PSY1011 Lecture Notes - Lecture 6: Discrimination Learning, Operant Conditioning, Habituation
15 May 2018
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PSY1011
WEEK 6 – LEARNING 1
Learning Objectives (p.179-209)
• Define the term 'learning', and describe the influence of behaviourism on the study of
learning
• Explain the basic principles of classical conditioning, including the concepts of
extinction and recovery, generalisation and discrimination, higher-order conditioning
• Explain the basic principles of operant conditioning, including shaping, extinction and
recovery, reinforcement schedules, discrimination learning, primary and secondary
reinforcement, reinforcement and punishment procedures
• Analyse the role of classical and operant conditioning in a range of real world
situations
Learning:
❖ “Learning is a change in an organism’s behaviour or thought as a result of
experience.”
❖ Learning: The modification through experiencing of pre-existing behaviour and
understanding.
o Humans and other animals learn primarily by experiencing events,
observing relationships between those events, and noticing consistencies in
the world around them.
❖ Non-associative Learning
o Learning about direct properties of a stimulus
❖ Associative Learning
o Learning about relations between stimuli.
5.1 Learning About Stimulus
Non-associative Learning
➢ Two primary types:
o Habituation: The process of adapting to stimuli that do not change.
▪ Become less sensitive to a stimulus due to repeated exposure.
▪ It occurs in relation to sights, sounds, smells, tastes or touches.
▪ Important for adapting to initially startling but harmless events
such as the repeated popping of balloons, but it occurs in some
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degree to all kinds of stimuli and in all kinds of animals, from
simple sea snails to human.
▪ The reappearance of your original response when a stimulus
changes is called dishabituation.
o Sensitization: Become more responsive to a stimulus in the
environment.
▪ When people and animals show exaggerated responses to
unexpected, potentially threatening sights or sounds, especially
during periods of emotional arousal.
➢ Habituation & Sensitization in Aplysia Californicus
o Eric Kandel
o Gill and siphone withdrawal reflex
o Reflex is reduced to gentle touch: habituation
o Reflex is enhanced to a noxious stimulus: sensitization
o Why Aplysia?
▪ Simple nervous system and countable neurons.
➢ Opponent Process Theory
o Developed by Richard Solomon’s
o New stimulus events – especially those that arouse strong positive or
negative emotions – disrupt the individual’s physiological state of
equilibrium or homeostasis.
o If the arousing event occurs repeatedly, this opponent process gets
stronger and occurs more rapidly.
o The theory states that when one emotion is experience, the other is
suppressed.
o This theory attempts to link emotional states with motivation.
o Eventually becomes so quick and strong that it actually suppresses the
initial response to the stimulus, creating habituation.
o Example:
▪ Explain why people take drugs
▪ The “high”, or pleasurable reaction, follows a drug begins to
decrease and habituate.
▪ Initially pleasurable reaction to the drug is followed by an
unpleasant, increasingly rapid opposing reaction that
counteracts the drug’s primary effects.
▪ Drugs users become habituated, they must take progressively
larger doses to get the same high.
▪ The drug initially produces pleasurable feelings, but then a
negative emotional experience occurs.
▪ Eventually the drug user takes drug not for their pleasurable
effects, but to avoid withdrawal symptoms.
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Associative Learning
❖ Classical Conditioning (CC)
❖ Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
o Discovery of the conditioned reflex.
❖ Classical Conditioning
o
Process
Description
Example
Habituation
Response to a stimulus will
decline when it is repeated.
We will eventually come
to ignore the tree branch
tapping against the
window, which keeps us
awake at first.
Sensitisation
Exposure to a strong stimulus will
re-initiate response to a habituated
cue.
Every sound we hear will
keep us awake if we have
just a movie marathon of
horror films.
Opponent
Process Theory
Conditioned responding to stimuli
associated with administration of
a drug tend to elicit responses
which counteracts the effect of the
drug.
Stimuli associated with
administration of a drug
can elicit conditioned
withdrawal responses.
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Document Summary
Learning is a change in an organism"s behaviour or thought as a result of experience. Learning: the modification through experiencing of pre-existing behaviour and understanding: humans and other animals learn primarily by experiencing events, observing relationships between those events, and noticing consistencies in the world around them. Non-associative learning: learning about direct properties of a stimulus. Associative learning: learning about relations between stimuli. Habituation & sensitization in aplysia californicus: eric kandel, gill and siphone withdrawal reflex, reflex is reduced to gentle touch: habituation, reflex is enhanced to a noxious stimulus: sensitization, why aplysia, simple nervous system and countable neurons. Ivan pavlov (1849-1936: discovery of the conditioned reflex. Response to a stimulus will decline when it is repeated. Exposure to a strong stimulus will re-initiate response to a habituated cue. Conditioned responding to stimuli associated with administration of a drug tend to elicit responses which counteracts the effect of the drug.
