gnine| Qed beaming & Cognitive Psychology 1 €ducation Behaviorism: Classical Conditioning Behaviorism: Classical Conditioning As discussed in Module 1, one of the earliest researches on learning uses introspection, the method wherein people look inside their heads and describe their thoughts. However, behaviorism emerged that allows psychologists to objectively describe and measure observable behavior. This module provides the basic concepts of behavi m through the rise of classical conditioning Objectives should be enumerated (if necessary and if available): 1. Identify the basic assumptions of behaviorism. 2. Familiarize oneself to the concept of classical conditioning. 3. Apply behavior analysis to education Behaviorism and its Assumptions Course Module 1 Principles of learning should apply equally to different behaviors and to different species of animals Equipotentiality - the assumption that human beings and other animals learn in similar ways. They use the term organism to refer generically to any member of species Learning processes can be studied most objectively when the focus of study is on stimuli and responses. To maintain objectivity, they focus on things they can observe and measure specifically, by focusing on stimuli in the environment and responses that organisms make to those stimuli, Behaviorism is sometimes called the S-R Psychology. Internal processes (thoughts, motives, emotions) are largely excluded from scientific study. This is because we can't observe these internal mental processes. However, there are two factions who disagree with this assumption. The radical behaviorists had the idea that the study of human behavior and learning should focus exclusively on stimuli and responses. While, the neo behaviorist asserts that to effectively understand both human and animal behavior they need to consider cognitive processes as well as the environment events. Learning involves a behavior change. This assumption posits that learning has occurred only when we see it reflected in one’s actions5. Organisms are born as blank slates, ‘Tabula Rasa - organisms enter the world as blank slates on which environmental experiences gradually “write”. 6. Learning is largely the result of environmental events. Rather than use the term learning, behaviorist speak of conditioning, thus an organism is conditioned by environmental events 7. The most useful theories tend to be parsimonious ones Parsimony - we should explain the learning of all behaviors, from the most simple to the most complex by as few learning principles as possible Classical Conditioning what +0 follows Ivan Pavlov was a Russian physiologist who first observed whether the dog salivated to a particular stimulus, the bell. As you might imagine the dog did not find ringing of bell especially appetizing and so did not salivate. In his experiment, he noticed that when a dog is presented with a food (Unconditioned Stimulus) the dog salivates (Unconditioned Response). He also noticed that when the bell (Neutral Stimulus) was rang, the dog did not salivate, Pavlov then presented the bell (NS) and the food (US) at same time and the dog salivates (UR). He made this pairing for several trials and in all occasion, the dog salivated. Pavlov then just rang the bell (Conditioned Stimulus) without the food and he observed that the dog salivated upon hearing the bell. Initially, the dog did not salivate at the mere sound of a bell. But through continuous pairing with the food, the dog learned to associate food with the bell and by simply hearing the sound of the bell, it salivated. The bell to which the dog previously been unresponsive (step 1) now led to a salivation response. Variables in Classical Conditioning Neutral stimulus is some stimulus that causes a sensory response, such as being seen, heard, or smelled, but does not produce the reflex being tested. Unconditioned stimulus (UCS) is an event that consistently, automatically elicits an unconditioned response. Ex. Food Unconditioned response (UCR) is an action that the unconditioned stimulus automatically elicits. Ex. Salivation Conditioned stimulus (CS) is a formerly neutral stimulus that has acquired the ability to elicit a response that was previously elicited by the Conditioned response (CR) whatever response the conditioned stimulus begins to elicit as a result of the conditioning procedureONLINE | O€d Learning & Cognitive Psychology Education Course Module Behaviorism: Classical Conditioning 3 Diagram taken from Santrock 2011. Educational Psychology. McGraw-Hill Higher Education. Application in Human Learning Olson & Fazio 2001 conducted a research by having the college students sat at a computer while various cartoon characters (Pokemon) were presented on the screen. The students must rate the characters with a scale of -4 unpleasant to +4 pleasant. The characters with pleasant adjectives scored more favorably than characters with unpleasant adjectives John Watson and Rosalie Rayner 1920 - Little Albert - infant who learned to fear white rats Albert was an even-tempered, 11-month-old child who rarely cried or displayed fearful reactions. One day, Albert was shown a whit rat. As he reached out and touched the rat, a large steel bar behind him was struck, producing a loud unpleasant noise. Albert jumped, obviously very upset by the startling noise. Nevertheless, he reached forward to touch the rat with his other hand, and the steel bar was struck once again. After five more pairing of the rat (CS) and the loud noise (UCS), Albert was truly rat-phobic. Whenever he saw the rat he cried hysterically and crawled away as quickly as his hands and knees could move himWatson and Rayner reported that Albert responded in a similarly fearful manner to a rabbit, a dog, a sealskin coat, cotton wool, and a Santa Claus mask with a fuzzy beard, although none of these had ever been paired with the startling noise. Common Phenomena in Classical Conditioning a ~O peo b, Fast Fact c a e f Associative Learning - associations between certain stimuli are more likely to be made because predisposed to make associations that reflected true cause-and-effect relationships Contingency - classical conditioning is most likely to occur when the conditioned stimulus is presented just before the unconditioned stimulus. Itis less likely to occur when the CS and UCS are presented at exactly the same time, and it rarely occurs when the CS is presented after the UCS. Extinction - Pavlov discovered that repeated presentations of the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus led to successively weaker conditioned responses, Eventually, the dog no longer salivated at the sound of the bell, in other words, the conditioned response disappeared Spontaneous Recovery ~ a recurrence of a conditioned response when a period of extinction is followed by a rest period. For example, if | am near lots of bees for a period of time, I eventually settle down and regain my composure. Upon encountering a bee on some later oceasion, however, my first response is to fly off the handle once again, Generalization - when learners respond to other stimuli in the same way that they respond to conditioned stimuli. The more similar a stimulus is to the conditioned stimulus, the greater the probability of generalization. Stimulus Discrimination - occurs when an organism learns to make a particular response to some stimuli but not to others, Changing Undesirable Conditioned Response Conditioned response are often difficult to eliminate because they are voluntary, wherein people have little or no control over them, However, this can still change thru extinction and counter conditioning, a Extinction - when the conditioned stimulus is presented in the sbsence of the unconditioned stimulus frequently enough, the conditioned response should disappear Counter Conditioning - one conditioned response is replaced with a new, more productive onegnine| Qed beaming & Cognitive Psychology €ducation Implications of Behaviorist Assump_ Quick Tips Course Module Behaviorism: Classical Conditioning Mary Cover Jones 1924 - Little Peter Little peter is a 2 years old who acquired fear of rabbits. To rid peter of his fear, Jones placed him in a high chair and gave him some candy. Ashe ate, she brought a rabbit into the far side of the same room. Under different circumstances the rabbit might have elicited anxiety; however, the pleasure Peter felt as he ate the candy was a stronger response and essentially overpowered any anxiety he might have felt about the rabbit's presence. Jones repeated the same procedure everyday over a 2-month period each time putting Peter in a high chair with candy and bringing the rabbit slightly closer than she had the time before and Peter's anxiety about the rabbit eventually disappeared loseph Wolpe - South African psychiatrist developed SYSTEMATIC Used to reduce or eliminate phobias. To begin the process of systematic desensitization, one must first be taught relaxation skills in order to control fear and anxiety responses to specific phobias, Once the individual has been taught these skills, he or she must use them to react towards and overcome situations in an established hierarchy of fears, The goal of this process is that an individual will learn to cope and overcome the fear in each step of the hierarchy, which will lead to overcoming the last step of the fear in the hierarchy. n and Classical Conditioning «Practice is important — students learn addition and subtraction through repeated repetition. Reading teachers believe that the best way for students to improve their reading level is simply to read, read, read. ‘+ Students should encounter academic subject matter in a positive climate and associate it with positive emotions. When students associate academic subject matter with good feelings, they're more likely to pursue it of their own accord. For instance, when children’s early experiences with books are enjoyable ones, they're more likely to read frequently and widely in later years. In contrast, when schoolwork or a teacher is associated with punishment, humiliation, failure, or frustration, school and its curriculum can become sources of excessive anxiety(Cassady, 2010). * Assessing learning involves looking for behavior changes. Teachers should never assume that students are learning anythingunless they actually observe students’ behaviors changing as a result of instruction. Activities and Exercises Essay 1. In classical conditioning, what is extinction? Give one example ina classroom setting. 2. Discuss how one can explain the emotional responses that students have to classroom events using Pavlov's classical conditioning. Glossary ‘+ associative learning - Learning that two events are connected (associated). ‘+ behaviorism - The view that behavior should be explained by observable experiences, not by mental processes. ‘© classical conditioning - A form of associative learning in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus and acquires the capacity to elicit a similar response. learning - A relatively permanent influence on behavior, knowledge, and thinking skills that comes about through experience. ‘© mental processes - Thoughts, feelings, and motives that cannot be observed by others. ‘+ systematic desensitization - A method based on classical conditioning that reduces anxiety by getting the individual to associate deep relaxation with successive visualizations of increasingly anxiety- provoking situations. References Ormrod, J. (2012), Human Learning (6* ed.). Upper Saddle River, New Jersey: Pearson Education, Inc. Gilhooly, K. Lyddy, F. (2009). Cognitive Psychology (1* ed.). McGraw Hill Higher Education.