LEARNING AND BEHAVIOR
Lecture 1
Objective: understanding the introduction to learning of single events.
Learning: the process by which long-lasting changes occur in behavioral potential because of
experience.
Memory: the record of the experience that underlies learning. Learning and memory are
intertwined.
Single-stimulus learning: repeated exposure to one stimulus.
Three different types of learning:
Simple learning: experience with single events.
Classical conditioning: experience with a relationship between stimuli.
Operant conditioning: experience with a relationship between behavior and stimuli.
Four types of simple learning:
Habituation: decreasing response to stimuli we frequently encounter in our lives.
Sensitization: increasing response to a arousing stimulus.
Perceptual learning: becoming better at processing/recognizing a frequent stimuli.
Spatial learning: acquisition of information about the layout of the environment and its
contents and properties by exploring it.
Behavior vs. behavioral potential: learning does not mean that the behavior permanently changes.
Learned behavior can express itself later on, when for example at that moment the motivation lays
higher than before.
Indirect experiences:
Through observations.
Information that passed oral.
Information that you’ve read.
Unintentionally gaining experience.
explicit vs. implicit: with explicit experience you can use your words to describe it, with
implicit experience you can’t. Both always influence behavior.
Parametric properties: habituation
Intensity/complexity.
Frequency of exposure.
Interval between stimuli.
Stimulus specificity.
Spontaneous recovery after interval between stimuli.
Dishabituation.
, Enhanced rehabituation: when rehabituation happens faster than the first time habituation
occurred.
Short-term vs. long-term habituation: the brain remembers habituation and can pick up
where it left off when the stimulus wasn’t present for a while. So even if you don’t present a
stimulus for a while, your brain can stay habituated to the stimulus.
Parametric properties: sensitization
Intensity
Frequency of exposure.
Non-specific stimulus.
Short-term.
Dual-process theory:
Habituation and sensitization reflect differential activation of two different systems:
o Low-threshold reflex pathway: weakens with repeated use.
o High-threshold ‘state system’: when activated, it increases responses globally.
Opponent-process theory:
The body wants a balance in sensations and emotions.
When experiencing a ‘high’, body counteracts with a ‘low’.
Especially designed to explain habituation of responses to drugs and motivations/emotions.
, Cognitive explanation/comparator model:
Repeated exposure to a stimulus allows a construction of a mental representation of the
stimulus.
It is stored in the memory.
Responses are based on the mismatch between external stimuli and internal
representations.
According to this view, habituation is a form of perceptual learning.
It changes the ability to detect and perceive the stimuli.
Perceptual learning: mere exposure makes it increasingly easier to tell it apart from other stimuli.
These skills are highly specific to the trained stimuli.
Theories of perceptual learning:
Differential habituation to different stimulus components: faster habituation to common,
non-distinctive elements than to distinctive features.
Comparator model: new stimulus compared with a memory for a stimulus.
o Strong match no attention.
o Not a strong match attention and responding.
o Attention and responding builds a better memory.
o This explains habituation and perceptual learning.
Novel object recognition/familiarity.
Spatial learning: two different coding systems.
Allocentric: object to object, you encode information about the one object with respect to
other objects.
Egocentric: self to objects, you encode the location of object in space relative to the body axe
of the self.
Brain structures involved: perceptual learning.
Sensory cortex gives input for perceptual learning.
Neurons in sensory cortex have a receptive field and form an orderly map.
Cortical plasticity: the maps are noy fixed, they change with development and experience.
o Shrinking of receptive fields.
o Changes in cortical spatial organization.
o Strengthening of connection between neurons.
Lecture 1
Objective: understanding the introduction to learning of single events.
Learning: the process by which long-lasting changes occur in behavioral potential because of
experience.
Memory: the record of the experience that underlies learning. Learning and memory are
intertwined.
Single-stimulus learning: repeated exposure to one stimulus.
Three different types of learning:
Simple learning: experience with single events.
Classical conditioning: experience with a relationship between stimuli.
Operant conditioning: experience with a relationship between behavior and stimuli.
Four types of simple learning:
Habituation: decreasing response to stimuli we frequently encounter in our lives.
Sensitization: increasing response to a arousing stimulus.
Perceptual learning: becoming better at processing/recognizing a frequent stimuli.
Spatial learning: acquisition of information about the layout of the environment and its
contents and properties by exploring it.
Behavior vs. behavioral potential: learning does not mean that the behavior permanently changes.
Learned behavior can express itself later on, when for example at that moment the motivation lays
higher than before.
Indirect experiences:
Through observations.
Information that passed oral.
Information that you’ve read.
Unintentionally gaining experience.
explicit vs. implicit: with explicit experience you can use your words to describe it, with
implicit experience you can’t. Both always influence behavior.
Parametric properties: habituation
Intensity/complexity.
Frequency of exposure.
Interval between stimuli.
Stimulus specificity.
Spontaneous recovery after interval between stimuli.
Dishabituation.
, Enhanced rehabituation: when rehabituation happens faster than the first time habituation
occurred.
Short-term vs. long-term habituation: the brain remembers habituation and can pick up
where it left off when the stimulus wasn’t present for a while. So even if you don’t present a
stimulus for a while, your brain can stay habituated to the stimulus.
Parametric properties: sensitization
Intensity
Frequency of exposure.
Non-specific stimulus.
Short-term.
Dual-process theory:
Habituation and sensitization reflect differential activation of two different systems:
o Low-threshold reflex pathway: weakens with repeated use.
o High-threshold ‘state system’: when activated, it increases responses globally.
Opponent-process theory:
The body wants a balance in sensations and emotions.
When experiencing a ‘high’, body counteracts with a ‘low’.
Especially designed to explain habituation of responses to drugs and motivations/emotions.
, Cognitive explanation/comparator model:
Repeated exposure to a stimulus allows a construction of a mental representation of the
stimulus.
It is stored in the memory.
Responses are based on the mismatch between external stimuli and internal
representations.
According to this view, habituation is a form of perceptual learning.
It changes the ability to detect and perceive the stimuli.
Perceptual learning: mere exposure makes it increasingly easier to tell it apart from other stimuli.
These skills are highly specific to the trained stimuli.
Theories of perceptual learning:
Differential habituation to different stimulus components: faster habituation to common,
non-distinctive elements than to distinctive features.
Comparator model: new stimulus compared with a memory for a stimulus.
o Strong match no attention.
o Not a strong match attention and responding.
o Attention and responding builds a better memory.
o This explains habituation and perceptual learning.
Novel object recognition/familiarity.
Spatial learning: two different coding systems.
Allocentric: object to object, you encode information about the one object with respect to
other objects.
Egocentric: self to objects, you encode the location of object in space relative to the body axe
of the self.
Brain structures involved: perceptual learning.
Sensory cortex gives input for perceptual learning.
Neurons in sensory cortex have a receptive field and form an orderly map.
Cortical plasticity: the maps are noy fixed, they change with development and experience.
o Shrinking of receptive fields.
o Changes in cortical spatial organization.
o Strengthening of connection between neurons.
