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[Music] hey students i hope you're having a great day today my name is torres and i want to take a moment to thank you for joining me for a little psych 101 in this video we will learn about the psychology of learning this is the first part of a two-part video series on the psychology of learning the series has three overarching ideas all organisms are born with unlearned behavior these are referred to as instincts and reflexes learning is a permanent change in
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behavior that results from experience several psychological models propose pathways through which learning occurs the topic of the two-part video series on the psychology of learning will focus on the vocabulary on these three slides i'm so sorry there's so much you can find this information in the google slide presentation and in the psyc101 kivocap google doc both of these files are linked in the description box below the term tabula vasa means blank slate
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according to the blank slate or tabula rasa theory the mind is completely blank at birth from there education environment and experiences which are external shape the child's learning and development it is these processes that leave a lasting effect on who the child becomes in other words according to the taboolarasa theory anyone has the ability to become literally anything or anyone this belief downplays the effect of genetics and biology on learning and also on the development of human
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personality and thinking though it might be argued that the mind is blank humans are born with unlearned behaviors we refer to these behaviors as reflexes and instincts reflexes and instincts are innate behaviors that organisms have at birth they are passed to newborns through evolution to help them adapt to their environment in other words this is behavior that is genetically hardwired in an organism and can be performed in response to a cube prior experience reflexes
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are attributed to the motor neural reactions to stimulus they involve primitive centers of the central nervous system specifically the spinal cord and the medulla instincts more complex patterns of behavior involve movement of the organism as a whole and involve higher brain centers higher brain centers include any part of the cerebrum associated with cognitive processes like the ones used in memory they are triggered by a range of events such as age or a change of
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environment newborn reflexes also known as baby reflexes or infant reflexes are normal and are crucial for a baby's survival they are the baby's muscle reactions involuntary movements or neurological responses to stimulation or triggers which may include sound light sudden movement and being stroked or touched doctors and nurses check baby reflexes to determine if the baby's brain and nervous system are functioning properly parents that notice abnormal reflexes should seek medical attention
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immediately as they may indicate dysfunction to the central nervous system the rooting reflex is a newborn's reflex that begins by touching or stroking the corner of the baby's mouth or when it touches the mother's skin or breast when triggered you will notice that the baby will turn his or her head and open his or her mouth to follow and root in the direction of the stroking the rooting reflex helps the baby to find the breast or bottle and also helps prepare him or her to suck
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the rooting reflex in babies usually lasts for about four months after that rooting becomes a voluntary response rather than a reflex the gripping or grasp reflex is what causes the baby to automatically close his or her hands when the palm of the baby's hand is stroked or touched for example when you place your finger in the baby's palm he or she will grasp it and hold on to your hand because of the gripping reflex the gripping reflex may last until the baby is about five to six months old
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the toe curling reflex is also referred to as the babinski reflex the toe curling reflex happens when you firmly stroke the sole of the baby's foot the baby's big toe moves upward and towards the top of the foot and the other toes fan out the toe curling reflex usually lasts until the child is about two years old but for some it goes away after a year the moral reflex also called the startle reflex usually occurs when a baby gets startled by a loud sound sun movement or intense light
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as a response to this trigger the baby suddenly lifts the arms and legs curls themselves back towards the body and then throws their head back sometimes their own cry may also startle him or her and trigger the moral reflex some babies experience an abnormal moral reflex which only involves one side of the body other babies may have no moral reflex at all some causes of abnormal and absent moral reflex may include infections muscle weakness injuries from childbirth peripheral
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nerve damage and cerebral palsy the moral and startle reflex usually last until the baby is about five to six months old the gallant reflex is also known as the tonic neck reflex or the fencing reflex this reflex happens when the baby's head turns to one side this is triggered when you stroke or tap the side of the baby's spine when the baby lies on his or her stomach for instance if the baby's head turns to the right the right arm will stretch out and then the left arm will
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bend at the elbow forming a so-called fencing position the gallant reflex may last until the baby is around five to six months old reflexes and instincts are different than learning while reflexes and instincts are innate and hardwired into organisms at birth learning has to happen from experience learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge that results from experience it involves acquiring skills or knowledge through experience and it
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involves both conscious and unconscious processes associative learning is defined as learning about a relationship between two separate stimuli for example if someone puts their hand on a hot stove and hurts themselves they may learn to associate hot stoves with pain this association may have conditioned them not to put their hands on a hot stove there are many theories that explain how a human learns each theory aligned to learning aligns with the principles of established
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psychological approaches like behaviorism and socio-cultural psychology there are three major approaches to learning founded on behaviorism classical conditioning operant conditioning and observational learning let's look at each of them in more detail we will begin by looking at classical conditioning ivan pavlov's research on the digestive system of dogs unexpectedly led to his discovery of the learning process now known as classical conditioning classical conditioning is the process by
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which we learn to associate stimuli and consequently how we learn to anticipate events pavlov noticed that dogs salivated not only to the taste of food but also at the footsteps of the lab assistance that went to feed them he realized that organisms have two types of responses to its environment unconditioned which is unlearned responses and conditioned which are learned responses in the most famous example dogs were conditioned to associate the sound of a bell with food when the dogs heard the
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bell they anticipated food and began to salivate so how does classical conditioning occur pavlov divided his experiment into three major parts before during and after in the before stage pavlov started from the idea that there are some things that a dog does not need to learn for example dogs don't need to learn to salivate when they see food this reflex is hardwired into the dog in other words dogs seeing the food and salivating is a stimulus response connection that did
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not require any learning the unconditioned stimulus or the ucs is the food and the unconditioned response or ucr is the salivation by checking the dog's response to the sound of the bell before the experiment he created a control variable condition pavlov termed the bell a neutral stimulus or an s this is a stimulus that does not naturally elicit that response so ringing a bell does not automatically cause a dog to salivate by itself before the conditioning during the conditioning
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the neutral stimulus or the bell and the unconditioned response the salivation are paired repeatedly with all these terms i want to take a moment and repeat this so it's clear because it's very important in understanding the dynamic the bell is the neutral stimulus the food is the unconditioned stimulus and the salivation is the unconditioned response before the experiment the sound of a bell had no response from the dog the dog did not salivate in response to
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the bell during the experiment padlov began the conditioning procedure when he introduced food to the dogs he ran the bell at the same time after ringing the bell at the same time he was giving food to the dogs a number of times the dogs salivated to the sound of the bell even when there was no food present it was at this time in which the dog's behavior was modified due to classical conditioning after conditioning the conditioned response is the bell because now it will elicit a
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response because it has been paired with the unconditioned stimulus which was food for so long that the dog associated that bell with the food now the dog has been conditioned to salivate on cue this is now considered a conditioned response so after the classical conditioning the bell is now the conditioned stimulus and the salivation is now the conditioned response so it depends on at what stage those three things happen the bell before the experiment is a neutral stimulus it has no effect
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the dog's salivation to food is an unconditioned response to an unconditioned stimulus and afterwards the dog's salivation to the bell is a conditioned response to a conditioned stimulus which is the bell conditioned responses can become extinct when the unconditioned stimulus is no longer presented with a conditioned stimulus so for example if the food stops being presented with the sound of the bell then eventually the dog will stop responding to just the bell
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spontaneous recovery is the return of a previously distinguished conditioned response following a rest period this figure shows the amount of time here on the x-axis and the strength of the conditioned response on the y-axis the rising curve here shows the conditioned response quickly getting stronger through repeated pairing of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus the acquisition phase then the curve decreases which shows how the conditioned response
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weakens only when the condition stimulus is present during the extinction phase after a break or pause from the conditioning the conditioned response can reappear if the condition stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus are no longer associated then extinction will occur very rapidly after a spontaneous recovery higher order conditioning can happen when a conditioned stimulus is paired with a new neutral stimulus called the second order stimulus so eventually the
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new second order stimulus also elicits the same response as the initial conditioned stimulus without the initial conditioned stimulus being presented so for example cats might be conditioned with the sound of a can opener to salivate because they have associated that can opener noise with food if they are now associating a squeaky cabinet door with the can opener then that squeaky door will also elicit a conditioned response from the cat so without the sound of the electric can
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opener even happening and outside the presence of the food the squeaky cabinet door is a second order stimulus that the cat is responding to in a conditioned response fashion organisms need to be able to distinguish between different stimuli in order to respond appropriately stimulus discrimination is when an organism learns to respond differently to various stimuli that are similar so a dog can discriminate between a specific belt that signals food and another bell that does not signal food
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stimulus generalization is when an organism demonstrates the conditioned response to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus so if an individual learns to dislike a specific type of spider then they will usually dislike all spiders classical conditioning can lead to habituation habituation is learning not to respond to a stimulus that is presented repeatedly without change as the stimulus is repeated we learn not to focus our attention on it for example
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when i first moved to new york i would get startled when i felt the ground shake underneath me because in california if you feel the ground shake you're probably having an earthquake but i realized i just happened to be near a subway and so the ground was going to tremble a little bit after a few months i didn't even feel it anymore it's funny though because whenever i have a friend from california visit the first thing they do is jump when they feel the slightest shake
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in the video on major figures and approaches to psychology we talked about john b watson who is known as the father of behaviorism within psychology watson believed that all behavior could be studied as a stimulus response reaction he believed the principles of classical conditioning could be used to condition human emotions too he conducted a famous study with little albert little albert was the nine-month-old infant son of a nurse who worked at the same hospital as watson and his assistants
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watson and his assistant used little albert in a series of experiments to try to condition fear in the baby as a control condition they used a variety of neutral stimuli to assess little albert's reaction to the stimuli before the experiment so he was shown a white rat a rabbit a monkey and a variety of masks watson described little albert's reaction as unemotional and noted he showed no fear of any of these stimuli after observing that little albert had no reaction to the stimuli watson and
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his assistant began the experiment every time little albert went to touch one of the stimuli watson banged a hammer on a large metal sheet this caused little albert to be fearful and start to cry through repeated pairings of stimulus presentation and banging the hammer on the large metal sheet little albert became fearful of the stimulus like the white rabbit alone outside of the presence of the loud sound in other words he became conditioned to feel fear by
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being presented with a neutral stimuli that he was not afraid of before although little albert was initially conditioned to fear specific stimuli like the monkey the rat the white rabbit he ultimately became scared of anything that was furry this happened through stimulus generalization watson's research did not address what happened to little albert after the experiments so there is no evidence whether little albert's fear was long lasting or not if you've already had a chance to listen
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to the ethics video think about what were the ethical implications of this experiment and how this experiment would not be possible using today's ethics guidelines this was the first part of a two-part video series on the psychology of learning in part one we learned all organisms are born with unlearned behavior these are referred to as instincts and reflexes learning is a permanent change in behavior that results from experience and several psychological models propose
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pathways through which learning occurs for reflection please take a few moments to consider the following open-ended question can you think of an example where you have experienced aspects of these theories in your life i'd love to get your thoughts in the comments below that's it for this lecture in the next lecture we will continue to discuss the psychology of learning before you go don't forget to like this video and subscribe to stats with taurus for more psych 101 looking forward to it ciao
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