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How Animals Learn (p. 816-819)

1. Innate Behaviors

Natural reflexive responses to stimulus

No learning required; animal can do this at birth with no help

Crying, breathing, withdrawal from pain, saliva

More complicated actions are fixed action patterns

migrating birds, nest building, spider webs

2. Learned Behavior

through observing, imitating, thinking, memory, conditioning

learning changes behavior through experience; changes neuron connections in brain

3. Two Types of Conditioning(Associative Learning)

A. Classical Conditioning:

Two different stimulione natural and the other

learned-- produce the same reflexive response when

they are given at the same time. The animal has thesame response to the conditioned stimulus.

Example: Dog salivates when bell and food are given at the same time. Later, it will salivatewhen bell is rung even without food. Food is unconditioned stimulus (natural), the bell is

conditioned stimulus (learned), and saliva is the same, reflexive response.

This type always involves an automatic, reflexive response, and usually explains how some

past experience is affecting current behavior in unexpected ways.

Example: celebrity endorsements connect popularity of the celeb with the product

Phobias: people might be afraid of common items due to some childhood trauma

B. Operant Conditioning: consequences that occurafter a voluntary behavior candetermine its frequency

1. Reinforcers are consequences that either increase or decrease behaviors

A) Rewards are postive reinforcersincrease the behavior-- food, candy, money, winning the trophy, popularity, good grades

B) Punishments are negative reinforcersdecrease the behaviorC) -- jail, pain, isolation, losing the game, lose rewards or benefits

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A) Is the example classical or operantconditioning (clue: is thebehavior automatic or voluntary?)B) If it is classical, identify the unconditioned stimulus, the conditionedstimulus, and the response.

C) If it is operant, indicate if the reinforcement is a rewardorpunishment.

1. A lion in a circus learns to stand up on a chair and jump through a hoopto receive a food treat.

2. Every time someone flushes a toilet in the house, the shower becomes veryhot and causes the person to jump back. Over time, you begin to jump back

automatically when hearing the flush, before the water temperaturechanges.

3. Your new car has an annoying bell that chimes if you start the car withoutbuckling the seat belt. You develop a habit of buckling every time youdrive.

4. Every time a dad drives the family car over a bridge, he jokes to histoddler about the bridge collapsing. He swerves the car back and forth toincrease the terror. When the child becomes an adult, she avoids allbridges.

5. Willy and Wanda had a very agonizing, painful breakup-- Willy is totallycrushed by the experience. A few years later he meets a hot girl namedWanda who really likes him, but he wont go out with her. She doesntunderstand.

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13. Albert gets sentenced to 6 months in jail for burglary. This will bereduced to 3 months for good behavior.