LECTURE 1: INTRODUCTION

Learning and Conditioning

HISTORICAL BACKGROUND
Ar ist o t le ( Emp iricis m)

Empiricism vs. Nativism: Nurture vs. Nature (Aristotle vs. Plato)

He believed in Empiricism: knowledge is learned

Laws of Association: ideas come to be connected with each other through certain laws
1. Law of similarity: events that are similar to each other are readily associated to each other (e.g. cars
and trucks similar in terms of function and appearance, so easier to associate)
2. Law of contrast: also easy to associate things that are opposite of each other (e.g. high/low,
black/white)
3. Law of contiguity: events that occur in close proximity, in time or space, are readily associated (e.g.
lightning and thunder occur closely in time one is predictive of the other)
4. Law of frequency: more frequently the two items occur together, the more strongly they are
associated (e.g. lightning and thunder occur together so they are strongly associated)

Plato was Aristotles teacher

o Believed that we come into this world with all the knowledge that we will ever need
o When we age, we look inwards, and bring that knowledge out
o Aristotle disagreed: believed that this knowledge we have must be acquired through experience

Des c art e s (M ind- Bo d y Dualis m)

Mind-Body Dualism: human beings have both a mind and a body

o
Mind: has free will, and produces voluntary behaviours (e.g. I will pick up my phone)
o
Body: functions like a machine, produces involuntary reflexive behaviours that respond to some kind
of external stimulus; (does not have free will (e.g. dust blows up nose body sneezes)
Reflex: some behaviours are mechanistic can be scientifically investigated
o
Learning: use of animal models, because animals may also have these reflexes

Br it is h Emp iric ist s : Jo hn Lo cke

John Locke: disputed the idea of being born with all knowledge
Mind as a blank slate
Conscious mind: finite set of basic elements
o
Specific colours, sounds, smells gathered up as you move through the world, and combined through
principles of associations, into complex thoughts, etc.
Did not do experiments, came up with these logical ideas
Importance of experience and interacting with the environment

St ruct u ral is m: Wund t & Tit che ne r

Wilhelm Wundt
Edward Titchener
Experimental study of consciousness
Determine the structure of the mind by identifying the basic elements of which it is composed
Method: Introspection (describe as much as possible what your experiences are)
o
People have different experiences of the same situation
o
The person guiding the introspection could bias it as well may affect what the person focuses on
o
This method decreased not very structured
Contrasting previous: proposed experiments

Funct io na lis m: Will iam Jame s

Study of the ADAPTIVE mind: idea that the mind has evolved to adapt to the world around us
o
Influenced by Darwin evolution
William James: often regarded as founder of American psychology
Learning: is an adaptive process what allows us to adapt to our environment
Method: also used introspection (didnt work well), but also studied animal models to try to understand
human behaviours

Be ha vio uris m: Wat so n

Introspection unreliable need to find a different method

If you fail to reproduce my findings, it is not due to some fault in your apparatus or in the control of your
stimulus, but it is due to the fact that your introspection is untrainedIf you cant observe 3-9 states of
clearness in attention, your introspection is poor. If, on the other hand, a feeling seems reasonably clear to
you, your introspection is again faulty. You are seeing too much. Feelings are never clear. (Watson, 1913, p.
163)
o
Different labs were not able to reproduce same findings couldnt agree
Study of observable behaviour: psychology to focus on what can be observed, instead of just introspection,
because different researchers couldnt agree
Natural science approach to psychology that emphasizes the study of environmental influences on observable
behaviour
Principles that govern nonhuman species might also be relevant to humans:
o Therefore we can use animal models to learn about behaivour and what affects behaviour can apply
to humans
Law of parsimony: Simple explanations are better than complex explanations.
o Watson said psychologists should avoid interpreting human behaviour/feelings too complex.
o Behavioural psychology adheres to this law.

Five Schools of Behaviourism

1 ) M et ho do lo g ica l Be hav io uris m

Watson
Study only those behaviours that can be directly
observed (most restricted/extreme version of
behaviourism)
o Most restricted/extreme version ONLY observable behaviour is studied
o Came to believe that all behaviours were reflexive
o S-R: stimulus-response theory
o Learning is simple connections that get made between the stimulus (environment) and response
(behaviour)
Watsons beliefs became more extreme over time:give me a dozen healthy infants, well-formed, and my own
specified world to bring them up in and Ill guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any
type of specialist I might select doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggar-man and their,
regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors (p.104)
o Babies come into the world with 3 basic emotions: love, fear, and rage
o Everything else is learned through experience
(according to Watson)

2 ) H ulls Ne o be h avio uris m

Intervening variables
Physiological processes
Believed that Watsons rejection of internal events is not right
Science will make inferences about all kinds of things you cant observe (e.g. gravity: can infer gravity by
seeing something fall)
Can use intervening variables to make inferences about things that cannot be seen or clearly observed
Should specifically operationalize these internal physiological processes
Agreed that we shouldnt use introspection, but would operationalize by asking, for example, how many hours
has it been since you last ate (instead of how hungry are you)
Still an S-R theory: e.g. candy as a stimulus. Its not see candy = eat candy. Prof only eats candy when shes
hungry driving home at night, not while shes driving to work in the morning. Internal event: level of hunger
(how long it has been since she last ate), which is an intervening variable to observable behaviour (eating the
candy)

3 ) To lm ans Cog nit ive Be havio ur is m

Molar approach
Intervening variables -> more mentalistic

E.g. Seeing a big dog:

o
What I say to myself will change how I behave (observable behaviour)
o
I am afraid of big dogs = back away
o
I am afraid of big dogs but I will try to overcome fear by getting to know them move toward dog
Belief: Need to analyze behaviour at a broader level not enough to look at it as a chain of stimulusresponses.
E.g. rat in a maze, with food at the end of the maze
Watson would look at it as a series of stimulus responses (go down a corridor, walk down, see a wall (a
stimulus to stop), turn, etc.)
Tolman: thats too simplistic, need to look at it as a whole the rats behaviour is not just stimulus response,
but a goal-directed behaviour wants to exit the maze to find the food (not just looking at all the little pieces)
The whole was greater than the sum to the parts

L ate nt l e arni ng expe ri me nt

Had 3 groups of rats

Experiment divided into 2 times
First 10 ten days of experiment: had two groups of rats.
o 1st group of rats (dashed line) got put in the maze and found
the food at the end. Measured number of errors rat made
(how many times they hit a dead end). Over time, they
learned how to get to the food faster and faster.
o 2nd group: no food at the end, they just wandered through
the maze. Errors decreased a bit, but not by a lot, and they
just plateaued.
Grey line (NR-R): no reward, then suddenly a reward on day
11. Would expect that learning would start on day 11 (rate of learning should be slow, like the R group).
However thats not what they found by day 12, they found the fruit loop just as fast as the R group. This
means that they had learned the layout of the maze during the first 10 days, they just didnt show it until they
had incentive (food).
Latent learning: learning will happen even if you dont see evidence of learning.
Cognitive map: aimless walking around builds a structure in their mind of a map. Once they had a reason to
get to the end, they were able to use this cognitive map to find it more quickly.

4 ) So cia l L e arning The o ry (B a ndu ra)

Bandura: felt that intervening, internal variables were important (they are actual events that influence our
behavoiur as strongly as an external event)
Cognitive-behavioural approach
Emphasizes: observational learning & cognitive variables
Reciprocal determinism: all affect each other (not just linear like the
previous models)
E.g. dog example
o Environmental event: dog
o Thought: thats a scary dog affects observable behaviour
shaking
This makes the dog bark affects environment.
o Dog barks: and I jump, freaking out
o Makes dog bark more, and makes me feel more scared (affects internal events)

5 ) Rad ic al Be havio ur is m (Ski nne r)

Skinner: proposed return to a more strict method

Emphasizes the influence of the environment on observable behaviour
Difference between Skinner and Watson: Doesnt reject internal behaviours But, rejects them as
explanations of behaviour
Believed: these internal behaviours are worthy of study, however we dont really know how to study them well
(introspection doesnt work, need to find better methodology) in the meantime, we should start with what we
CAN study

What are we going to study?

Behaviour: there is no single good definition

dead man test (from Malott, Malott, & Trojan): If a dead man can do it, its not a behaviour. If the dead
man cant do it, its a behaviour. (Not 100% accurate, but use as a guideline)

Can divide behaviours into internal and external

External: Skinner focused on external because theyre easier to study
o
Talking
*Exercise
o
Writing

Want to increase exercise

o
Sleeping

What is my behavioural definition of exercising? Is walking back and

o
Reading?
forth exercising? I can count the number of steps I take. Or is it the
o
Breathing?
number of hours I spend at the gym? Need to make a precise and
o
*Exercising
specific behavioural definition.
o
*Aggression
*Aggression
o
Eating

Behaviour that I want to change

o
Crying

Measure instances of aggression and see whether program decreases

o
*Listening
the kids aggression

Internal (difficult to study)

Behavioural definition: e.g. physical aggression was there intent and

o
Thinking
physical harm? How do we know if there was intent? This adds
o
Feeling anxious
complexity with an internal behaviour.
o
Daydreaming

Definition of aggression: kicking, punching, slapping, spitting, etc.

What counts as verbal aggression?

Can take out certain factors such as intent if it makes it too complex or
cloudy
What app roach are we

Bottom line: it can also be difficult to define external behaviours

going to take?

Behavioural approach

detailed

precise

research-based
Behavioural definitions:

careful, detailed, & objective

Criteria

(for a good behavioural definition): can be

observed
measured
counted
tabulated
analyzed

Example:

Tabulate and make analyses (e.g. make a graph)

Measuring anxiety
o Physiological arousal
o Reports (e.g. do you have anxious thoughts, such as what if..)
o Behaviours (how its impacting on their ability to get their work done for example)
o Anxiety avoidance behaviours (moving away from situations)

External Behaviour

Internal Behaviour