INTRODUCTION TO

PSYCHOLOGY
Chapter 6
Learning
 At the end of this Chapter
you should be able to:
• Understand the perspective of learning theory

• The role of habituation in learning

• Learn about Classical Conditioning

• Learn about Instrumental Conditioning

• Have a basic understanding about varieties of

learning
 What is learning?

• Simply, learning is a
relatively permanent change
in an organism’s behavior
due to experience
 What is learning?

Some learning involves development of

new skills.
I am learning how to ride a bike.
Some learning involves changes in
existing behavior.
She’s learning to control her temper.
Some learning involves simple
associations.
I finally learned that where there is
smoke, there is fire.
 What is learning?
And sometimes it involves learning complex
belief systems.
He is trying to learn the Buddhists view of life.
We also figure things out for ourselves.
Learning a mathematical formula.
Learning can also be imposed on us by
circumstance.
If you touch a hot stove, you’ll burn your hand.
 Learning Theory
• What mechanisms are responsible for the
complexity of learning?
– Locke (1600s) and Berkeley (early1700s)
• Associationists
• We learn by associating one idea with another
– The word “flower” with the smell and sight of
a flower
– The word “stove” with the sensation of heat
• More complex learning  more associations
 Animals vs. Human
Study of animals: reveals same
principles of learning that apply to
humans
How does a dog learn to sit on
command?

Look Bruce,
when I said
SIT...
 Habituation
• One of the simplest forms of learning

• It means; decline in response of

organism’s response to stimulus once
that stimulus becomes familiar; simply
getting used to...

• However, organism does not learn

anything new from that event
 Habituation
• A common way occurs in which a person’s
attention is captured by a loud or sudden
stimulus.
 Habituation
• Our environments are full of sights
and sounds

• Habituation allows us to ignore

repetitive, unimportant stimuli.

• Habituation occurs in nearly all

organisms, from human beings to
animals
 Learning in Animals
• There are three major areas of learning:

– Habituation

– Classical Conditioning (by Pavlov)

– Instrumental (Operant) Conditioning

(by Skinner)
Classical Conditioning
Ivan Pavlov
 1849-1936
 Russian
physician/
neurophysiologist
 Nobel Prize in
1904
 studied digestive
secretions
Classical Conditioning

Organism comes to associate two

stimuli; a neutral one and one that
already causes a reflexive response
 Classical Conditioning
• Salivation is triggered by food in
animals. Their mouth starts watering
before they start eating.

• Can salivation be triggered by other

stimuli? Anything else that signals the
delivery of food?

• A signal that tells ‘food is coming!’

 Pavlov’s Classical
Conditioning Experiment

Pavlov’s device for recording salivation

 Pavlov’s Classical
Conditioning Experiment

• Pavlov noticed that, rather than simply

salivating in the presence of meat
powder (by which dogs were fed), the
dogs began to salivate in the presence
of the lab technician who normally fed
them.

• Decided to study these effects in his lab

 Pavlov’s Classical
Conditioning Experiment
 Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
 stimulus that unconditionally--
automatically and naturally--triggers a
response
 Unconditioned Response (UR)
 unlearned, naturally occurring
response to the unconditioned
stimulus
 salivation when food is in the mouth
 Pavlov’s Classical
Conditioning Experiment
 Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
 originally irrelevant stimulus that,
after association with an
unconditioned stimulus, comes to
trigger a conditioned response
 Conditioned Response (CR)
 learned response to a previously
neutral conditioned stimulus
 Extinction
• Extinction: the dying out of a
conditioned response
• Classical conditioning can be undone
• Conditioned Response will gradually
disappear if the CS is repeteadly
presented by itself; without the
Unconditioned Stimulus
– Bell but no food
 Spontaneous Recovery
• Extinction does not erase the original
learning.
• The animal keeps some memory of
the previous learning.
• After the extinction if the animals are
shown with CS, it would often elicit CR
which is called spontaneous recovery
 Generalization /
Discrimination
• Generalization
– CS that resemble each other (even
if never paired with the US) can
elicit the CR
• Discrimination
– Ability to make fine discriminations
of what will and what won’t elicit the
CR
Instrumental Conditioning
• Neither habituation nor classical
conditioning teaches the organism a
new response.
• You just learn to associate an existing
response (salivating) with a new
stimulus (the bell)
• Key difference from Classical
Conditioning: subject’s behavior
determines an outcome and is
subsequently impacted by that outcome
 Instrumental Conditioning
 Law of Effect
 Thorndike’s principle that behaviors
followed by favorable consequences
become more likely, and behaviors
followed by unfavorable consequences
become less likely.
 In instrumental conditioning the animal
or person must produce some behavior
to get a reward or avoid a punishment.
Puzzle Box
Instrumental Conditioning
• Door can only be
opened if the cat pulls
the rope attached to
the string
• If it manages the trick,
a small portion of food
would be given as a
reward

Thorndike’s Cat in
a Puzzle Box
Instrumental Conditioning
• On the first trial,
cat struggled but
managed the trick
• As it did the same
thing over and
over again, the
time it took for it to
escape the box
also shortened

Thorndike’s Cat in
a Puzzle Box
Instrumental Conditioning
• Law of Effect
• If a particular
voluntary
response is
followed by a
reward, that
response will be
strengthened (the
response comes
from within).

Thorndike’s Cat in
a Puzzle Box
 Skinner and Operant
Behavior
• Skinner (1940s): sharply
distinguished between classical
and operant conditioning
 Contrasted with animals’
behavior in classical
conditioning, in which behavior
is “elicited” rather than chosen
by the animal
 Operant Chamber
 Skinner Box
 chamber with a bar or key that
an animal manipulates to obtain
a food or water reinforcer
 contains devices to record
responses
 Reinforcer

 Any event that strengthens the

behavior it follows
 Positive: it’s exisitence helps to
create the desired behavior (food,
drink etc)
 Negative: it’s non-existence helps
to create the desired behavior
(loud noise, electric shock etc)
 Change in behavior 
learning?

• Behavior changes in instrumental

conditioning

• Is there an underlying change in

insight? In comprehension?
 Change in behavior 
learning?
• Tolman: demonstrated “latent learning”
using an operant conditioning paradigm

– Rats explored a maze with no reward

– Later, under conditions of reward:
could demonstrate formation of a
“cognitive map”
– Indicated that learning had taken
place, not “mere” conditioning
 Act/outcome
Representations
• Actions result in specific outcomes
– Mastery: satisfaction at having control over the
outcome
– Two classic experimental findings:
• Infants and mobiles: infants like to make the
mobiles move (Watson, 1967)

• Learned helplessness: control over environment

lessens stress/distress; sense of futility, or lack of
control, increases stress/distress (Seligman, 1975)