LEARNING

LEARNING

LEARNING
Learning is a change in behaviour due to experience.
One trial LEARNING = one event (i.e. a strong stimulus) which leads us to react in some way e.g. food poisoning, phobias. It is very resistant to extinction.

1.Classical conditioning = the association of a particular response with a particular stimulus because of repeated presentations. Pavlov's dogs were trained to make a reflex response (salivation) to a different stimulus by repeated presentation of the new stimulus
(bell or tone) with the original stimulus (food).

Conditioned stimulus = bell

Conditioned response = salivation to bell.

Unconditioned stimulus = food

Unconditioned response = salivation to food.

Generalisation occurs when conditioned responses are being made to stimuli which are similar to the original conditioned stimulus. The more similar to the original the stronger the response,
Discrimination - it is possible to train dogs to l the difference between stimuli and to respond to one and not the other e.g. a circle and a square.
Extinction occurs when after a behaviour has been acquired a number of conditioned stimuli are presented alone. The conditioned response will die away.
Spontaneous recovery -the conditioned response returns after extinction.

2.Operant conditioning = here responses can be learned because they are associated with or lead to a reward. This is called the Law of Effect. B. F. Skinner used a special box to study this type of learning. When the animal pressed a lever he would, receive food or avoid an electric shock. This behaviour was being rewarded and therefore strengthened.

Behaviour shaping - animals can be trained to perform complicated behaviours by reinforcement.
Reinforcement - something which strengthens the response which we want someone/an animal to make.
Positive reinforcement – something pleasant is given to strengthen a response
Negative reinforcement - something unpleasant ceases and therefore behaviour is strengthened.
Punishment - is not negative reinforcement but is giving something unpleasant to weaken a behaviour being repeated.
Primary reinforcement - reinforcement which directly fills a need,
Secondary reinforcement = things which become reinforcing because they are linked with primary reinforcement.
Rewards can be given occasionally to strengthen a behaviour. This maintains the behaviour for longer.
Applications of conditioning to human behaviour

Treatments of some mental disorders which have developed from LEARNING theories:

A. Classical conditioning:-

1. Systematic desensitisation - the patient is asked to imagine fearful situations involving the phobia and grade them into a hierarchy from least to most frightening. Relaxation is taught to the patient and then they are asked to imagine the least frightening situation and to relax. They work up to the most frightening situation, relaxing at each stage. In this way the fear is replaced by relaxation and the phobia overcome.

2. Implosion therapy or flooding - the patient has been avoiding the phobia and therefore never faces up to it. With this therapy, the patient is faced with the phobia e.g. a roomful of snakes for a while as intense fear cannot be maintained. They find out that there are no awful consequences. The fear, therefore, should be extinguished.

3. Aversion therapy - the patient here is taught to build up (rather than get rid of} avoidance responses to some addiction that needs to be removed e.g. drink. The object of compulsion is linked to an unpleasant stimuli e.g. drink is linked to an emetic drug (i.e. one that makes you vomit) and thus the drink becomes associated with an unpleasant response (vomiting).

B Operant conditioning:-

Behaviour modification is used in various ways - behaviour that is acceptable is encouraged by giving rewards for it. It can be done gradually using behaviour shaping. Children are often given rewards for good behaviour e.g. sweets. Psychiatric patients may be rewarded for behaviour that is an attempt to behave in acceptable or 'normal' ways. Autistic children can be rewarded for speech. Primary reinforcement can be used e.g. sweets, food or secondary reinforcement e.g. money, stars, tokens - these can be exchanged for something like days out or TV watching (primary reinforcement). Some schools or hospitals have 'token economy systems' where tokens are given for good behaviour and collected until exchanged for treats.

Criticisms of these treatments - they treat the symptoms but not necessarily the causes of the behaviour. 'Symptom substitution' means that those symptoms disappear and patients develop other ones because the underlying cause is still there e-g. agoraphobia -
patient may be treated for fear of going out but may start drinking heavily because of
underlying emotional problems which are not being dealt with. Also behaviour can change only in the situation where the reward is given and not elsewhere.
The treatments can be successful in correcting behaviour which is the result of faulty
learning e.g. minor phobias but is not so successful with more complicated phobias.
What are the ethical issues of these treatments?

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