
  • secondary reinforcer: has no inherent value unto itself and only has reinforcing qualities when linked with something else (e.g., money, gold stars, poker chips)
  • shaping: rewarding successive approximations toward a target behaviour
  • spontaneous recovery: return of a previously extinguished conditioned response
  • stimulus discrimination: ability to respond differently to similar stimuli
  • stimulus generalisation: demonstrating the conditioned response to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus
  • unconditioned response (UCR): natural (unlearned) behaviour to a given stimulus
  • unconditioned stimulus (US): stimulus that elicits a reflexive response
  • variable interval reinforcement schedule: behaviour is rewarded after unpredictable amounts of time have passed
  • variable ratio reinforcement schedule: number of responses differ before a behaviour is rewarded
  • vicarious punishment: process where the observer sees the model punished, making the observer less likely to imitate the model’s behaviour
  • vicarious reinforcement: process where the observer sees the model rewarded, making the observer more likely to imitate the model’s behaviour

References

Anderson, C. A., & Gentile, D. A. (2008). Media violence, aggression, and public policy. In E. Borgida & S. Fiske (Eds.), Beyond common sense: Psychological science in the courtroom (p. 281-300). Blackwell.

Bandura, A., Ross, D., & Ross, S. A. (1961). Transmission of aggression through imitation of aggressive models. Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology, 63, 575–582. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0045925

Cangi, K., & Daly, M. (2013). The effects of token economies on the occurrence of appropriate and inappropriate behaviors by children with autism in a social skills setting. West Chester University: Journal of Undergraduate Research. http://www.wcupa.edu/UndergraduateResearch/journal/documents/cangi_S2012.pdf

Chance, P. (2009). Learning and behavior (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Chase, H. W., & Clark, L. (2010). Gambling severity predicts midbrain response to near-miss outcomes. The Journal of Neuroscience, 30(18), 6180–6187. https://www.jneurosci.org/content/30/18/6180.short

DeAngelis, T. (2010). ‘Little Albert’ regains his identity. Monitor on Psychology, 41(1), 10. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/01/little-albert

Fryer, R. G., Jr. (2010, April). Financial incentives and student achievement: Evidence from randomized trials. National Bureau of Economic Research [NBER] Working Paper, No. 15898. http://www.nber.org/papers/w15898

Garcia, J., & Koelling, R. A. (1966). Relation of cue to consequence in avoidance learning. Psychonomic Science, 4, 123–124. https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03342209

Garcia, J., & Rusiniak, K. W. (1980). What the nose learns from the mouth. In D. Müller-Schwarze & R. M. Silverstein (Eds.), Chemical signals: Vertebrates and aquatic invertebrates (pp. 141–156). Plenum Press.

Gershoff, E. T. (2002). Corporal punishment by parents and associated child behaviors and experiences: A meta-analytic and theoretical review. Psychological Bulletin, 128(4), 539–579. https://doi.org/10.1037//0033-2909.128.4.539

Gershoff, E.T., Grogan-Kaylor, A., Lansford, J. E., Chang, L., Zelli, A., Deater-Deckard, K., & Dodge, K. A. (2010). Parent discipline practices in an international sample: Associations with child behaviors and moderation by perceived normativeness. Child Development, 81(2), 487–502. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01409.x

Hickock, G. (2010). The role of mirror neurons in speech and language processing. Brain and Language, 112, 1–2. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bandl.2009.10.006

Holmes, S. (1993). Food avoidance in patients undergoing cancer chemotherapy. Support Care Cancer, 1(6), 326–330. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00364971

Hunt, M. (2007). The story of psychology. Doubleday.

Huston, A. C., Donnerstein, E., Fairchild, H., Feshbach, N. D., Katz, P. A., Murray, J. P., . . . Zuckerman, D. (1992). Big world, small screen: The role of television in American society. University of Nebraska Press.

Hutton, J. L., Baracos, V. E., & Wismer, W. V. (2007). Chemosensory dysfunction is a primary factor in the evolution of declining nutritional status and quality of life with patients with advanced cancer. Journal of Pain Symptom Management, 33(2), 156–165. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2006.07.017

Jacobsen, P. B., Bovbjerg, D. H., Schwartz, M. D., Andrykowski, M. A., Futterman, A. D., Gilewski, T., . . . Redd, W. H. (1993). Formation of food aversions in cancer patients receiving repeated infusions of chemotherapy. Behaviour Research and Therapy, 31(8), 739–748. https://doi.org/10.1016/0005-7967(93)90004-E

Kirsch, SJ (2010). Media and youth: A developmental perspective. Wiley Blackwell.

Köhler, W. (1957). The mentality of apes (Rev. ed.). (E. Winter, Trans.). Penguin Books. (Originally published 1925.)

Laskowski, C. S., Dorchak, D. L., Ward, K. M., Christensen, D. R., & Euston, D. R. (2019). Can slot-machine reward schedules induce gambling addiction in rats? Journal of Gambling Studies, 35(3), 887–914. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31049772

Lefrançois, G. R. (2012). Theories of human learning: What the professors said (6th ed.). Cengage Learning.

Miller, L. E., Grabell, A., Thomas, A., Bermann, E., & Graham-Bermann, S. A. (2012). The associations between community violence, television violence, intimate partner violence, parent-child aggression, and aggression in sibling relationships of a sample of preschoolers. Psychology of Violence, 2(2), 165–78. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0027254

Murch, W. S., & Clark, L. (2016). Games in the brain: Neural substrates of gambling addiction. The Neuroscientist, 22(5), 534–545. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26116634

Murrell, A., Christoff, K. & Henning, K. (2007) Characteristics of domestic violence offenders: associations with childhood exposure to violence. Journal of Family Violence, 22(7), 523-532. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10896-007-9100-4

Pavlov, I. P. (1927). Conditioned reflexes: An investigation of the physiological activity of the cerebral cortex (G. V. Anrep, Ed. & Trans.). Oxford University Press.

Potenza, M. N. (2013). Neurobiology of gambling behaviors. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 23(4), 660–667. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3803105/

Rescorla, R. A., & Wagner, A. R. (1972). A theory of Pavlovian conditioning: Variations in the effectiveness of reinforcement and nonreinforcement. Classical Conditioning II: Current Research and Theory, 2, 64-99.

Rizzolatti, G., Fadiga, L., Fogassi, L., & Gallese, V. (2002). From mirror neurons to imitation: Facts and speculations. In A. N. Meltzoff & W. Prinz (Eds.), The imitative mind: Development, evolution, and brain bases (pp. 247–66). Cambridge University Press.

Rizzolatti, G., Fogassi, L., & Gallese, V. (2006). Mirrors in the mind. Scientific American, 54–61. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26069039

Skinner, B. F. (1938). The behavior of organisms: An experimental analysis. Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Skinner, B. F. (1953). Science and human behavior. Macmillan.

Skinner, B. F. (1961). Cumulative record: A selection of papers. Appleton-Century-Crofts.

Skinner’s utopia: Panacea, or path to hell? (1971, September 20). Time. http://www.wou.edu/~girodm/611/Skinner%27s_utopia.pdf

Skolin, I., Wahlin, Y. B., Broman, D. A., Hursti, U-K. K., Larsson, M. V., & Hernell, O. (2006). Altered food intake and taste perception in children with cancer after start of chemotherapy: Perspectives of children, parents and nurses. Supportive Care in Cancer, 14, 369–78. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00520-005-0904-6

Thorndike, E. L. (1911). Animal intelligence: An experimental study of the associative processes in animals. Psychological Monographs, 8. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0092987

Tolman, E. C., & Honzik, C. H. (1930).  Degrees of hunger reward and non-reward and maze learning in rats. University of California Press.

Tolman, E. C., Ritchie, B. F., & Kalish, D. (1946). Studies in spatial learning: II. Place learning versus response learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 36, 221–229. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0060262

Watson, J. B. & Rayner, R. (1920). Conditioned emotional reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 3, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0069608

Watson, J. B. (1919). Psychology from the standpoint of a behaviorist. J. B. Lippincott.

Yamamoto, S., Humle, T., & Tanaka, M. (2013). Basis for cumulative cultural evolution in chimpanzees: Social learning of a more efficient tool-use technique. PLoS ONE, 8(1): e55768. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0055768

Chapter Attribution

“Learning” by Dinesh Ramoo is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence. It was adapted from the “Learning” chapter in Introduction to Psychology & Neuroscience (2nd Edition) edited by Leanne Stevens, Jennifer Stamp, & Kevin LeBlanc, which is licensed under a CC BY 4.0 licence.

About the Author: Dinesh Ramoo

College of New Caledonia

I am a heterosexual, cisgendered male who is a first generation immigrant in Canada. I was born in Sri Lanka into a South Indian immigrant family and lived in the UK where I completed my higher education. My research has focused on communities that have traditionally been overlooked within the field of cognitive psychology. I have worked with Hindi stroke patients with aphasia in India as well as with minority communities in Canada, UK, Sri Lanka and Turkey. I have explored Indigenous knowledge for treating neurological disorders and have worked with Indigenous communities to increase awareness about dementia. This work has involved travelling to Indigenous communities in Northern BC and talking with Elders and community leaders. I was born into a Hindu family and am now an atheist.

License

Icon for the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License

Chapter Resources Copyright © 2024 by Dinesh Ramoo is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License, except where otherwise noted.

Share This Book