Consists of different theories of learning. Overview of Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, and Cognitive theory. Ivan Pavlov (Classical Conditioning) Edward L.Thorndike (Thorndike’s Law Of Effect)​ B.F. Skinner (Skinner Box)​ Edward Tolman​ (Latent Learning) Albert Bandura (Observational Learning)

1. LEARNING
Theories of learning

2. Learning
■ Definition : A relatively permanent change in behaviour brought about by
experience.
■ Habituation : The decrease in the response to a stimulus that occurs
after repeated presentation of the same stimulus.
■ Theories in Learning :
1. Classical Conditioning
2. Operant Conditioning
3. Cognitive Theory

3. Classical Conditioning
■ Ivan Pavlov (Russian Physiologist)
■ Definition : Classical Conditioning is a type of
learning in which a neutral stimulus comes to bring
about a response after it is paired with a stimulus
that naturally brings about that response.
■ The Dog Experiment

4. The Experiment
Before Conditioning
■ Neutral Stimulus : A stimulus that is before conditioning, does not naturally
brings about the response of interest.
■ Unconditioned Stimulus : A stimulus that brings about a response without
having being learned.

5. The Experiment
During Conditioning
■ Unconditioned Response : A response that is natural and needs no training.

6. The Experiment
After Conditioning
■ Conditioned Stimulus : The once-neutral stimulus that has been paired with and
unconditioned stimulus to bring about a response formerly caused only by the
unconditioned stimulus.
■ Conditioned Response : A response that, after conditioning, follows a previously
neutral stimulus (eg. salivation at the ringing of a bell)

7. Extinction Vs Spontaneous Recovery
■ Extinction : When the US (food) does not follow the CS (tone), CR (salivation)
begins to decrease and eventually causes extinction.
■ Spontaneous Recovery : The re-emergence of an extinguished CR after a
period of rest.

8. Generalization and Discrimination
■ Stimulus Generalization : Being unable to distinguish between the
conditioned stimulus and other similar stimuli.
■ Stimulus Discrimination : It involves the ability to distinguish between
one stimulus and similar stimulus.

9. Beyond Classical Conditioning
■ Although classical conditioning provides us with only a partial explanation of how
people and animals learn and that Pavlov was wrong in some of his basic
assumptions.
■ In contrast other learning theorist argued that learners actively develop an
understanding about a particular unconditioned stimuli are matched with specific
condition stimuli.
■ Traditional explanations of how classical conditioning operates have also been
challenged by learning psychologist John Gracia.
■ He found that some organisms including human were biologically prepared to
quickly learn to avoid foods that smelled or tasted like something that made them
sick.

10. Operant Conditioning
■ Edward L.Thorndike ( Thorndike’s
Law Of Effect)
■ B.F. Skinner (Skinner Box)
■ Definition : Learning in which a
voluntary response is strengthened or
weakened, depending on its
favourable or unfavourable
consequences.
■ In Operant Conditioning, an individual
forms and association between a
particular behaviour and its
consequences.
Edward L. Thorndike
B.F. Skinner

11. The Basics – The Experiment
■ The Operant Chamber or Skinner Box
■ Highly controlled environment
■ Used for the study of laboratory animals
■ Hungry rat
■ Reinforcers
■ Punishments

12. The Experiment
■ Hungry rat
■ The rat explored the environment
■ Pulled the lever and received food
■ First time : No Learning (between pulling the lever and receiving food)
■ Sooner or later the rat would pull the lever back again and receive food
■ Frequency of pulling the lever will increase
■ Eventually, pulls the lever continuous till it’s hunger is satisfied
■ Finally learns to associate the lever with the food (Reinforcement)

13. Reinforcement
■ Reinforcement : is the process by which a stimulus increases the probability
that a preceding behaviour will be repeated.
■ Reinforcer : is any stimulus that increases the probability that a preceding
behaviour will occur again.
■ Types Of Reinforcers
1. Primary Reinforcers : satisfies some biological need and works naturally,
regardless of a person’s previous experience.
2. Secondary Reinforcers : is a stimulus that becomes reinforcing because of its
association with a primary reinforcer.

14. Positive Reinforcers is a stimulus added to the environment
that brings about an increase in a preceding response.
Positive Reinforcement

15. Negative Reinforcement
Negative Reinforcers is an unpleasant stimulus whose removal
leads to an increase in the probability that a preceding
response will be repeated in the future.

16. Punishment
■ Punishment : It is a stimulus that decreases the probability that a previous
behaviour will occur again.
■ Positive punishment : It weakens a response through the application of an
unpleasant stimulus.
■ Negative punishment : It consists of the removal of something pleasant.

17. Summary
Reinforcement Vs Punishment
■ Reinforcement increases the frequency of the behaviour preceding it whereas
punishment
■ Punishment decreases the frequency of the behaviour preceding it.
■ The application of a positive stimulus brings about an increase in the frequency
of behaviour and is referred to as positive reinforcement while the application of
a negative stimulus decreases or reduces the frequency of behaviour and is
called punishment.
■ The removal of a negative stimulus that results in an increase in the frequency
of behaviour is negative reinforcement whereas the removal of a positive
stimulus that decreases the frequency of behaviour is negative punishment.

18. Summary
Reinforcement Vs Punishment
SOMETHING
IS GIVEN (+)
SOMETHING
IS TAKEN (-)
Positive
Reinforcement
+R
Positive
Punishment
+P
Negative
Reinforcement
-R
Negative
Punishment
-P
Increases
Likelihood of
behaviour being
repeated
Decrease
Likelihood of
behaviour being
repeated

19. Is Reinforcement more effective than
Punishment ?
■ Punishment is very fast in modifying the behaviour.
■ Punishment is ineffective if one finds an alternative.
■ Punishment can convey wrong message.
■ Punishment may hurt self esteem.

20. Schedules Of Reinforcement
■ Schedules of Reinforcement : are different patterns of frequency and timing of
reinforcement following desired behaviour.
■ 2 types of schedule of reinforcement :
1. Continuous Reinforcement Schedule : Is reinforcing of a behaviour every
time it occurs. E.g. Every time child puts a coin in a candy vending machine,
child gets a candy. So child is reinforced to put a coin whenever child wants a
candy.
2. Partial Reinforcement Schedule : is reinforcing of a behaviour some but not all
of the time. E.g. This is when the candy machine sometimes doesn’t give candy
even after the coin is put in.

21. Fixed and Variable Ratio Schedules
■ Fixed Ratio Schedule : Is a
schedule by which
reinforcement is given only
after a specific number of
responses are made.
■ Variable Ratio Schedule :
Occur when a response is
reinforced after an
unpredictable number of
responses.

22. Fixed and Variable Interval Schedules
■ Variable Interval Schedule: Is a
schedule by which the time
between reinforcements varies
around some average rather than
being fixed.
■ Fixed Interval Schedule: Is a
schedule that provides
reinforcement for a response only
if a fixed time period has elapsed,
making overall rates of response
relatively low.

23. Discrimination & Generalization
■ Stimulus control training is the process by which people learn to discriminate
stimuli.
■ In this process, a behaviour is reinforced in the presence of a specific stimulus,
but not in its absence.
■ Stimulus generalization is a phenomenon in which an organism learns a
response to one stimulus and then exhibits the same response to slightly
different stimuli.
Shaping
■ The process of teaching a complex behaviour by rewarding closer and closer
approximations of the desired behaviour.

24. Biological Constraints On Learning
■ Biological constraints on learning refers to he limitations on a species ability
to learn new tasks that are imposed by physical restraints or cognitive (mental)
abilities of the species.
■ In some cases, a special predisposition may aid in learning a new behaviour.
■ In other cases, it acts to inhibit an organism to learn a behaviour.
■ The existence of biological constraints is consistent with evolutionary
explanations of behaviour. There are adaptive benefits that promote survival of
organisms that quickly learn or avoid certain behaviours.
■ Evolutionary psychologists suggest that we may be genetically predisposed to
be fearful of certain stimuli which may help our survival.

25. Classical Conditioning Vs Operant
Conditioning

26. Cognitive Learning
■ Cognitive Theory of learning is an approach to study of learning that focuses
on the thought processes that underlie learning ie. Understanding the role of
cognition and thought in learning.
■ Types of Cognitive Learning :
1. Latent Learning
2. Observational Learning
3. Insight Learning

27. Latent Learning
■ Edward Tolman
■ Developed in 1930
■ Definition : Learning in which a new
behaviour is acquired but is not
demonstrated until some incentive is
provit for displaying it.
■ 17 days experiment using rats

28. The Experiment
Tolman and Honzik (1930)
■ Build a maze

29. ■ Aim : To demonstrate that rats could make navigational decisions based on
knowledge of the envi-ronment, rather than their directional choices simply
being dictated by the effects of rewards.
■ Procedure : In their study 3 groups of rats had to find their way around a
complex maze. At the end of the maze there was a food box. Some groups
of rats got to eat the food, some did not, and for some rats the food was only
available after 10 days.
Group 1: Rewarded
Day 1 – 17: Every time they got to end, given food (i.e. reinforced).
Group 2: Delayed Reward
Day 1 - 10: Every time they got to end, taken out.
Day 11 -17: Every time they got to end, given food (i.e. reinforced).
Group 3: No reward
. Day 1 – 17: Every time they got to end, taken out.

30. Results
■ The delayed reward group learned the route on days 1 to 10 and formed a
cognitive map of the maze. They took longer to reach the end of the maze
because there was no motivation for them to perform.
■ From day 11 onwards they had a motivation to perform (i.e. food) and reached
the end before the reward group.
■ This shows that between stimulus (the maze) and response (reaching the end of
the maze) a mediational process was occurring the rats were actively
processing information in their brains by mentally using their cognitive map
(which they had latently learned).

31. 17 Days
Experiment on Rats
1st Group
Reinforcement
Everyday
3rd Group
No Reinforcement
2nd Group
Reinforcement from
10th day till last
• Less Motivation
• Less Exploration
• More Motivation
• More Exploration
• No Motivation
• No Exploration

32. Observational Learning
■ Albert Bandura
■ Definition : Learning a new behaviour by watching a
model perform that behaviour.
■ Bobo Doll
■ Learning has 4 steps :
1. Paying attention & perceiving the critical behaviour
2. Remembering the behaviour
3. Reproducing the action
4. Being motivated

33. The Experiment
Bobo Doll
■ For this study he used 3- and 5-foot (1- and 1.5-metre) inflatable
plastic toys called Bobo dolls, which were painted to look like
cartoon clowns and were bottom-weighted so that they would return
to an upright position when knocked down.
■ Subjects - preschoolers at Stanford’s nursery school.
■ To test the prediction that boys would be more prone to aggression
than girls, he picked 36 subjects of each sex.
■ The control group, which would not see an adult role model at all,
consisted of 24 children, 12 boys and 12 girls.
■ The second group, which would be exposed to an adult showing
aggressive tendencies, was similarly made up of 24 children of
either sex. Both of the resulting groups of 12 were further divided;
half would be tested with a female role model, half with a male role
model.
■ The third group was structured in exactly the same way as the
second, the only difference being that they would be exposed to a
passive adult.

34. ■ It was necessary to pre-select and sort the children, to try and ensure that there
was an even spread of personality types across the test groups; some subjects
already known to be more aggressive in personality than others.
■ Each subject was tested alone and individually, to ensure that the effects and
reactions of their classmates would bear no influence on the final results or
findings of the experiment.
■ The Experiment began by placing one of the children from the test groups in a
room with an adult. The subject sat in one corner of the room, with a few
appealing toys to play with, such as potato prints and sticker activities.
■ The adult sat in the other corner of the room, with a few toys, as well as a Bobo
doll and mallet. The child was not permitted to play or interact with these toys.
■ For the children in group two, after one minute of playing with the toys, the adult
would begin to verbally and physically attack the doll for a period of 10 minutes.
■ For the third group tested, the adult would sit quietly and play peacefully with the
toys for ten minutes.
■ The control group, sat in the room for ten minutes with no adult present.

35. ■ The next stage of the Bobo Doll Experiment was to take the subject into another
room, which was filled with interesting toys. The child was not permitted to play
with these toys, being told that they were reserved for other children to play with.
This was intended to build up the levels of frustration within the subject.
■ The child was then taken into yet another room filled with interesting toys, some
of an aggressive type, some non-aggressive; the room also contained the Bobo
doll and the mallet. The subject was watched through a one-way mirror, and a
number of types of behavior were assessed.
■ The first factor measured was physical aggression, consisting of hitting the doll
with the mallet or punching, kicking or sitting on the doll. Verbalal aggression
was also assessed, whether it was general abuse or an imitation of phrases
used by the adult role-model.
■ The third measurement was the amount of times the mallet was used to display
other forms of aggression than hitting the doll. The final behaviors studied were
modes of aggression, shown by the subject, which were not direct imitations of
the role-model's behavior.

36. Results
Bobo Doll Experiment
■ Children who were exposed to the aggressive model were more likely to show
imitative aggressive behavior themselves.
■ Boys were nearly three times more likely to replicate physically violent behavior
than girls.
■ The measurements for verbally aggressive behavior again showed that children
exposed to aggressive role models were more likely to imitate this behavior. The
levels of verbal aggression expressed were about the same for boys and girls.
■ The measurements for verbally aggressive behavior again showed that children
exposed to aggressive role models were more likely to imitate this behavior. The
levels of verbal aggression expressed were about the same for boys and girls.
■ Male subjects exposed to non-aggressive role models were less likely to use the
mallet to hit the Bobo doll. Strangely, male subjects placed with non-aggressive
female models were more likely to use the mallet than the control group.

37. Conclusion
Bobo Doll Experiment
■ Not certain that children learn socially, but it is likely that children observing an
adult.
■ Bandura found that girls were much less likely to be physically violent, but were
equally as prone to verbal aggression as boys.
■ Bandura found that girls were much less likely to be physically violent, but were
equally as prone to verbal aggression as boys.
■ There was a follow up experiment, in 1963, which used the same methodology
but showed the subjects violence via video; this had a much less defined
response than the initial experiment.
■ Another refinement of the Bobo Doll Experiment, in 1965, tried to establish the
effects of rewarding or punishing bad and violent behavior. Children, who
witnessed the model being punished for aggressive behavior, were much less
likely to follow suit. Interestingly, there was no change in aggression when the
model was rewarded for bad behavior.

38. Applying Psychology in 21st Century
■ Violence via media
■ Violence via computer games
■ Cultural background
■ Learning styles : Relational Style / Analytical Style
■ Learning is an external as well as internal factor

39. Using Behaviour Analysis &
Modification
■ Behaviour modification: a formalized technique for promoting the frequency of
desirable behaviours and decreasing the incidence of unwanted ones.
■ Basic steps followed are:
1. Identifying goals and target behaviours.
2. Designing a data recording system and recording preliminary data.
3. Selecting a behaviour change strategy.
4. Implementing the program.
5. Keeping careful records after the program is implemented.
6. Evaluating and altering the ongoing program.

40. References
■ Understanding Psychology 6th Edition : Robert Feldman
■ https://opentextbc.ca/introductiontopsychology/chapter/7-1-learning-by-
association-classical-conditioning/McLeod, S. A. (2018, Oct, 31).
■ Tolman - latent learning. Simply psychology:
https://www.simplypsychology.org/tolman.html
■ Bobo Doll Experiment - https://explorable.com/bobo-doll-experiment
■ https://www.verywellmind.com/classical-conditioning-2794859
■ https://www.simplypsychology.org/operant-conditioning.html

41. Thank You
Created by – Simran Trinate