Classical Conditioning

Gaby, I don't know how you found this one, but this guy is kind of mean to his roommate! Regardless, this is a good example of the basics of classical conditioning.

Extra credit to the first person who comments with the NS, UCS, UCR, CS, and CR.

Yale Psychology Lectures

Want to review past units? Watch these lectures delivered by Paul Bloom, a professor of psychology at Yale. http://academicearth.org/courses/introduction-to-psychology

Interesting Research on Studying

Many of you have expressed concerns to me about how you feel you read a lot of the material and understand it, but then you don't perform as well as you would like on the test.  Here's an interesting article that explains why this may be so.  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/21/science/21memory.html?_r=1&emc=eta1

What does this mean for our class?  More frequent quizzes (every class), and I will also provide you with practice quiz and test questions.  I will post everything on the blog, so check back frequently!

Tomorrow's Test

Yes, we have school tomorrow! I know you have been spending every waking hour of the past two days studying for psychology, so here is some more information that will help you on tomorrow's unit test:

-The test is 28 multiple choice questions
       -23 questions are about learning, the current unit
       -5 questions are review (research, developmental psych, and biological psych)
-You will need to understand the learning theories like the back of your hand in order to be successful on the essay.

I am weighting this exam and all future exams like the AP test.  This means the multiple choice section will be worth 2/3 of the exam grade and the essay will be worth 1/3.

Hints for tomorrow's exam:
-Ensure you know the difference between spontaneous recovery and relearning
-Understand primary, secondary, and generalized reinforcers (we talked about this at the study session).  Primary reinforcers fulfill our basic needs (think food, water, and rest), whereas secondary reinforcers are things we've learned to value.  Generalized reinforcers are things that we can use that can be traded for virtually anything (money and things that are used like money; e.g., tokens)

You are going to do great!  Now, get back to studying!

Here are some more problems in which you can determine the type of learning.

Instructions: Determine the type of learning as operant, classical, cognitive, or observational. Identify the various components (e.g., UCS, UCR, CS, CR for classical; positive or negative reinforcement, positive or negative punishment if operant).

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Classical Conditioning?

An example of classical conditioning on one of my favorite TV shows:

Another example of learning...

Can you believe this?  Think about what type of learning took place for this to happen:

More on Little Albert

A psychologist spent about 7 years trying to track down and determine what became of Little Albert.  Read this brief article to find out what happened to dear Albert.

Focus Questions pp.218-227

Cognitive learning is often equated to the idea of an "aha" moment.
What is the difference between cognitive learning and operant and classical conditioning?
Summarize Kohler's research and how Sultan demonstrated insight learning.
      -Here is a video that we will watch in class tomorrow that shows cognitive (insight) learning, similar to Sultan's learning:


Explain Toman's experiments with rats and mazes.  (cognitive maps)

Observational (Social) Learning
Discuss the significance Bandura's BoBo doll study.  Here is the video we will watch in class tomorrow:


Understand the implications of observational learning, especially when it is aggressive.  (Think violent video games and movies.)
Although much of the reading focused on aggressive observational learning, understand that many positive behaviors are learned in this same way.

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Define long-term potentiation.
*Spend the time to understand table 6.3 on p. 224.
Review the three bullet points on p.227.  Understand that we are still learning about learning.

Reading Focus

Hi everyone,

As you complete your reading for Wednesday's class, focus on the following ideas and questions:

-What is the difference between classical and operant conditioning?
-Connect your own personal experience to conditioning.  What have you learned through each type of conditioning?  It might help to think of examples from your school and home (look to your parents) experiences.
-Understand B.F. Skinner's connection to operant conditioning.
-What is the different between positive and negative reinforcement?  Memorize the words that equate to positive and negative reinforcement.  The book does a good job of explaining this.
-Understand the impact of reinforcement frequency (i.e., continuous vs. intermittent reinforcement) and when to use each type.
-Know the types of ration and interval schedules.  Come up with a few examples of your own that aren't listed in the book.
-Understand the difference between punishment and reinforcement.
-Memorize table 6.1 on p. 213.
-Memorize table 6.2 on p.215.

You will have a short quiz on Wednesday.  This quiz will cover pp.195-218 in your book.

Classical Conditioning

Here are the two videos we watched in class today:

Pavlov


Little Albert