Ch 6 Learning

Cassandra Rutledge
Chapter 6
9/25/2014
Learning is a change in behavior that results from an experience. The centrals of most areas of the human existence is focused around learning. Psychologically learning is not just the education or studying, they are a part of it, but there are more ways of learning. For example, learning through experience a child or human adapt to the environment through the experiences they have been through, this allows them to benefit from the experience. There are three ways that we learn non-associative learning which are habituation and sensitization, and lastly associative learning. Habituation is the decrease in behavioral response after lengthy or repeated exposure to a stimulus. The second non-associative is sesitization which is an increase in behaviorl response after lengthy or repeated exposure to a stimulus.
This chapter has showed me that we do not just learn from what we are told to study for our classes, but we also learn from our experiences in our everyday life. The most surprising thing from the reading was learning about how our brains change through the learning process. The exposure to the environmental events causes changes within the brain by the neurons in the brain getting excited and firing stimuli that excites other neurons throughout the entire brain. The strengthening of the synaptic connection between the neurons is called long-term potentiation. That strengthening of the synaptic connection is what allows us to have the ability to learn.
Terms: Learning, non-associative learning, haituation, sensitization, associative learning, brain changes, stimuli, synaptic connection, neurons, long-term potentiation

Chap 6-blog response
9/25/14

The definition of learning is a change in behavior, resulting from experience. In my own words, I would say that learning is anything we come to realize or understand from the world around us that we previously did not know or understand. Learning can come from anything. It can be from watching the people around you, being reinforced, being punished, or just exposure to any new information.

School and studying are a certain type of learning, but they are not the only way to learn. Thinking of learning in the sense of school or studying is just exposing you to new ideas, and letting your brain solve and figure them out. This can create new synapses like any other form of learning can. One example would be out on the playground at recess, you learn from a young age that if you push a kid down at recess you will get negatively punished. They may take away your next recess because you were being mean to other kids. Right there you learned that being mean to other kids means you will get punished. This is operant conditioning; learning in which the consequences of an action determine the likelihood that the action will be preformed in the future. You won’t push kids at recess anymore because operant conditioning taught you that there would be consequences. Now thinking of it as a classroom perspective, you are also using operant conditioning; it’s just more disguised. The operant conditioning in the classroom can range anywhere from getting a good grade, doing poorly on a test, being scolded by your teacher or earning a reward for getting a question right. Here is where a lot of secondary reinforcers come in to play. If you want a good grade you will listen to what the teacher tells you and try to get praise from her or him. This is a positive reinforcer. You will learn that if you study and listen to the teacher you will do well in class and this will result in rewards possibly from your parents, peers and teachers. You will in turn like that feeling and try to do well on every test or assessment.

I think what has mostly changed the way I think about learning is just how common of an activity it is. Many things that we don’t often think of as learning actually are a form of learning and happen all the time, everyday. One type of learning happens all the time, called modeling; which is just imitating behavior. Babies use this to learn almost everything. But as adults we use it as well. We may see someone do something cool or intelligent and the next time we are in a similar situation we try to imitate what we saw.

What interested me the most was the section about parents using punishments incorrectly. I’ve seen this happen with small children and animals. One specific time I remember is when our family dog peed on the floor while we were gone. When we got back we would punish her, by telling her no in a disapproving tone, but what we realized is that she didn’t understand what she was being punished for because it had happened long ago. So to her, it might have felt like she was being punished for lying down on the couch, or whatever she happened to be doing at the point in which we punished her. For operant conditioning to work, the consequences must come directly after the bad behavior.

I took a psych class in high school and we studied learning quite in depth. As I was reading through this chapter, most of it was review, and a little rusty since I haven’t taken a psych class in over a year now. But one thing to me has always been memorable to me, and that is Pavlov’s dog experiment. I will remember that for a long time, because to me, it made practical sense, and I can see it applied everyday in life. I’ll give an example from my own life. We have a metal bin that holds cat food. When you remove the lid, which to begin with is a neutral stimulus, all of the cats had learned to run to where they get food. The sound of the metal lid scraping became a conditioned stimulus to them. Their conditioned response was to run to where they knew they would be getting food. Because I see this concept everyday I will never forget it and that experiment will always be memorable.

Terms: Learning, negative punishment, operant conditioning, positive reinforcement, secondary reinforcement, modeling, neutral stimulus, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response

The definition of learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. From a psychological science perspective, the way we think we learn, by studying, is not the only way that we learn. There are many different aspects that happen when it comes to learning. For example, many things that we experience are a major part to what we learn. But there are also more specific ways to learn. We learn in 3 different ways. We can learn in non-associative learning, which has 2 different categories. The first one is habituation, which is when an individual is exposed to a stimulus for a long time, or repeatedly. The second one is Sensitization, which is when an individual is exposed to a stimulus for a long time, and has an increased response. The next way we can learn is in associative learning, which also has 2 categories. The first is classical conditioning, which is when we learn that a stimulus predicts another stimulus. The second is operant conditioning, which is when we learn that a behavior leads to a certain outcome. The final way that we can learn is simply by watching others. So from a psychological standpoint, you can tell that there is a lot more ways of learning than just being taught in a classroom or by studying out of a book. My understanding of learning has really changed a lot throughout this chapter. Because I thought that learning was just what we were taught in class, I forgot about how we can learn things from everyday experiences and also by other people.
The part that I thought was most interesting in this chapter was where it said that parents should avoid the use of punishment. And that using reinforcement is more effective than using punishment. Because the kids will listen more if they are told what they should be doing, instead of what they should not be doing. And I thought that this was interesting because my parents and other parents that I know have always told their kids what they should not be doing, whenever they did something wrong. I never remember them telling kids what they should be doing instead.
Something memorable that I learned in this chapter was just another form of punishment other than the one I listed above. How physical punishment, such as spanking, is very ineffective. But spanking is very common among children and their parents. Spanking can lead to problems of poor parent/ child relations, weak moral values, mental health problems, and future child abuse. So it really is not effective and can lead to future problems, even if it doesn’t seem like that at the moment. I found this surprising because spanking is the most common concept of punishment that I have heard of when kids get into trouble.
Psychological terms: non-associative learning, stimulus, habituation, sensitization, classical conditioning, associative learning, operant conditioning, psychological, reinforcement, physical punishment

Learning has always been an extremely important part of human growth and survival, even from the first time we open our eyes and look around we are learning what is going to protect us and what we can go towards to survive those first few years. Most people just assume learning as what happens when you gain new knowledge in school and what will make you smarter for higher education when in fact learning is the growth of behavior when gaining new experiences in the world. Not only is being “book” smart important but the growth as a person from learning about external stimuli is also important because it shows us what we can do to survive in that environment as well as what is the right thing to do in a situation. When using one stimuli or experience over and over again you are learning about the stimuli in a process called habituation. This is achieved when you experience a new form of stimuli over and over again and it becomes almost “second nature” for you, an example would be learning to swim, after going through years of lessons most people who swim on a regular basis will get into the pattern of strokes and breathing because it has become a habit when they swim on that rhythm. This is extremely important because most of the things we do in life are done by habit and are not really thought about when done, if we had to relearn how to do everything we know every new day then most of the things in the world would not get done or done wrong with lack of knowledge.
Not only do we learn though experience but we also learn through conditioning. Many have learned through the actions of other as well as themselves when it comes to learning about what can and cannot harm them in the world. This can actually be controlled in something called operant conditioning, this is where someone or something learns the rewards or punishments between a behavior and how we will use it in our future. Many times this type of learning is used through the use of positive reinforcement as well as negative reinforcement. When using this many people as well as animals learn that doing a certain action will give them a result, if said result is positive then the likelihood of them doing the action again is higher than a negative consequence being administered because it was not the desired action. This type of learning plays a major part in most of what we do every day, if something happens and we are able to choose an outcome we will always go with the choice that either does not steer us towards harm or towards a reward because of their action.
The most interesting thing to me from this chapter was the study on conditioning that Pavlov underwent using dogs and conditioning them to drool when they hear a metronome go off. The use of conditioning to make these dogs learn how to drool on command has been studied many times over the last few decades and it showed a way of learning that many use but were never aware of in their day to day lives. By using the tactics that he did Pavlov was able to show how someone can be taught to do a certain action when reacting to stimuli and even today it happens even if you do not realize it. We are conditioned to do many things in our normal routine from day to day, we are usually conditioned to wake up when we hear the alarm, leave class when the bell goes off and even keep ourselves safe if sirens go off during the day. Conditioning has played a major part in all of our lives and will continue to do so with our ever advancing society we need to condition ourselves to new things on almost a day to day basis.

When talking about learning, from a biological standpoint it is the strengthening of connections between two neurons within your brain. From a less scientific standpoint learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. As explained in the chapter this doesn’t have to be from something that you experienced directly, rather it could come from you watching someone else experience it and you observing the results, this is called observational learning. Before reading this chapter I didn’t have the same thought of learning as I do now mostly because I never really thought about what it actually was. Before when I thought of learning I looked at it as being able to show that you know whatever it is that is being taught, mainly through test, papers, projects, etc. Now I know that just because you aren’t able to show that you know the subject through these ways you still learned the subject you just need a different way to perform your knowledge. This chapter has taught me that from a psychological perspective just because you do bad on a test it doesn’t necessarily mean that you didn’t learn the stuff from that chapter or what was on that exam. Instead the problem may have just be that you didn’t have enough reinforcement to try your best on that exam. The person may have still learned the subject just as well as someone who got an A on the exam, and in a different situation if the person who did bad on the exam was given some type of reward if the did good on it may have gotten the same score as the person who originally got an A on it. The most interesting part of this chapter to me was the part about how physical punishment may actually have the opposite effect that was desired. Growing up when one of my brothers or I would do something bad we would usually be punished, mostly in the form of spanking. We would also be rewarded when we did something good though, so it makes me wonder if my brothers and I would have turned out a lot differently and possibly have gotten into more trouble when we were kids if my parents had only punished us when we did something wrong instead of also rewarding us when we did something good.I think that the most surprising thing was in the case of the Little Albert experiment. I just thought it was surprising because it showed that humans are able to go through classical conditioning much like other animals are able to.

Terms: Learning, neurons, observational learning, reinforcement, classical conditioning.

Learning is the change of behavior that results from and experience. In the first section of the chapter it explains the three ways we learn. First we learn by non-associative learning. This is where a person learns about one stimulus, which is information in the external world. This is like smelling something that isn’t dangerous, so after time that stimulus will be ignored. Another way we learn is by associative learning. This requires how two or more pieces of information are related to each other. This involves classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Lastly we learn by watching others.
Classical conditioning is where you associate two stimuli with each other. This has been tested by Pavlov’s Dogs. He measure salivating and the presence of food. He also sounded a metronome. The metronome also caused the dog to salivate because he associated the metronome with food. When this happens you have been considered as classically conditioned. Primed to respond a certain way when a stimuli is presented. They use classical conditioning in many ways, some of which is to train dogs and to avoid harmful things. We also can contribute phobias to classical conditioning. Some of our phobias are biological, but some we have learned. This was the most interesting part of the chapter for me. I have been curious to why I have phobias and why some people have phobias of certain things while others don’t.
Operant conditioning is where we learn the relationship between behavior and its consequences. Shaping is great example of operant conditioning. Shaping is rewarding for an appropriate behavior. Shaping is a great way to train dogs. You reward behavior close to the behavior you want until they actually do the behavior. There is positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement makes the behavior have a higher chance of being repeated. Negative reinforcement increases the behavior by removing stimulus. This is somewhat confusing, but it is like taking a pill for a headache. If it works or reduces the stimulus, it is likely to be repeated. The most interesting part of this section was when it talked about punishment. There is positive and negative punishment. Positive punishment is when the addition of a stimulus reduces the probability of the action to happen again. This is like when you get a speeding ticket. It will reduce your likelihood to speed again. Negative Punishment is where you remove a stimulus to decrease the likelihood of the behavior. An example would be when you take away driving privilege after a ticket. Both strategies are effective.
The last way we lean is by watching others. This is a very effective way to learn. It is the most relatable for me, when I think about how I learn. Watching others either get punished for bad behavior or praised for good really effects how we learn and act. We watch movies and then behave like the people we see in them. This just shows the effect of others in our lives. I can remember watching my grandpa work on cars, and leaning a lot about them. I learned how to do things when I was just giving them tools. I eventually could hand him tools without asking. Watching others I believe is the most important and easiest way for human to learn.
Key Terms: Learning by watching others, Positive Punishment, Negative punishment, Positive reinforcement, Negative reinforcement, Operant conditioning, Classical Conditioning, Shaping, Pavlov’s Dogs, Phobias, Non associative learning, Associative learning

Alberto Sveum
Learning is a change in mindset or activity that comes from new understanding or perspective through subjectivity. I do believe this technical and less fun definition of “learning” has some parallels to how I feel learning is in other applications of the word. After typing out that I believed there was little in common between how I think of learning and how the book defines it, I retracted my opinion. I thought for a moment that a fundamental difference was that not everything I learned was in hope of becoming more well-adapted to my surroundings, I was going to give the example of learning the background of The Game of Thrones series or the proper way to play chess. However, relative to where you are, if these topics become relative, they definitely could benefit you. If something is going to benefit you in some way, you will likely learn about it, if it will not, you will likely never be in the environment where it is applicable. I do think some nuances exist between these two types of learning. Most things we learn in school will not be learned by conditioned responses. I think the book did however point out some good points about the correlation of our learning and the more scientific side of the process, like when it discussed punishment and cheating.
This chapter really took lots of things I have noticed myself into a context that is really valuable. For example, I sometimes think about how when I was younger I would come back to school after summer break and have to relearn some concepts like long division or cursive writing. I now know this is because of extinction and spontaneous recovery. I always find learning about how humans work to be very strange. Studying my own operation really opens my eyes to what is going on around me. I kind of wonder how easy it is to distinguish between conditioned and unconditioned responses.
The bit about the monkey being trained to put money in a piggy bank but sometimes refusing is pretty fascinating to me. I imagine the fight to overcome innate tendencies in order for a reward could be difficult. I recall a documentary called “Blackfish” that was focused on a whale that participated in tricks to be rewarded with food but would occasionally act in a more natural manner, seriously injuring, and in some cases, killing its trainers. controlling unconditioned responses seems to be quite a challenge. I question whether it is even moral in some cases.
I read the bit about punishment and had my mind blown. This definitely changed my entire perspective on parenting and responses. To think that children could get the idea that coming forward with the truth and getting punished for what they confessed could be confused so they believe telling the truth is a poor idea really impacted me. We are animals that seek to avoid punishment, unless you are a masochist, I suppose. I definitely now believe that the tendency towards punishment should be changed to support reinforcement instead. This kind of develops a problem at a certain point, however, because at some point, is punishment not necessary? I feel like sometimes punishment is the only way to deal with circumstances. If someone simply told Timothy McVeigh he should be pursuing a degree rather than creating explosives, I don’t feel like that would be very proper.
Psychological terms: punishment, reinforcement, conditioned response, conditioned, stimulus, unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, extinction, spontaneous recovery,

The definition of learning in the text book is a change of behavior that results from experience. In my own words I would say that we perceive the world through our conscious brain. The perceptions alter the way we think and act. That is learning, it’s how we get away from out animalistic instincts, and it’s how we master the world around us. There are three basic types of learning described in detail in the text book: classical conditioning, operant conditioning, and learning by watching others. Classical conditioning is associating a neutral object with a stimulus that has previously been established. The most famous case is that of Ivan Pavlov and his dog. He set a dog in a mechanism that measured saliva output. When he brought out some meat, the unconditioned stimulus, the dog started to salivate, which is the unconditioned response. He also rang a bell, the conditioned stimulus, whenever the meat was brought out. After several trials of that Pavlov could ring the bell only, and the dog would still salivate. That salivation is called the conditioned response and is the basis of classical conditioning. I find this very interesting because I love the show The Office. In in Jim gives Dwight a mint whenever he shuts down his computer. When the computer powers down it makes a distinct noise. After many times of this Dwight gets used to it. One time Jim shuts of his computer and Dwight suddenly get a terrible taste in his mouth, from not having the wanted mint, and states that a mint would be awesome right now. I may have butchered the shows joke, but I still find it amusing. This chapter has very much so changed the way I look at learning. In high school I was on the football team with my buddies. We would always joke around and not really pay attention when we weren’t actually in the game or practice. Coach always told us to pay attention because we were missing his so called mental reps. He stated that they were just as important as real reps but I never believed him. Little did I know that modeling is a really way of learning, and it’s very useful for physical tasks. I did learn a something on the field though. Coach again always told use to keep your head up when running a slant route. Reasoning being that if you catch the ball you are running straight into linebacker territory. My sophomore year in the first game my best friend didn’t do that a got concussed by a kid that know plays at the University of Iowa. I didn’t know it then, but I can know see that I learned through vicarious conditioning, because I sure keep my head up from then on. The most memorable thing I learned was that parental punishment is ineffective. My brothers, sisters, and I were all spanked when young to stop bad behavior, and my parents said we almost always did stop that behavior. They hit us hard or anything, just a firm spank enough to upset us and to make us learn not to do it again. I don’t think I will punish my kids that way though. If rewarding a child is better to reinforce good behavior, why wouldn’t someone use it over punishment?
terms: classical conditioning, operant conditioning, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response,conditioned response, modeling, vicarious conditioning, parental punishment

What is learning? Learning is the change in one’s behavior that results from a personal experience. Learning is a form of realization or understanding of concept, idea, term, or anything that we did not previously know. It is through the world that we live in and the people that we listen to that teach us the things that we know, whether we want them to or not.
There are different forms of learning. They are habituation, sensitization, and associative learning. Habituation is when there is a decrease in the behavioral response due to long or repetitious exposure to a stimuli. Sensitization does the opposite, increasing the behavioral response after long and repetitious exposure to a stimuli.
The way I see learning has now changed after reading this chapter. Before, I did not know or understand the brain changes when and how learning occurs. If a neuron that is connected to another neuron is stimulated by an experience, then their linkage becomes stronger. After this stronger connection is created, learning has transpired. Long Term Potentiation (LTP) is used to help in describing this new and much stronger connection.
One of the most interesting parts of this chapter was when it stated that parents should try to avoid the use of punishment. This struck me by surprise because I was taught that punishment was a good way of teaching a child right from wrong. This is how I grew up to do the right things and not get into trouble. To continue with the chapter, it says that using reinforcement is more effective than using punishment. Children are more likely to listen they are told what they should be doing, rather than what they should not be doing. This made me realize that all of my family members were raised by being told what they should not do, never telling them what they should do.
A part of the chapter that made me remember how I was raised compared to my nieces and nephews was the use of physical punishment. The book explains that spanking, hitting, or other forms of physical punishment are actually very ineffective in teaching children what is wrong. I grew up being spanked or punished physically in other ways but my nieces and nephews were never physically punished. What makes me want to debate this is that I have grown to respect my elders and never talk back or even argue with my mom or older siblings, or even older people in general; but my nephews are very self-righteous and tend to always argue or question things that they are asked to do instead of doing them out or respect for the people who have helped in raising them. My niece supports the book’s claim because she is a very respectful person and never really causes problems with people of authority, whether it is her parents or me. In my opinion, every child has to be treated differently according to the way they experience different events or information that they are presented with. This is why chapter 6 was memorable to me.
Terminology: habituation, sensitization, associative learning, stimuli, neuron, Long Term Potentiation (LTP), reinforcement, punishment

After reading this chapter, I realized learning is a lot more than just reading a book and answering questions. It is actually a change in behavior, resulting from an experience. The brain has to be exposed to new environmental events that allow learning to occur. Learning is what makes all our everybody functions possible and whether we know it or not we are always learning. We learn in three different ways one of those ways being non-associative learning, such as habituation which is when you experience something so much you lose interest in it. For example, if you eat the same food everyday you're going to not like the taste of it as much. The second form of non associative learning is sensitization which is the exact opposite of habituation. The second way we learn is associative, meaning we learn information between two pieces of information. And lastly, we learn by observing and watching other people. Pavlov’s experiment on classical conditioning also reveals other ways we learn. There are 4 steps in his experiment. A stimulus will cause a response whether we know anything about the stimulus or not. Not knowing anything about the stimulus is called unconditional stimulus in his experiment. A response that does not have to be learned for a stimulus is an unconditioned response. The other two parts are the exact opposite of the other two, conditioned stimulus and conditioned response. Which both require prior knowledge. I thought the case of Albert otherwise known as “Little Albert” was interesting because he developed fears by his fathering basically forcing him to be scared of the white rat, rabbit, and eventually all fluffy white items by banging a hammer to scare the child. After being traumatized, Albert ended up dying at a young age. Although this story is very sad, it demonstrates how unconditional stimulus and unconditioned responses work. It also proved a way for reducing phobias. Joseph Wolpe used a treatment called systematic desensitization which would help you reduce your fears and relax your muscle’s and being forced to face your fears can help you get rid of them. I also thought that all the different ways people and even animals can be taught through operant conditioning and punishment was interesting to read about. We can be taught operant conditioning through shaping and using primary reinforcers and secondary reinforcers. There are many ways you can go about punishment, It can either be negative or positive. Positive is like giving out a reward for doing something good. Or we can use positive and negative reinforcement by using stimulus to increase the probability of behaviors happening.
Terms: non-associative learning, habituation, sensitization, associative, watching other people, Pavlov’s experiment on classical conditioning, classical conditioning, stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, case of Albert, desensitization, operant conditioning, punishment, shaping, primary reinforcers, secondary reinforcers, positive/negative punishment, positive/negative reinforcement

You are learning every second of every day. Learning is a change in behavior, resulting from experience. So everything that happens to you on a daily basis is a learning experience. You adjust our behavior and the things you do all the time because you’re adapting to the environment all because you’re constantly learning the do’s and the do not’s. From a psychological science perspective, the learning you think you do and the learning you actually do aren’t the same thing. There are three ways that we learn; non-associative, associative, and by watching others. I already knew that we learn by watching others because we’re all mimicking each other on a day to day basis. The other two I had heard them before but I didn’t exactly know what they meant. Now I know that non-associative learning the learning about a stimulus, such as a sight or a sound in the external world. And associative learning is where one learns about the relationship between two pieces of information. Another thing about learning that I now know is by having positive reinforcement one is more likely to attempt to improve or to accomplish something because the reward is worth it. So, for example, one who received an A after studying and getting praises will more like to study hard for the next test than one who got a C on the test with no encouragement to do better the next time. Since reading this chapter, my understanding of learning has changed. Before, I never really truly thought how people and animals learned. I don’t think too in depth about those kinds of things because they just happen without us realizing. One thing that was talked about in the chapter was the law of effect. Basically it means that any behavior that leads to a “satisfying state of affairs” is likely to occur again. Now, I have a better understanding on how people and animals learn and the different types of learning there are.
I had found this chapter very interesting and there were many memorable things that I learned about. One was the idea of token economics. We had a similar system set up in our school but instead of tokens we had tickets. After you received so many tickets because of good behavior you could turn them in to get a prize or reward. But, if you were caught doing something bad, you got a ticket taken away from you. I never understood why our school did this because people thought of it as more of a joke than anything, but now I realize the school did because of behavior modification. Another topic that I found memorable was the case study of Little Albert. In this case, Watson conditioned the child to be afraid of the color white over a period of time. One thing that Watson was unable to do though before the case study was over was countercondition Little Albert. Another area in this chapter that I was able to connect with was when the book discussed insight learning, which is the sudden understanding of how to solve a problem after a period of either inaction or thinking about the problem. Many people, especially students, can relate to this because there are things that we come across in life that at first we don’t understand but later on are able to figure it out.
Terms: positive reinforcement, token economics, behavior modification, case study, conditioning, countercondition, law of effect, insight learning, non-associative, associative, watching others

Chapter 6
9/28/15

What is learning? Learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. Learning is essential to almost all of the areas of human existence. That is the Psychology In Your Life book definition, but in my own words, learning would be something that we previously didn’t know or understand, that we do now. We start from such a young age, and progress to knowing so many things. This is my own definition of learning.

Learning is not just from education, and or studying. There are many different types of psychological learning types. One of the types is from experience. Learning from a bad experience will allow your brain to let you know not to do that next time. Learning from a good experience will allow your brain to tell you to follow those same steps in order to be happy and learn even more from those experiences. Another example is classical conditioning which is similar to experiences. In the book the example was of Ivan Pavlov seeing the dogs he was studying, and that they would start to salivating every time before starting to eat their food. They than started salivating just seeing food in their dog bowls. He came to the conclusion that the dogs response was acquired through experiences between two stimuli and one another.

The most interesting topic in chapter 6 would be reading about how animals learn through the outcomes of their own actions. The paragraph talks about Edward Thorndike and the research he did to figure out his hypothesis. He would place animals in a trapdoor and when the animal performed a certain action, like step on a lever than the trapdoor would release and the animal could go. He would than place the animal back inside the trapdoor, and each time the animal would get out quicker. Proving that animals learn through the outcomes of their own actions.

The most memorable was reading about positive and negative reinforcement. Also, reading about positive and negative punishment. It talks about for the reinforcement that when you have a positive reinforcement, than you’ll be more likely to repeat the behavior again. When you have a negative reinforcement than you’ll be less likely to repeat that action. When you get a good grade and the teacher congratulates you, than you’ll likely study harder and work harder to get that grade again. The same goes for positive and negative punishment. When you have a positive punishment, the less likely you’ll be to repeat that bad behavior. A negative punishment, also decreases the likelihood of you doing a something bad. Such as when you look your license for speeding when you only have your intermediate license. These were words that I can now use in the real world and people will understand what I’m talking about. Great section.

Terms- Learning, Psychological Learning Types, Psychology, Classical Conditioning, Stimuli, Hypothesis, Positive and Negative Reinforcement, Positive and Negative Punishment,

What is learning? Learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. Learning is essential to almost all of the areas of human existence. That is the Psychology In Your Life book definition, but in my own words, learning would be something that we previously didn’t know or understand, that we do now. We start from such a young age, and progress to knowing so many things. This is my own definition of learning.

Learning is not just from education, and or studying. There are many different types of psychological learning types. One of the types is from experience. Learning from a bad experience will allow your brain to let you know not to do that next time. Learning from a good experience will allow your brain to tell you to follow those same steps in order to be happy and learn even more from those experiences. Another example is classical conditioning which is similar to experiences. In the book the example was of Ivan Pavlov seeing the dogs he was studying, and that they would start to salivating every time before starting to eat their food. They than started salivating just seeing food in their dog bowls. He came to the conclusion that the dogs response was acquired through experiences between two stimuli and one another.

The most interesting topic in chapter 6 would be reading about how animals learn through the outcomes of their own actions. The paragraph talks about Edward Thorndike and the research he did to figure out his hypothesis. He would place animals in a trapdoor and when the animal performed a certain action, like step on a lever than the trapdoor would release and the animal could go. He would than place the animal back inside the trapdoor, and each time the animal would get out quicker. Proving that animals learn through the outcomes of their own actions.

The most memorable was reading about positive and negative reinforcement. Also, reading about positive and negative punishment. It talks about for the reinforcement that when you have a positive reinforcement, than you’ll be more likely to repeat the behavior again. When you have a negative reinforcement than you’ll be less likely to repeat that action. When you get a good grade and the teacher congratulates you, than you’ll likely study harder and work harder to get that grade again. The same goes for positive and negative punishment. When you have a positive punishment, the less likely you’ll be to repeat that bad behavior. A negative punishment, also decreases the likelihood of you doing a something bad. Such as when you look your license for speeding when you only have your intermediate license. These were words that I can now use in the real world and people will understand what I’m talking about. Great section.

Terms- Learning, Psychological Learning Types, Psychology, Classical Conditioning, Stimuli, Hypothesis, Positive and Negative Reinforcement, Positive and Negative Punishment

Learning is when the brain has acquired a stimulation from something and learns how to respond to that stimulus. For example someone who is stimulated by a noise of a fan in their room will soon see the effects of habituation when they no longer pay attention to the noise of the fan. Our brains do this because the fan is seen to no longer be a threat to us. The other side of habituation is sensitization. Sensitization is when our brains are stimulated and the stimulus is a threat to us so our brain does not ignore it. As shown by the study by Pavlov; stimulations can be added to cause the same response of the brain. In his study it was how the brain connected dogs getting to eat with a metronome. This is now known as Classical Conditioning. One can experience this when they hear someone talk about food and their mouths start to water. This is just a way that we have been brought up that when our brains are stimulated by the thought of food that we like; we salivate. The food that we think about is the unconditioned stimulus and the unconditioned response is the reflex of salivating. From a psychological perspective learning has pretty much nothing to do with how I think of studying. I think of studying as repetitive cramming until the test and forgetting about the information after that test or class is over. In the type of learning in the book I see it more as it is learned and used for a long time. The only real similarity that I see is that you learn something from repetitively doing something and when you study; if your technique is right, you will “learn” your information. My understanding of learning has changed dramatically after reading this chapter. At first I thought we just really soaked up knowledge from our environment and whatnot. But after reading this chapter I see that our brain has to do a lot of work to actually “learn” something. One of the most memorable things that I will take away from the reading is the Tolman’s rat testing. This is when he had the three groups of rats go through a maze every day. One group got received no reinforcement, one got reinforcement every day in a reward of food at the end of the maze, and the third group went ten days with no reward and was given a reward on the eleventh day. I found it interesting that the third group would do better than the group who was getting food every time. But I guess this would make sense since the group two rats was always getting food they would see no need to hurry through the maze. The topics that interested me most were the experiments that were done. The one with the rats, the dogs, the child, etc. I found it interesting how the mother of “Little Albert” let Watson do this experiment on her child. This surprised me because the child could have trauma from the experiment that the boy would have to live with for the rest of his life.
The psychological terms I used were; stimulation, learning, reinforcement, habituation, sensitization, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response.

In chapter six, I read about how people, and animals, learn. The word itself is usually paired with connotations like school, knowledge, teaching, and education, but it really means so much more. According to the book, learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. It makes it possible to perform basic and complex abilities that shape the aspects of daily life. As parents often say to their growing kids, people learn through experience, especially when the experience is very good or bad. One way is they can learn through their senses that tell them what they find pleasant and unpleasant. This is called non-associative learning and can result in habituation and or sensitization, also known as accepting the environment or confronting it. Another way they can learn is through associative learning. This means they understand how two or more parts are related to each other, such as having to open a door to get into and out of a house. Finally, they can learn by simply watching other. If a person is trying to fit into an unfamiliar setting, they may mimic what the other people are doing, such as how to play with certain toys or how to act in public. My understanding of learning has changed after reading this chapter, and I think it is very interesting because I can now figure out why I behave the way I do or how I’ve been conditioned or habituated by my environment.

One topic that really interested me was cognitive influences through classical conditioning. I learned that through classical conditioning, a type of learned response in which a neutral object comes to elicit a response when it is associated with a stimulus that already produces a response, animals can come to predict the occurrence of events. For example, my dog gets really excited when I grab a set of specific keys from the kitchen drawer because she knows she is going to go for a walk. This results in the conditioned response of her running around the house barking loudly with excitement before her leash and my shoes are even on. This predicting stimulus only works, however, because it comes before the unconditioned stimulus. My dog learned to predict that keys from the kitchen drawer mean it is time for a walk. This stimulus, however, is also partially reinforced because I do not take her on a walk every time I get the keys. Sometimes I get the keys out to simply tease her! She knows she does not always get a walk, but often enough she does to keep the stimulus from going extinct. I found this topic interesting because it explained to me why my dog responds the way she does when I get the keys.

The most surprising thing I learned in this chapter was cultural transmission that can occur in animals from observing others. Memes, a piece of knowledge about culture that can be shared and spread quickly, are a part of this observational learning. For example, when a monkey named Imo began washing its potatoes in the water prior to eating, other monkeys began to copy him. This meme resulted in a new type of learning in the species and was passed down through many generations, resulting in the monkeys still washing their potatoes to this day. I also found mirror neurons very interesting. Whenever I watch I movie and see gross things (i.e. limbs ripping off, people being stabbed) I cringe and hold and myself in an effort to reassure my mind it is not happening to me. This is because every time I watch someone participate in an activity, similar neural circuits are fired in my and the other person’s brain. I was glad to learn this because it helps me to better understand why I am affected this way when watching movies and why I am very empathetic.

Learning, behavior, senses, non-associative learning, habituation, sensitization, associative learning, learning by watching others, cognitive influences, classical conditioning, conditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, partial reinforcement, extinction, cultural transmission, mirror neurons

Not only was this chapter interesting, but it was really relevant to everyone’s life in our continuously changing world. In my opinion, the world revolves around learning. It is imperative to continue learning throughout your entire life. It is important to be informed on current issues and new ways of life. You can’t live the same way for your entire life, it is unreasonable and you will get left behind by technology. If things can improve, why wouldn’t we improve with them? Learning is so important it is required that we go to school for the first thirteen years of our lives to learn, then some people, like everyone who is also writing a psychology blog, continue on to college for 4 years for a bachelor’s degree. Others will continue on for even longer to get a master’s degree to become a doctor. There are three main ways people learn new information: non-associative, associative, and watching others. When I first saw that this chapter was on learning, I thought that it would focus on studying and school environments. I was surprised to realize it went so much deeper than that. I think that it depends what kind of a learner you are to determine what you would apply to study habits and this chapter. Personally, I think that if I always study in the same environment, I will thrive because of habituation. Once I am comfortable I can focus in on what I am learning about and understand the information better. Another subgroup of learning I think really fits me is vicarious conditioning. I am a worrier, so I stress about getting in trouble. If I see someone else getting in trouble for something, in the school environment or anywhere, you better believe I will not be participating in that act. In this chapter I realized that there are so many little details about learning that I had no idea about. I was unaware that there are so many factors in the way that different people learn. The topic that I found the most interesting from the reading was the experiment with the gray wolves and the sheep in the Northern Rocky Mountains. I thought that this was interesting because I was able to connect the evolutionary theory that I have been learning about in another one of my classes to it. I thought it was really interesting how the wolves adapted to the poison taste on the sheep. When the book mentioned that this is similarly done with humans when something makes us sick, I could relate. When I was younger I got sick after eating meatloaf and now I don’t eat it anymore. I now know that this is because of stimuli pairing. Finally, something that I found really surprising was Little Albert and his classical conditioning. I couldn’t believe that they were willing to create phobias for the child, even if he ends up dying at age six. It really stuck out to me because I cannot imagine this experiment happening today.

Learning, Non-Associative, Associative, Watching Others, Habituation, Vicarious Conditioning, Classical Conditioning, Evolutionary Theory, Adaptation, Stimuli, Phobias.

Learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. Before reading this chapter, whenever I thought of learning I thought of going to school, class, or something along those lines. I now know that learning is definitely from our experiences and how we see different things happen and respond to different things. We learn in three different ways. In non-associative learning, a person learns about one stimulus, which is information in the external world. A stimulus could be a sight, smell, or sound, for example. An example of non-associative learning is habituation. Habituation is where an individual is exposed to a stimulus for a long time, or repeatedly. Eventually, the individual’s behavioral response to that stimulus increases. An example of this could be if I was driving on the highway when suddenly I heard a noise that sounded like sirens. First, I would probably turn down the radio and listen if the sound was a siren or not. If it was a siren, I would most likely begin to think if I was being followed by a cop or if an ambulance or emergency vehicle was coming. If I discovered it wasn’t a siren, I would turn the music up again and continue on. Sensitization is the second from of non-associative learning. It takes place when an individual is exposed to a stimulus for a long time, or many times, and then has an increased behavioral response. Associative learning, on the other hand, requires understanding how two or more pieces of information are related to each other. Associations develop through two types of conditioning: classical conditioning and operant conditioning. The third type of learning is learning by watching others. Obviously, this is when we learn from watching other’s experiences. This is a very important way of learning.
The experiments throughout this chapter were all interesting to me. The one that stood out to me was Pavlov’s dogs. In the experiment of Pavlov’s dogs, Ivan Pavlov revealed the four steps of classical conditioning. First, he began with a stimulus that naturally elicited a response. In this case, the food served as that stimulus. Every time the dogs saw the food, they began to salivate naturally. Next, Pavlov presented a neutral stimulus. This stimulus could be anything as long as it was not associated with the unconditioned response. He used a metronome device which was constantly clicking and making noise. In the next step, he presented the neutral stimulus with the unconditioned response. The dog now started associating the clicking noise with the presence of food. Eventually, every time the clicking noise was around, the dog expected food and began salivating. The metronome was now the conditioned stimulus and the salivation was the conditioned response.
The thing that surprised me the most was definitely the way reinforcement and punishment influence operant conditioning. Reinforcement makes a behavior more likely to be repeated while punishment makes that behavior less likely to occur again. When talking about parental punishment as being ineffective, it surprised me very much. Many psychologists believe that punishment is often applied ineffectively, and that it may have unintended and unwanted consequences. In order for punishment to be effective, it must be reasonable, unpleasant, and applied immediately. Punishment can lead to negative emotions, such as fear and anxiety. Behavior modification is a much better way to eliminate unwanted behaviors and replace them with better ones. Token economies are an example of this and are very effective. In a token economy, people earn tokens for completing tasks and lose tokens for behaving poorly. The people can later trade their tokens for objects or privileges. Instead of showing a child what not to do, token economies show what they should do, making this very effective.
Terms: learning, non-associative learning, stimulus, habituation, associative learning, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, learning by watching others, Pavlov, neutral stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, reinforcement, punishment, behavior modification, token economies

Learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. From a psychological perspective, learning has little to do with the modern day idea of learning. Whenever someone refers to learning, pictures of notebooks, pencils, and markers may pop into one’s head. We usually associate school related things with learning. But according to the psychology textbook, learning has more to do with how our experiences in life shape our actions and emotions. After reading chapter six, my understanding of learning has broadened. For starters, I learned of classical conditioning, which is a response where an object makes a person feel a certain emotion. A man by the name of Ivan Pavlov, researched the way people learn. His research introduced us to the ideas of unconditioned stimulus and unconditioned response. Unconditioned stimulus is a response that requires no prior learning and an example of this would be a bowl of dog food. A reaction that a dog could make when seeing this food is producing saliva, which would be an example of an unconditioned response, a response that does not have to be learned.
We can also learn through operant conditioning, which is when consequences of an action determine the likelihood that the action will be performed again. The section went on to explain the types of reinforcements. There’s positive reinforcement, which is the addition of a stimulus to decrease the probability of that behavior happening again. An easier way to think of this would being rewarded for good actions. The other type of reinforcement is negative reinforcement, which is the removal of a stimulus to decrease the probability of that behavior from happening again. These reinforcements are fueled by positive and negative punishments. An example would be if a child is rewarded with candy whenever they make their bed, they're more likely to make it everyday, where as if they’re scolded then they’re less likely to make their bed. Learning is also done from observational learning, which is when an individual changes or acquires behaviors by watching someone else. After reading this section, I’ve seen that learning involves so much.

The topic that was most interesting to me was the idea of observational learning. In today’s world, people are heavily influenced by the ones around them. I think it’s fascinating to see how little girls can be so influenced by their favorite singers. For instance, my eight year old sister loves Selena Gomez. She is always singing her songs and trying to dress like her. If Selena styles her hair a certain way, my sister instantly wants that hairdo. She demonstrates modeling. My sister wants to be like Selena. Today’s society is so obsessed with famous people and it reminds me of observational learning. You’ll always see on television movie stars walking down the red carpet wearing expensive clothing and jewelry which usually leads to the television host to say something along the lines of, “if you want this style, then go to this certain website and buy it”. Or we’ll see famous people getting certain tattoos that other people will copy, or naming their kids weird names and then a few months later everyone else is naming their child that as well. I find the whole idea of modeling and imitation to be fascinating.

What was the most surprising or memorable thing you learned about in this reading?
The most memorable thing I learned while reading this chapter is that learning is so much more than just school and knowledge. The way we act and why we act that way is also done by learning. I never knew that learning was such a detailed topic. When I saw the chapter topic of “learning” I was thinking that it would be a breeze because who doesn’t know what learning is? But as I began to read, I realized that there’s so much to know about learning!

Psychological terms I used were learning, classical conditioning, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, operant conditioning, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment, observational learning, and modeling.

After reading chapter six, I figured out that the technical definition of learning is; a change in behavior, resulting from experience. From what I read, it taught me that basically everything we have the ability to do is from experience. I think do not think we use learning in the right sense when we think about studying and educating because, as students, you can not always just listen to a lecture and remember everything as one may think their brain may be able to do. Yes, one can take a few mental notes and listening can count as an experience, but to be able to really truly learn the content of a class, one must take notes and practice the information given. The more one experiences the content, the more one learns. Still, I don’t believe that educational learning in school falls under any certain “type” of learning. One could use operant conditioning when studying because if one does not study, it could lead to a negative outcome- such as a bad grade. I can relate to both habituation and sensitization, as I think everyone can. I honestly think it can depend on the mood one is in because if one is in a good mood and watching television and one’s little brother is telling a really unnecessary story, one could slowly drown out the sound and keep watching the television. On the other hand, one could be in a bad mood and respond to the same situation completely different. One could be handling the situation by sensitization and every time the little brother opens his mouth, one would raise her voice higher and higher, yelling at him to stop. Both of these ways are under the category of non-associative types of learning.
I thought it was most interesting to learn about operant conditioning. I thought the Skinner Box was very obvious, yet very cool to learn about. If one was rewarded with food, who would choose to avoid and ignore doing the action one was rewarded for? I do not think many humans of animals would not be conditioned to that action. I think it is also pretty interesting to learn about the positive reinforcement opposed to negative punishment. I think I could relate to this because if I were to get a good grade on a paper, maybe my parents would give me a cookie, but if I were to get a bad grade, I could get my phone taken away.
The most memorable thing I learned about in this reading was learning through modeling because I think that this is very relevant to the development in adolescents chapter. In cliques in middle school, a girl may use vulgar language and one of her friends may see that and think it is the “cool” thing to do. Her friend modeled swear words and she followed. When one is learning about morals, one can look at their friends and see what they are doing to try and learn themselves.
Psychological Terms: learning, experience, operant conditioning, habituation, sensitization, skinner box, positive reinforcement, negative punishment, modeling

Learning is a change in behavior that results from an experience. Every individual must learn, it is essential for our survival. It makes things like us walking, talking, sitting, and other basic abilities possible, along with our complex skills. Learning has a huge impact on our daily lives. But learning is not just learning in the class room by an instructor like I once thought of learning before, it is much more than that. An important type of non-associative learning is , habituation, this is the decrease in behavioral response after lengthy or repeated exposure to a stimulus. These could be our senses such as sight, smell, taste, or sound. An example of this would be if you work somewhere that doesn’t have such a pleasant smell, and you often bring it home on your clothes. When you first start your job you may be aware of this smell, but once you’ve worked there just a short period of time you will not be able to smell this anymore. Sensitization is basically the opposite of habituation, it is an increase in behavioral response after lengthy or repeated exposure to a stimulus. This would be like smelling something burning and connecting the reasoning behind that smell. There are three types of learning non associative; learning about a stimulus such as a sight or a sound, in the external world. habituation and sensitization are examples of non associative. There is also associative learning; learning the relationship between two pieces of information and learning by watching how others behave.

I found that reading about the reinforcements and punishments were very interesting to me. Both positive and negative reinforcement increase the likelihood of that behavior reoccurring. An example of positive reinforcement would be a reward. An example of positive reinforcement is when you're trying to train your dog you often give them treats or pet them when they sit when they are told, or when they go to the bathroom outside. This will make the dog continue to do these good things for their reward, and then it will become habit. Negative reinforcement is the removal of a stimulus to increase the probability that a behavior will be repeated, this happens a lot in our daily lives. For example; when you have a headache, you take a pill, when you’re trying to study in the quite, you shut your door from distractions. Unlike reinforcements, both positive and negative punishments reduce the likelihood of that behavior reoccurring. Positive punishment is the addition of a stimulus decreases the probability of a behavior reoccurring. For example when a cop gives out a speeding ticket he/she doesn’t want it to happen again, and it normally makes you drive slower so it doesn’t happen to you again. Negative punishment is removing a stimulus decreases the probability of that behavior reoccurring. An example of this would be a driver getting many speeding tickets so their license is taken away, this will prevent it until they get it back and hopefully in the future as well. There are not always reinforcements and punishments in our lives so sometimes we have to teach ourselves what is right and what is wrong. There are many different views on the effectiveness of parents punishing their children. In chapter 6 they talked about how psychologists have studied punishments and realize there are some strict guidelines to proper punishment; the punishment should be right after the bad behavior, it should be reasonable, and unpleasant. This is not always the case for how some parents go about punishing their children, so there are often worse outcomes. There can be confusion for children when there is punishment; like should I be afraid of mom or dad? Also their can be confusion on why they are being punished if they admit to taking their brothers toy from him, but get in trouble they may think they are getting in trouble for telling the truth. So often reinforcement is chosen to be a better method to have a positive outcome. I found this section very interesting to learn about because you often see parents get really upset with their child’s behavior, making the child more upset and not really learning the lesson, just fearing their parent. It gave me a huge opinion on reinforcements vrs. punishment.

The most memorable thing to me in this reading was reading about the training of animals for commercials. This process is a very difficult one, because animals have troubles learning something new that is not in their environment. For example they wanted a raccoon to put money in a piggy bank, but the raccoon reacted to the money as food and would not put it in the piggy bank it just rubbed the money in its paw like it would its food. Because that reaction is built in, and is hard to break.

Terms: Punishment, reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, learning, habituation, sensitization

Learning is a change in behavior, resulting from experiences. From a psychological perspective, learning does have to do with studying; it has to do more with experiences and what’s around us. There are three different ways of learning. Habituation and sensitization are part of non-associative learning, which is where a person learns about one stimulus. Habituation is when our behavioral response to a stimulus decreases. Whereas, sensitization is when our behavioral response to a stimulus increases. There’s also associative which involves the classical and operant conditioning. Associative is learning the relationship between two pieces of information. Classical conditioning is when we learn that a stimulus predicts another stimulus, and operant conditioning is when we learn that a behavior leads to a certain outcome. The third type of learning is watching others. Which is learning by watching how others behave. Observational learning, modeling, and vicarious conditioning are all apart of watching others. Observational learning is when we learn or change a behavior after watching a person engage in that behavior. Modeling is imitating a behavior seen in others, and vicarious conditioning is learning to engage in a behavior or not, after seeing others being rewarded or punished for performing that action. It was crazy to think that we “learn” because we’re actually changes our behaviors that you have from events that you have experienced, but when you think about it it’s completely true. When you’re little if you do something wrong and you get into trouble you’re not going to do it again because of the experience you have during that time.
The topic that was most interesting to me was about the Case of Little Albert, and how we can learn fear responses through classical conditioning. How we can be introduced to something that doing scare us at all, but then when it’s introduced with a scary noise it can cause fear or a phobia of that item. It was also interesting learning about observational learning, and how people have an influence on one another. While reading this I was thinking about my roommates and I, should times on of us will start acting crazy and we’ll all join in and we just build off one another. Or one of them will have something they say all the time, and I’ll catch myself saying in while I’m with different people.
The most memorable topic was about positive and negative reinforcements/punishments. When you have a positive reinforcement you are more likely to do that behavior again. But when you have a negative reinforcement you are less likely to do that action again. If you have a positive punishment, you are less likely to repeat that bad behavior again. When you are given a negative punishment, you are also less likely to repeat that behavior.
Terms: learning, habituation, sensitization, non-associative, associative, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, watching others, observational learning, modeling, vicarious conditioning, stimulus, positive/negative reinforcements, positive/negative punishment

The definition of learning is a change of behavior that results from experience. It makes it possible to perform basic abilities that shape the aspects of our everyday lives. Ultimately, learning is less about education and studying, and more about behaviorism, experiences, observations, stimulus, as well as reinforcement. My parents still tell me to this day that people learn through experience, especially when the experience is very good or bad. This completely relates to what I read in this chapter. Also in this book, I learned about non-associative learning (learning through senses and expressing what someone finds pleasant or not pleasant) and how it can result in habituation and/or sensitization. This is otherwise known as accepting the environment or confronting it. Then, there’s another type of learning, which is associative learning. This is where a two or more parts are related in some way, such as cleaning dishes and then putting them away. We figure out how to do this by learning in general. A human learns so much everyday and it just keeps building, which results in someone being very knowledgeable all round. The last type of learning is simply by watching someone else doing something, and then mimicking the action. An example could be how someone acts in public. Everyone acts the same way for the most part, because they see what other people are doing in a public setting. When it comes to learning, I look at it in a very different way after reading Chapter 6. I find it interesting that someone can learn just by figuring out to behave the way someone else does, or how the person is habituated by the environment. The fact that it just comes naturally to abled humans, too, is quite fascinating if you really think about and analyze the way of learning, like this chapter did.
What I found really intriguing is the tests with the dogs. When a dog sees food, it salivates. In the video, the person was opening up some dog food with an electric can opener. The dog uses its learning ability to figure out that the can opener leads to dog food. This in itself made the dog drool. Then, the manual can opener was brought out and the dog had no expression on his face until he saw that it was also used to open the can of dog food. If you think about it, it’s truly amazing how non-voluntary responses happen in these sort of situations. Especially from a dog. The food represented the unconditioned stimulus, which created an unconditioned response from the dog. The difference between unconditioned and conditioned stimulus is that unconditioned responses are something that happens without knowledge needed, prior to whatever circumstance. Conditioned stimulus is something that has already been learned, thus creating a reaction. This is where the electric can opener came into play. It triggered a conditioned response, which also is a reaction after learning something. The dog food experiment was fascinating to me because of these psychology terms coming into play. It was also the most memorable. In my high school psychology class, my teacher also taught about Pavlov’s experiments involving classical conditioning with dogs. Pavlov originally found that dogs salivate when their tongue touches food, but after multiple tests and trials, he then found that the dogs actually anticipate the food and began to drool before the testing even took place. Overall, this chapter really did interest me on many levels. Learning is truly an amazing act that not just humans have, but animals have as well.
Terms: habituation, sensitization, non-associative learning, associative learning, stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, classical conditioning

Learning is a modification in an individuals behavior through experience or when an individual is exposed to new information. Learning makes our fundamental cognition possible like walking or speaking; it also makes our complex ones like performing surgery possible too. Psychological learning is not just sitting in a classroom, it is exposure to the real world and interacting with the others, listing and learning from others experiences. Before reading this chapter I did not know that there are three way or learning. I did not also understand the whole concept of learning until now. I am not able to define what learning is through this chapter.
The most intersecting thing from this chapter was the different types of learning like the non-associative, associative and watching others. Non-associative is when, learning about the stimulus like sight or a sound in our outer world. There are two types of non-associative learning habituation and sensitization. Habituation is when an individuals behavioral outcome to stimulus decreases. In sensitization an individuals behavioral outcome to stimulus increases. In Associative an individual learns the relationship between two pieces of information. There are two types of associative classical conditioning and operant conditioning. classical conditioning is when an individual learns that one stimulus predicts another stimulus. Operant conditioning is when an individual learn that a behavior leads to a certain outcome. In watching others is learning by watching how others behave. There are three types of watching others observational learning, modeling and vicarious conditioning. In observational learning is when an individual learns or changes a behavior after watching a person engage in that behavior. Modeling is imitating a behavior seen in others. Vicarious conditioning is when learning to engage in a behavior or not after seeing others being reward or punished for performing that action.
Pavlov's dogs experiment has to be the most memorable thing that I have learned in this chapter. What he did was measuring its salivary secretions by presenting a dog with a bowl of food, he called it unconditioned response and he called the food unconditioned stimulus. Then in step two, neutral stimulus is anything that the dog can see or hear, but has to be connected to the unconditioned
response, but did not cause salivation. In step three conditioning trials. In step four the critical trials Pavlov learned that the dog has learned the association between the food and metronome. Now the dog salivated in this step.

Psychological term- non-associative, associative, watching others, habituation, sensitization, conditioning, operant conditioning, observational learning, modeling, vicarious conditioning, unconditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, neutral stimulus, conditioning trial and critical trials.

To me, learning is simply the adopting of a certain behavior due to various circumstances. Nothing in this chapter was too new to me, seeing as I actually remember most of the concepts discussed (classical conditioning, etc.) from my high school psychology class. Some of the information is interesting when applied to education. You can take a step back and look at what professors or teachers have in mind when they ask students to complete a certain task. What kind of conditioning or learning are they encouraging? It seems that classical conditioning is more popular among elementary school teachers, and even in some upper levels of education. A common reward for a right answer or good behavior is candy.
In fact, to me, classical conditioning is really interesting. I actually have classically conditioned my cats to associate me turning and releasing the basement door handle in my house with getting fed. It started when I was young and placed in charge of caring for my new cats. I wanted to figure out some way to get the cats to come downstairs with me for feeding time. I started by calling them, but they were new cats so that did not really work. Eventually I tried jingling the door handle around (which made a relatively loud and interesting sound). This attracted the cats so that I could bring them downstairs. Eventually, the cats began to associate the sound of the basement door with me going down to feed them. The unconditioned stimulus was the presenting of food, and the unconditioned response was for the cats to eat the food. The cats began to associate the sound of the door with getting food. The sound of the door became the conditioned stimulus. Now I can simply turn the basement door handle if I want my cat to come to me.
Now there is another factor in this accidental experiment of mine. One of the cats had been making messes around the house consistently, so we decided to move her to an outside shelter. It has been over a year since this happened. This conditioned response I developed with the basement door is now extinct in the cat that we now have living outside.
I have also used psychology to train my pet hamster, Velma. When I had a hamster, I desperately wanted it to sit on my hand and be comfortable with me handling it. In order to do this, I used positive reinforcement. It started out with me getting Velma to associate my hand with her favorite food – uncooked oatmeal. I started out small, by simply handing her a single oat a few times a day. Eventually I would place my hand on the bottom of her cage and set oatmeal on it. She would tentatively take it off of my hand. Eventually, after a few weeks of this, she began to treat my hand like a food bowl. The second I put my hand in her cage, she would run on to it, food or not. Eventually I could lift her out of the cage on my hand without her becoming afraid. Of course sometimes she would quickly realize there was no food there and simply bite my hand and leave. Not going to lie, Velma was not the most loving pet I have ever owned.
Overall, I find these different learning styles very interesting. As someone who has trained cats, dogs, and even my pet hamster tricks, I really have been able to apply these concepts to my life.

TERMS: classical conditioning, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, extinct, positive reinforcement

What was the most surprising or memorable thing you learned about in this reading?

Learning in the books terms is a change in behavior, resulting from experience. In my own terms is how you react to something based on your past experience. In a psychology sense it has nothing to do with education and studying. It is more of how you learn things on your own using your senses. For example, you learn how to go to the bathroom by using a toilet. Our parents had to train us and use reinforces such as giving us treats and telling us how good we did. They may even have used shaping and every time we told them we had to use the bathroom we would get a treat. Then if we would walk to the bathroom we would get another treat. From that, we learned how to use the bathroom without studying it. Sometimes learning things psychological isn’t as rewarding. During John Watson’s experiment to test fear, he used a baby and had simple objects that the baby wasn’t afraid of. Watson would later show an object and when he showed that object to the baby he would produce a loud bang which would startle the baby and after repeating this process a few more times the baby was scared and wouldn’t even look at the object.
I have learned a lot about learning in this chapter. Such as it isn’t just about studying and school. We learn everyday whether we know it or not. It is very interesting that even the simplest events can affect how we think of things for the rest of our lives. It made think of my life when I was about 6 I was sick. I did not feel good at all. I went into the kitchen and my mom was making French toast and I could smell it and she was dipping it in the batter. Till this day I will not eat French toast because I learned that it associated with how I felt on that day, even though French toast wasn’t the reason I didn’t feel well. That was very interesting to learn and to figure out why I don’t like French toast.
The most surprising thing I learned was about Pavlov’s research about the dog and feeding him. An unconditioned stimulus such as dog food will cause a reaction of an unconditioned response such as salivation to occur. He added a metronome as a conditioned stimulus. So when the dog would hear the metronome the first time, the dog didn’t react, which is called conditioned response because the dog learned it. After the metronome sounded Pavlov added food. The dog got used to hearing the metronome he would get food so when the metronome would play he would start to salivate thinking he would be getting food afterward. Although he tested this on a dog it works for a person too. An acquisition becomes form when the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli are associated together. If the metronome came right before the food then the salivation was stronger than it would be if it came at the same time or after. Extinction also occurs if the uncontrolled stimulus isn’t there anymore. So if the metronome played and the dog salivates but the dog did not get the food afterward the dog would eventually learn that the food was not going to come anymore and would stop salivating after the sound of a metronome. After extinction, if a metronome plays again the thought of food coming might be triggered causing a spontaneous recovery and the dog might salivate a little more, but then the dog would remember the food isn’t coming and the reaction would eventually fade back into extinction again. If the dog would hear a noise that sounds similar to the metronome then the dog might salivate thinking it was the actually the metronome. That is called stimulus generalization. The dog would have to learn that that certain noise is not the metronome, which is called stimulus discrimination.

Key Terms: learning, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, stimulus generalization, and stimulus discrimination

Chapter six was all about learning, the different ways we learn, and the result that learning has on our brains. Our book’s definition of learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. In other words, we learn from things that we see in our everyday life. We begin learning as soon as we enter the world. When we are children we learn simple things such as how to speak and eat, and as we grow older, we learn more complex things such as how to drive a car and the appropriate way to act in a relationship. Even though our learning ranges from simple to more complex things, they are all equally as important. We learn in three different ways: non-associative learning, associative learning, and learning by watching others. When we learn in the non-associative way, we often learn through habituation and sensitization. Habituation is when someone is exposed to a certain sight, smell, or sound for a long period of time, and eventually that person’s behavioral response decreases because they have gotten so used to the stimulus. Sensitization is the complete opposite. It is when a person is exposed to a stimulus (sight, smell, sound) for a long period of time, and their behavioral response increases. The next type of learning is associative learning, which is learning the relationship between two pieces of information. This happens with the two forms of conditioning which are classical and operant. Classical conditioning is when you learn that two stimuli go together, and that one can predict another. Operant conditioning is learning that a behavior can lead to a certain outcome. The third and final type of learning is watching others, which can be broken into three separate forms of learning. The first is observational learning, which is when we learn a behavior after watching someone else engage in that same behavior. The next type would be modeling, or imitating a behavior that you see someone else do. The last type is vicarious conditioning, which means that we can learn whether or not we should engage in a behavior after seeing another person being either rewarded or punished for partaking in that action. Whenever I have heard the term “learning” I have pictured students sitting in desks in a classroom listening to a teacher. After reading this chapter, I realize that learning goes far deeper than that. Learning is based mostly on a person’s ability to react to behavior. The most memorable thing that I learned in this chapter would have to be the section about positive and negative reinforcement. The example of the rat and the food was very interesting. I learned that positive reinforcement is the addition of a stimulus that increases the chances that a behavior will be repeated, and negative reinforcement is when a stimulus is removed rather than added. Positive reinforcement can also be referred to as reward. If a person is positively reinforced, they are more likely to repeat the behavior, because they are benefitting from it. If a person is negatively reinforced, they are attempting to put a stop to something that they don’t particularly like. I thought of examples of positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement to better understand the meaning, and came up with several. An example of positive reinforcement would be feeing your dog a treat after they do a trick, or buying a child a toy as a reward for good behavior. An example of negative reinforcement would be taking tums to ease your aching stomach, or wrapping up your ankle after you have badly twisted it. I thought that this section of the chapter was so interesting because we see both positive reinforcement and negative reinforcement almost everyday. It is everywhere around us even though we may not realize it.
Terms: learning, behavior, non-associative learning, associative learning, learning by watching others, habituation, sensitization, stimulus, conditioning, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, observational learning, modeling, vicarious conditioning, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, reward, punishment

This chapter made me think about how we learn without even realizing we are doing so. The most interesting thing I read was that we can learn in three different ways, which I didn’t realize we did I just figured learning was simply learning. The three ways we learn habituation and sensitization, which are non-associative learning, and lastly there is associative learning. Habituation is a form of non-associative learning that occurs with repeated or prolonged exposure to a certain stimuli. Habituation is interesting because the behavior response to that particular stimulus decreases the more you are exposed to it. Sensitization occurs the same way habituation does, when an individual is exposed to a stimulus repeatedly or for a long period of time but it has an increased behavioral response that leads to heightened preparation when there is a potential danger. Associative learning requires an understanding of two or more things and then it fits them together. I found that the most surprising thing I read was about was the case of Little Albert. I found this surprising because John Watson experimented on a child. Although not a dangerous study, I agree that it is rather unethical. I was somewhat surprised to read to section on punishment being ineffective, although I can understand how the process can be confusing for a child. Psych terms I used were: habituation and sensitization

Learning, as defined by the book, is a change in behavior that results from experience. Learning helps shape almost everything about you. Without learning, humans would not be able to do basic activities, such as walking, to aspects of our personalities, like the kind of music you like or your morals in life. The formal learning theory started when psychologists disagreed with Freud, stating that behavior and learning were based on more than aspects that can be directly observed. Modern psychologists believe that learning occurs when an animal or human benefits from the experience. By having a good experience when learning, the individual’s behavior is more adapted to the environment. In this chapter, we learned about the three ways we learn, non-associative, associative, and by watching others. Non-associative learning is when learning about one stimulus. There are two different forms of non-associative learning, which are habituation and sensitization. Habituation is when the individual is exposed to a stimulus multiple times or for a long period of time, and eventually their response to the stimuli decreases. The individual learns to ignore a stimulus if it does not offer a reward or pose as a threat. Sensitization is the opposite, when our response to a stimulus increases; this leads to heightened readiness for a threat or reward. Associative learning is when understanding how two different stimuli are related to each other. There are also two different types of associative learning, classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is when we learn that a stimulus predicts another stimulus. The book described this as when you hear scary music in a movie and associate that with an anxious feeling. Operant conditioning occurs when learning how a behavior leads to a certain outcome. Observational learning, modeling, and vicarious conditioning are subtypes to last way of learning, watching others. Observational learning is when after watching someone preforms a certain behavior, the individual changes his or her behavior. This is a common way of learning for humans and animals. Because children are always soaking up information while developing, observational learning is a good way to teach. Modeling is when an individual imitates the behaviors of the model. The model in this case can be a parent, sibling, friend, etc. People learn what to do and not to do by watching others get rewarded or punished for doing a certain activity; this is called vicarious conditioning. If a child sees a friend get put into time-out for hitting others, odds are, the child will not hit others like his friend did.

My understanding of learning has changed drastically. When thinking about learning, I thought mostly about watching others and copying what they have done, the modeling type of learning. An example would be when being taught how to drive a car, a teenager will watch closely to how a parent drives, and learn by imitating them. I don’t think learning has a lot to do with studying. I think studying for a test or for a class in more memorization rather than learning. When I study flashcards for my Art History class, I will know the information for the test, but more than likely won’t remember for the final two months from now. I would not consider this learning.

One of the most interesting and memorable aspects of the chapter for me would be the part on learning without reinforcement and the idea of the cognitive map. The study was done with three different groups of rats. One group was sent through the maze and didn’t receive the food, the second group was rewarded the food every time they completed the maze, and the third group was only rewarded the food every ten times they completed the maze. The first group was slow finishing the maze throughout the study, while the group that was awarded every time, completed the course more quickly and accurately the times following. What I think was most interesting about the study was that the third group, who only got food after completing the course ten times, finished the course even better the next couple times than the rats that continually received food. The study showed that the rats had known the layout of the maze the whole time, but only revealed this knowledge when they began getting rewarded. I think that this can be seen in children as well; kids will withhold information from their parents. If a child does something bad and their parents want to know more about the situation, the child will withhold that information if they believe they will be punished. It’s interesting that this trait can be seen in rats and that learning does not have to be linked to reinforcement.

Psych Terms: Learning, Non-associative learning, associative learning, Habituation, Sensitization, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, observational learning, modeling, vicarious conditioning, cognitive map, reinforcement

After reading chapter 6, I have a better understanding of how we as humans learn. I originally thought going to class and soaking in a bunch of information and facts was the only way we learn. But really, learning is a change in behavior that results from an experience. From a psychological science perspective, learning has nothing to do with how I thought of it (education, class, studies, etc). Overall, after reading this chapter, my understanding of the depths of learning has drastically changed.

Throughout this chapter, I learned that there are three different ways we learn, non-associative learning, associated learning, and learning by watching others. Non-associative learning is when an individual learns about stimuli from the external world. This type of learning includes two categories, habituation, which is when you have a decreased behavioral response because of excessive exposure of a recurring stimulus. The second category is, sensitization, which is when you have an increase in behavioral response because of excessive exposure of a recurring stimulus. Associative learning is when an individual learns the relationship between two pieces of related information. There are also two categories involving this learning style. Classical conditioning, when a stimulus predicts another stimulus, and operant conditioning, when our behaviors can sometimes lead to a certain outcome. Learning by watching others is the third way humans learn. This type of learning includes three categories, observational learning, modeling, and vicarious conditioning, which are somewhat self explanatory.

The most interesting ideas to me were reading about stimulus generalization and stimulus discrimination. The process is short but, stimulus generalization is the tendency of a subject to respond to a similar group of stimuli but not identical to the conditioned stimulus. During generalization, this subject can demonstrate discrimination. Stimulus discrimination is a distinction between similar stimuli when only one is involved with the unconditioned stimulus. In figure 6.6, people avoid three leafed plant because they believe it could be poison ivy. They do not associate themselves with look alikes but, plants with five leaves they do not discriminate against.

The most memorable thing I read about in this chapter was the case of Little Albert. He was presented with several objects, a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, a monkey, a ball of white wool, and costume masks and he had zero fear of any of them. John Watson placed a white rat in front of Alberts face, he reached for it and SMASH! Watson struck a hammer against an iron bar causing Albert to tense up and pull his hand away. John Watson continued this experiment with the rat but Albert would be scared and cry. Albert developed a fear response to the stimuli and eventually was frightened by all the objects shown to him. I learned that phobias and fears can be developed in classical conditioning.

Psychological Terms: Learning, Habituation, Sensitization, Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, Stimulus Discrimination, Stimulus Generalization, Modeling, Vicarious Conditioning.

Learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. It’s most important thing about ourselves because without it we would not be able to walk, speak, write, sing, or how you act in a relationship. Freud had a theory that aimed to assess the unconscious mental processes that they believed were the determinants of behavior, but psychologists did not agree with Freud and said that the Freud Theory was unscientific and meaningless, the psychologists made theories of behavior and learning that were based on events others could observe. Psychologist, John Watson, says that when an infant is born it knows nothing, and it learns everything through sensory experiences. He said that environment and its associated effects on animals were the only determinants of learning.
My understanding of how we learn has changed since I have read this chapter because I did not know we learn in three ways. I honestly never thought about all the different ways or if there were any different ways we learned things. There is a non-associative learning called habituation, and its where an individual is exposed to a stimulus for a long time, or repeatedly. Someones behavioral response to that stimulus ends up decreasing in time. The other one is sensitization, and that is a second form of non-associative learning. It happens when someone is in contact with a stimulus for a long time.
The most interesting thing that I read from this chapter was when it talked about how the brain grows when we learn. It’s a no-brainer that it happens, but it’s pretty interesting to think about. It is talked about that if one neuron excites another a change takes place that strengthens the connection between the two neurons. When one neuron fires, it is more likely to set off another neuron. This was also the most surprising thing that I learned in this reading. Researchers have investigated the activity that results from the strengthening of the synaptic which they refer to as LTP, or long-term potentiation. This is easiest seen in brain sites known to be active in learning and memory, such as the hippocampus.

Terms Used: learning, behavior, Freud, Frued Theory, psychologists, sensory, non-associative, behavioral, sensitization,neuron, synaptic, LTP, hippocampus,

9/29/14

Learning is change in behavior that results from an experience. It’s one’s personal response to the world around them in order for them to survive and be interested in their everyday life. From a psychological science perspective the word “learning” deals with a broad range of ideas. Learning can be as simple as figuring out how to use a spoon as a small child, figuring out how to walk, or figuring out how to make sounds. When many people think of learning they tend to think of education, studying, ect. This is a form of learning, however it’s only a small portion of the large world of learning. When we study, we often repeat things over and over, either out loud or we will write them down. This is a way of using habituation. However we also use habituation when we learn to ignore the sounds of the city such as moving traffic. Through reading this chapter my understanding of learning has changed. I now understand that the human mind is always learning. I can sit back and listen to the sounds around me; I’m learning right now.

I found the most interesting topic of this section to be modeling. We start modeling as small as infants. We learn from others whom we admire to stick our tongue out or make faces. People are more likely to imitate actions of those who are attractive, have high status, and are similar to ourselves. Many times people will not recognize that they are imitating actions of others. Adolescents are easy to observe when it comes to modeling. Adolescents who see their favorite actors in movies smoke are more likely to smoke. The more they expose themselves to it the more positive attitude they develop towards it. Movies tend to glamorize the habit by making it seem mature, cool or even sexy. After reading this topic of modeling I then began to think of whose actions I imitate. I would assume that my actions come from imitating those actions of my favorite artists, musicians and maybe even actors. I find it disappointing that movies and celebrities can make such an impact on one’s behavior.

The most surprising aspect of the reading was that parental punishment is ineffective. “One thing people learn from punishment is how to avoid it” Skinner pointed out. I thought of friends of mine whose parents were very strict and we prone to punishing. Growing up I noticed that these friends with strict parents actually found much more enjoyment rebelling than a kid whose parents were not so strict, or punished reasonably. For punishment to work it must be reasonable, unpleasant, and immediately applied. A small child might not understand what he’s being punished for if it’s the next day. Punishment can lead to unintended consequences. One thing parents forget to remember is that they can destroy relationships with their kid through unreasonable punishment. Punishment often leads to negative emotions. Fear and anxiety become associated with the person who administers the punishment. This is most of the time the parent of the child.

Psychological Terms: Learning, habituation, modeling, punishment.

As the book says, learning is a change in behavior, resulting from experience. Learning doesn’t necessarily mean studying or education; learning can simply mean that your behavior changes because of observation and exposure. So, of course education and studying is important but we, as humans, learn to pick up knowledge by even the smallest of influences. After reading this chapter, I learned that changes in behavior/ learning can be changed by different stimuli and that learning is inevitable because our environments simply cultivate tons of stimuli for growth and change within our behaviors. The most interesting topic I read was that punishment, especially if done wrong, is very ineffective. Instead of reinforcing good behavior, punishment not only makes an individual rethink the good behavior because they want to avoid punishment, but also increases fear and anxiety. Punishment can also damage relationships which can affect parents’ futures with their children and even their grandchildren. I always had parents who reinforced good behaviors and were naturals at raising children so it was interesting to read about this because I never actually went through or experienced any of this. I totally understand why punishment is so ineffective because it uses aggressive methods to deter children from bad behaviors instead of using firm but gentle reinforcements of good behaviors. The most surprising thing to me was that many years ago, they used babies as test subjects and instilled irrational fears, such as white rats, to aid their studies. Of course, research is crucial but it is also difficult to accept that they used kids that were unable to consent to the study and gave them fears instead of enforcing curiosity in them. The psychological terms I used were: learning, behavior, changes, observation, exposure, influences, environments, growth, reinforcing, punishment, anxiety, and curiosity.

Learning is a change in behavior that results from an experience. When we learn, we create a stimulus and from that we get a learning sensation. This helps us remember things. One concern is that when you have a repeated stimulus, people get into habituation mode where there is a decrease in behavioral response. Humans learn in three different ways. There’s non-associative learning where you learn about a stimulus (stimulus being information), associative learning, where you see how two pieces of information connect with each other, and the last way of learning is learning by watching others, which is pretty self-explanatory.
The psychological science perspective just limits learning (education wise) to just studying and education. There are many more ways to learn. To me, the most beneficial way is to learn from experience.
I realized now that by repeatedly going over my notes for hours on end may be limiting my learning in some ways. I may fall into habituation mode where I actually lose stimulus. I also learned that that any object or phenomenon could be converted to a conditioned stimulus when associated with any unconditioned stimulus. This process is called classic conditioning.
I thought that the story about “Little Albert” is interesting. I’ve heard this story before and continue to think about the ethical parameters of this story. They induced a fear of mice to this little boy during a important development stage in his life through classic conditioning. I can just imagine all of the anxiety that Albert now has due to that case study.
Terms: stimulus, sensation, habituation, non-associative learning, associative learning, learning by watching others, classic conditioning, case study, and development.

Learning is not what we think it is. Learning as defined by the book is changing your behavior because of an experience. I did a lot of learning when I was a kid. One time I was going off a ramp on my bike and I fell off of my bike and then my bike fell on top of me. After that I stayed off of ramps for a while. I cannot remember if I went on a ramp after that or not. I definitely learned because I changed the behavior of riding my bike off ramps. Studying actually is a kind of learning. The books talks about studying for a test will cause the score to be better is a kind of learning. This type of learning is associative learning. This is associative learning because we understand that study we get a better grade. That is basically the definition of associative learning. The book definition is that we understand a connection between two things. I did not know how we learned but it makes sense. The definition makes sense when you think about it. I did not know the different types of learning. I thought of the types of learning as the ones you learn when you take those tests to see how you learn. The actual types of learning are seeing someone else do it, non-associative learning, and associative learning. Seeing others do it is like seeing you someone do something and you do it. The book has an example of people wearing the same clothes as popular people. Non-associative learning is when something hits our sense and we have a behavior for what the sense is. An example would be if we hear the tornado siren we are going to go to someplace safe.

It was interesting that you can create a fear of get rid of one and the way to do this is do the opposite of the other one. To make a fear you have something, but you make something happen bad when you have that thing. This is called classic conditioning. To get rid of a fear you use counterconditioning. You have someone do something they like and also bring their fear into it so they have good thing associated with the fear.

Something that surprised me was that there are so many ways to learn. Besides the three was there are different ways within the way. With Non-associative learning has sensitization and habituation. They’re more to the main three main ways. Each way has more ways like non-associative.

Learning, non-associative, seeing someone else do it, associative, classic conditioning, counter conditioning, sensitization, habituation

According to chapter six, “learning is a change in behavior that results from experience.” But what really is learning? Learning is our adaptation of human existence; we gain knowledge of abilities. When we learn we are able to know how things are done, how they work and what it takes to make them work. Learning and the things we learn help shape our lives. Psychologically, learning is not just studying or gaining education from a school. There are many forms of learning that we do not even realize we have learned. Some of these are sensitization, classical conditioning, unconditioned and conditioned stimulus, and unconditioned and conditioned response. Sensitization being our way of knowing whether or not something around or near is dangerous. Classical conditioning being how when we see a restaurant sign that serves spicy food, our mouths water. These forms of learning are often overlooked and often never thought of as being something we learn to do. My understanding of learning has changed in the way that I learned that we live every day from the things that we have been exposed to. Behavior modification is a perfect example because I learned that as time passes we are able to develop a technique called operant conditioning, and with this we can basically get rid of any behaviors that we do not want and replace them with behaviors that we see as being desirable or necessary.
From my reading, the topic that I found most interesting was the topic concerning parental punishment. I thought this was interesting because when I think of parental punishment I immediately think of my childhood. Growing up I was a pretty well behaved child and had little to no problems concerning behavior. But the second I would misbehave I would be spanked or punished to the point where I knew I never wanted to do that action again. From the reading I thought the idea of how punishments can affect the emotional relationship between the child and the parent doing the punishing. I think this was most interesting because the text is definitely right. It states that emotions such as anxiety and fear definitely have a huge role on how the child will develop as a young adult and how the relationship will be in the long run. This was interesting as a whole because when I think of my punishments as a child, and when I think of how my relationship is with my mother now, I realize that maybe the punishment choices have affected our relationship. It has the effect of how we communicate. By this I mean, if I do something that is slightly wrong, I am often too afraid to talk to my mom and explain to her what I had done.
The most surprising and memorable thing that I learned in this reading was how biology influences observational learning. I thought this to memorable because I found it actually interesting. I learned that when we see someone doing something, mirror neurons activate. These neurons tend to activate when we are watching someone do something that has some sort of goal. For example, if we see someone sitting down with a cup of water on their desk, the neurons do nothing. But when we see that person begin to reach for the glass, that is when our mirror neurons activate themselves.

Terms: Neurons, observation, learning, communication, parental punishment, behavior, biology, sensitization, classical conditioning, unconditioned and conditioned stimulus, and unconditioned and conditioned response, mirror neurons, observational learning, operant conditioning.

Learning is a change in behavior, resulting from experience. To me learning in constantly evolving our knowledge about things. We learn in three ways non associative learning which is when a person learns about one stimulus which information in the external world, associative learning which requires understanding how two or more pieces of information are related to each other, and there is learning by watch others which is exactly how it sounds. From a psychological perspective learning is constantly taking in what you experience, read, see, hear, ect. and that constantly feeds to how you are learning everyday. My learning has changed just by learning about learning. When I think about learning I think about schools, textbooks, and homework, to me that is how you learn. It never really occurred to me that you are learning with everything that you do. I knew you learn from mistakes and experiences but it is much more than that. What was interesting to me was was Thorndike’s experiment with cats. I took psychology in high school so I have heard a lot of the experiments and theories. But I had not heard about Thorndike’s cat experiment how he put a cat in a puzzle box, as he called it, and set food outside the box so the cat could see it. The cat would make many unsuccessful attempts to get out and would accidentally step on the level opening the door. He would then put the cat back in the puzzle box to do it again. After each trial the cat got out quicker each time. The most memorable thing to me was Pavlov’s dog experiment. When I read that it blows my mind that it actually works. First he set the food in front of the dog (unconditioned stimulus) which caused the dog to have a reflexive response, which is drooling. Then he took the food away and put a metronome (neutral stimulus) in front of the dog which caused the dog not to drool. His third step was the conditioning trials. He put the clicking metronome in front of the dog along with food so that the dog begins to learn that the two are associated which each other. Finally in the critical trials, the clicking metronome (conditioned stimulus) is presented to the dog without food. The dog begins to drool (conditioned response). This shows that the dog learned that the metronome predicted that food was coming. The dog was classically conditioned to associate the metronome with food.

Terms: Metronome, conditioned response, conditioned stimulus, critical trials, conditioning trials, neutral stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, puzzle box, Pavlovs theory, thorndike’s experiment, behavior, associated learning, non associated learning

Learning is a change in behavior, resulting from experience. I think that learning is really important in our life because it is connected with our survival to adapt to the environment. After reading this chapter, I realized that learning has much broader meaning in psychological perspective. It is not only to gain new information and necessary information, but also to get a different way through experience that I go thought from everything. There are main three ways of learning like Non-associative, Associative, Watching others. Non-associative is learning about a stimulus, such as a sight or a sound, in the external world and Associative is learning the relationship between two pieces of information. Lastly, type of Watching others defines learning by watching how others behave.
One of the most interesting parts of this chapter was that Pavlov’s experiments reveal learning by classical conditioning. This is because I have a dog and I have experienced same condition like this experiment. When I feed my dog, I always give food in yellow bowl while I sing a song for few years. Therefore, now when I pick the yellow bowl up while I sing a same song, my dog follows me and shows the salivation elicited by food. The yellow bowl of my dog and my song are conditioned stimulus that is a stimulus that elicits a response only after learning has taken place and the salivation is called conditioned response that is a response to a conditioned stimulus. That is, my doggy has learned the association between the food and two things such as the yellow bowl, song and the process is known as acquisition in classical conditioning.
The most memorable thing I learned about in this reading was that parental punishment is ineffective. Before reading this chapter, I thought the parental punishment is essential as a means of discipline to lead their children into right behavior direction. However, against my expectation if children are punished by parents, they learn from punishment is how to avoid rather than learning how to behave appropriately. As well as, punishment can lead to negative emotions. Therefore, psychologists believe that using positive reinforcement is more effective than using punishments to lead children into positive and better behaviors while building a good relationship with their parents.
Psychological term: Learning, psychological perspective, Non-associative, Associative, Watching others, Pavlov’s experiments, classical conditioning, salivation, conditioned stimulus, conditioned response, acquisition , punishment, reinforcement

The first question, asking what learning really is, contradicts heavily with my philosophy. For your curiosity, learning in philosophy is known as recollection. In psychology its a “change in behavior that results from experience” so basically, its learning from your mistakes and from your surroundings. It doesn’t seem like it connects that well with the education system. The definition of learning seems to apply a lot more to the outside world, real life experiences, rather than an in school experience. My understanding of learning hasn’t changed all that much. The most interesting/surprising and memorable thing in the reading this time around was about stimulus generalization and discrimination, like with the poison ivy leaves. And it is very true, when I’m out hiking in nature I tend to avoid all three leafed plants. It was also interesting to review unconditioned stimulus and response and also conditioned stimulus and response. How we can be trained to respond to certain things, for example the bell at school or a certain sequence of clapping.
Terms: learning, stimulus generalization and discrimination, unconditioned stimulus & response, conditioned stimulus and response

There are many different types of learning. Some learning goes on in the classroom. That kind of learning teaches you thinks about social studies, science and math. This kind of learning is a learning that educates you. The type of learning talked about in this chapter is learning a behavior or a learning to change your behavior. Learning in really something that teaches you a certain behavior, if you act with that behavior you get a reward. There was much way to teach a behavior talked about in this chapter. Learning from experience, which is watching other people’s behaviors and picking up on them. Non-associative learning is when a person learns one stimulus, which is information of the external world. There are two forms of non-associative learning one kind is habituation. Habituation learning is when a person is exposed to a stimulus repeatedly or for a long time. The second form of non associative learning is sensitization. Sensitization learning is when a person is exposed to a stimulus for a long-time or many times then have an increased behavior response. Another type of learning is associative learning. Associative learning requires the understanding of how two or more pieces of information are related to each other. The first time of associative learning is classical condition. Classical condition is when a stimulus predicts another stimulus. Another type of associative learning is operant conditioning; operant conditioning is when people learn that a behavior leads to a certain outcome.
From a physiological standpoint it does not have to do with education or learning in a school environment. This type of learning has to do with learning or unlearning behaviors. The type of learning done in school has to do with studying the material and learning things teachers teach you. The physiological learning talked about in this chapter is learning how to repeat or start a behavior. With behavior learning people most likely get something out of it for example candy, so the person keeps doing the behavior knowing that if you do the behavior you will get a piece of candy.
From reading this chapter I understand learning in a different way. When I hear the word learning I think of school and sitting in a classroom. This type of learning is how to teach someone a behavior. I now understand there are different types of ways to learn. It made me understand behaviors in a much better way. I think people learn a behavior even when they do not mean too. People are always being conditioned even when they do not know it is happening.
I have always been interested in counter condition. How people can have a behavior for a long time and then not have it anymore due to counter conditioning. I think it is awesome how people learn to not be afraid or have a phobia anymore due to exposure. Also observational learning is very interesting. You watch people do things every single day. Without know you see someone behave a certain way then pick up that behavior without knowing it. People pick up new behaviors all the time due to just watching others.
The most memorable thing I read was classical condition. I think it is a very important type of learning and many people learn that way without knowing it. Also how there are many different parts that go into classical conditioning.
Learning, Non-associative learning, Habituation, Sensitization, Observational learning, Associative learning, Classical Conditioning, Operant Conditioning, Behavior

The book defines learning as a change in behavior that results from experience. We perform new tasks many times before they are actually easy to do. Once we are able to do a task without thinking about it, we know that we learned it well. Learning does not only have to do with studying or our education. As infants, we are born not knowing anything. We watch our caregivers very closely and imitate their actions. The books gives an example of how babies learn new things by modeling their caregivers. When a caregiver starts to make faces or stick out their tongues, the babies will start to do that too. We also learn to do things by watching others perform tasks. We do this until we feel we can complete the task on our own. Not only do we learn by watching others, but there are three ways that we learn. The first way we learn is by nonassociative learning, which deals with information in the external world, such as sight or smell. The second way we learn is by associative learning which is learning how two or more parts of information are related to each other. The last way we learn is by watching others. I knew about this type of learning before I read the chapter, because I would watch how other people did the task and how they accomplished it perfectly. I remember when I learned to tie my shoes. I watched my dad tie his shoe a few times before I attempted to tie mine. When I started to tie mine, I messed up a lot. I would tie my shoe at the same time as he tied his and I kept practicing until I knew how to do it. I think that learning something new takes a lot of time and patience, You have to keep doing something many times before you are able to do it like a pro.
My view of learning has changed because I used to think it was just by watching others and practicing new things on my own. I know that we can’t learn something overnight, We have to keep practicing until we are able to accomplish the task easily.

One part of the reading I found interesting was about phobias. I never realized that people can be afraid of things because of a fear experience they had when they were younger. After read the section about phobias, I understood why I am afraid of certain things. I am afraid of heights, snakes, and spiders which makes sense because I had a bad encounter with each of these. I found it really interesting that people can overcome their fears by counterconditioning.

One topic I learned in the chapter that stood out was Bandura’s research. I thought is was surprising to learn that kids act on what they saw. The kids in the experiment who saw adults abusing the doll, did the same thing when it can time to play. However, the kids who witnessed the adults being nice to the doll, did the same thing when it was time to play. We learn new things by watching or listening to others. If we want our kids to act responsible and not get into trouble, then we have to teach them from right and wrong as they grow up.

Terms: modeling, phobia, nonassociative learning, associative learning, learning by watching others, learning

The definition of learning is a change in behavior that results from an experience. I found it really shock that from a psychological perspective learning is much different from what I thought it would be. When growing up I was always told to pay attention in class because that is where I will learn the most, and I never really questioned it because it seemed to me that it would be true. I had always thought of learning as a school thing and helping me be ready for my future career. After reading chapter 6 my views have greatly changed, I now know that the most learning happens interacting with the real world and getting these real world experiences is much more benefit than just sitting in a classroom. I feel as if the psychological perspective entails a lot more to learning the most other definitions. It entails skills such as observation learning, insight learning, and latent learning. My definition of learning was more based on the skills for my future career, but now I know learning is much more than just school. I thought the most interesting in this chapter was reading about positive and negative reinforcement. Positive reinforcement is the addition of a stimulus that increases the chance that a behavior will be repeated. Negative reinforcement increases behavior by removing a stimulus. These topic is very interesting to me because in the future I hope to become a teacher and also coach. I feel by reading threw this section I now have a better understanding of not only what they are but how they work. I feel like now I would be more capable of using the right technique to better help a student repeat a positive action or fix a negative one. The thing that surprised me the most was the case of little Albert. In this study John Watson studied a young baby to see how he reacted to items after he would scare the baby while showing him the items. After sometime the baby just became afraid of the item itself even without him purposely trying to be scared. I just found it interesting and memorable because it shows how something else can affect how you view a completely different thing.
Key Terms: learning, observation learning, insight learning, latent learning, positive and negative reinforcement

Learning is the change in behavior resulting from experience. (pg.195) When the word learning is defined by these words, I see it a Learning in a different way. I always thought learning was just what you were taught, either by a person or by experience. You can learn from your mistakes. When I think about what learning means to me more thoroughly, think that you learn from your mistakes. Then you change your way of doing something, because of your experience with the past. Learning doesn’t have to do anything with your education, or studying. Learning to me is about adapting to your environment, or adapting to change. Yes, you can learn from studying, by finding that if you review something over again, you end up remembering it and getting a better grade on a test. A good grade can be a positive reinforcement. My way of thinking about learning has changed, because I will not associate learning just with school or new tasks. I will associate learning with changing and adapting to new situations or learning from past experiences. I can be learning all the time without consciously knowing it. Since coming to college, I have learned how much time it can take to get to certain, buildings. I have a visual map in my head of campus, just by walking campus. I know where I am at anywhere on campus, and can take the fastest path to a certain place. I also have learned that I can take care of myself, but I still need my parents sometimes. Since everyone is different, they have learned to be that way, they have either had positive/negative reinforcement/punishment to help them in their environment. Since living on my own I know I have had a lot of insight learning. I think that is because I have more freedom and independence to learning things on my own. I think the topics that I found most interesting was the experiment on baby Albert. Albert was the baby boy used by John Watson. Watson would use loud noises to scare Albert, when Albert would see a rat. It would scare him, and eventually he would be scared of the rat whenever he saw it. The rat never did any harm to Albert, but the scary noise conditioned Albert to being afraid of the rat. I also thought the section on learning by watching others was interesting. We can learn so much from others, in the way they act. Observational learning is when you watch someone perform a task, and you try it in a similar way. For example, I may put together a puzzle by starting from the outside and building inwards, others may start by finding pieces that fit together. Modeling can be from watching my mother fold clothes and I will fold them same way after watching her do laundry. Vicarious conditioning can be when I watch a sibling get punished for getting a bad, grade and seeing my other sibling be rewarded for getting a perfect score. I think that the most memorable thing in this chapter was learning, about the actually definition of learning.
The definitions I used in this comment are: Learning, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, positive punishment, negative punishment, insight learning, observational learning, modeling, and vicarious conditioning.

According to the text learning is defined as a change of behavior resulting from an experience. I think that this definition does a good job answering the question of what learning is in broad terms however, as far as the question of whether learning is what we commonly think of it (education etc.) My answer to that would be that I think we as a society tend to narrow in on what learning is when I actually think that it is very broad and there are many different types of learning that are what make up learning. For instance in the text it lists at least three different ways that we learn. They are: non-associative, associative, and watching others. There are sub types that are affiliated with these three different types of learning. This proves my idea that there isn't one specific type of leaning just like there isn't one type of way that we learn. I think that we tend to incorporate thinking with education and things of that nature because I think that is learning that is applied and that we are conscious of. Many of the other types of learning that we go through on an every day basis are gone about unnoticed. Things as simple as walking or picking up a box to knowing how far away to stand from someone and other cultural characteristics. I think that learning takes place in every single role we play in day to day life.

My idea of what learning is has changed quite a bit from reading this chapter. I think that I was like most people and thought learning was something that always had to be applied or obvious and from reading this chapter I have realized how much every single function we participate in during our normal day requires learning and has required learning throughout our entire lifetime.

The thing that was most interesting in this chapter was the history on the matter actually and how so many different psychologists had different views and opinions on how we learn things and what causes us to learn things. Frued had used verbal report techniques such as dream analysis. Other psychologists had thought that these tactics where unscientific and meaningless. Specifically, John Watson rejected any psychological approach that could not be observed directly. According to him observable behavior was the only valid indicator of psychological activity. Another psychologist that Watson was influenced by was John Locke would argued that infants are at a "tabula rasa" or at a blank state. He also thought that when we are born we know nothing and that we learn over time through sensory experiences.

The thing in this chapter that I found most memorable was about positive and negative reinforcement. What I found so interesting is that both negative and positive reinforcement increase the likelihood of a certain behavior. Positive reinforcement is the addition of stimulus that increases the probability of that behavior. On the other hand Negative reinforcement increases behavior by removing stimulus. Both of these have influences that will affect behavior in the opposite manner which has proved extremely interesting to me.

Psychological Terms: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, Frued, John Watson, John Locke, tabula rasa, learning, associative, non-associative, watching, behavior.

Learning is often defined as a relatively lasting change in behavior that is the result of experience. Learning became a major focus of study in psychology during the early part of the twentieth century as behaviorism rose to become a major school of thought. Today, learning remains an important concept in numerous areas of psychology, including cognitive, educational, social, and developmental psychology. The main assumption behind all learning psychology is that the effects of the environment, conditioning, reinforcement, etc. provide psychologists with the best information from which to understand human behavior.
As opposed to changes in short term behavior potential. Learning implies long term changes. As opposed to long term changes caused by aging and development, learning implies changes related directly to experience. Experimental learning can be defined as "the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience. Knowledge results from the combinations of grasping and transforming experience."
Experiential learning theory differs from cognitive and behavioral theories in that cognitive theories emphasize the role of mental processes while behavioral theories ignore the possible role of subjective experience in the learning process. The experiential theory takes a more holistic approach and emphasizes how experiences, including cognitions, environmental factors, and emotions, influence the learning process. My understanding of learning has changed a lot since reading this chapter. I just never really understood how the brain functioned upon learning not only new information, but on a day to day learning experience. The most interesting part I read about learning was Skinners recommendation that reinforcement is a better way than punishing to teach desirable behavior. You will not learn the correct way of something if you get yelled at for misbehaving, or getting a F on your test for cheating. The most surprising thing I read in the chapter was that learning results from alterations in the connections between synapse. When one neuron excites another, some change takes place that strengthens the connection between two neurons. After the original event, the firing of one neuron becomes increasingly likely to cause the firing of the other neuron.

Learning is the ways in which we adapt to every day life through exposure. After reading this chapter, I realize that learning is not all about going to school, sitting at a desk, and repeating things over and over until you can say them yourself. Learning is actually much more in depth than this and is very much necessary for our survival. In addition to this, learning can be done in many different ways. For example, some people are not good at learning through instruction, but must be taught visually. This is called observational learning. Some other ways we learn are very instinctual. A good example of this is through aversion---like when you eat something that makes you sick and you can't ever see it the same way again. We can also learn, just as animals can, through various levels of conditioning. This can be done when you repeat something enough that it becomes a habit, and then when you do repeat this later, it becomes expected. For example if you ring a bell every time you feed a dog, the dog will come to expect food and actually have it's mouth water when you ring a bell. This can also be done in a negative way-- for example you may ring a bell and shock a dog at the same time. After a while of this, the dog will come to expect to be shocked when the bell rings and he will wince. This is known as negative reinforcement. I think the most interesting topics lie within the instincts of learning and how we really are hard-wired to learn and react to different things based on our past experiences. What is most interesting to me is that this allows for everyone's experiences and learning styles to vary based on their own individual pasts. The most memorable thing for sure will be the story about the wolves being reintroduced to Yellowstone. I thought the way the scientists went about averting the wolves from the sheep was very smart.
Terms:Learning, Conditioning, aversion, Positive and Negative Reinforcement, Observational learning, Instinct

Learning is the behavioral change from experience. I always envisioned learning as gaining new information from someone telling you about something or how to do something. My understanding of learning has changed by actually deeply thinking about all the ways that I learn, it’s not just by taking notes and being told what is right and wrong, it’s by experience and the reaction I get to certain stimulus.
The three ways that we learn was interesting to me. We learn by watching others, non-associative and associative ways. We learn by habituation, which is a decrease in behavioral response after lengthy or repeated exposure to a stimulus. We learn by habituation when we are continuously exposed to a certain stimulus. We also learn by sensitization when we are exposed to a stimulus for a long time and then we have an increased behavior response. Both habituation and sensitization are forms of non-associative learning. Another thing that was interesting to me was the reinforcement effects on learning. Positive reinforcement, commonly known as a reward, is used often with children or teaching pets new tricks. This may not be a good thing to do, but if my niece is good in the store, she gets a small cookie from the bakery as a reward for being good. The only downfall to this reward system is that she thinks every time she is going to get a cookie. Another thing that is interesting to me is insight learning, the sudden understanding of a concept after thinking of it for a long time. I definitely have had some insight learning experiences in Algebra II in high school, my teacher was not a very good teacher, so he didn’t teach me anything, but I would get the correct answers from the back of the book and then would look at the problem for a while before I understood how they got the answer that they did and taught myself that way.
The most memorable thing in the reading to me was the experiment where the salivation of the dogs was enhanced when signs of food were approaching. This was a good example of acquisition. Then once they started to bring the signs of food around with no food, the stimulus of salivation in the dogs decreased, known as extinction. Then after extinction, spontaneous recovery occurs with the sight of a sign of food again. The dog was experiencing operant conditioning while they associatively learning, since they got food when the metronome or food bowl was present, they figured that food would come in the future when they were present once again. Positive punishment is common in raising children, when they are naughty, when I was growing up; we got a spank, in hope that we wouldn’t act the same way again. This is a good example of behavioral modification, a way of using different techniques to get the desired outcome and response.

Terms: learning, habituation, sensitization, acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, operant conditioning, positive reinforcement, positive punishment, behavioral modification, insight learning, associative learning, non-associative learning

Learning to me is all about what we experience, and through that experience we react to it and change our behavior based on what we learned. From a psychological science perspective I don’t think learning is anything like education and studying. From the science perspective, learning is all about your behaviors and how you react to something through responses. Also learning is more in depth in real life scenarios rather than in your education. For example, in school you learn things that apply to that class or subject and will more likely forget that information by the next year but in the real world you learn things that can help yourself throughout your whole life period. Such as when you’re a little kid and you touch your hand on a hot stove, you learn that hot stoves should never be touched again because it can hurt you. This is an example of learning through operant conditioning because operant conditioning is where someone learns the relationship between a behavior and its consequence, and the relationship affects future actions. This relates to the little kid touching the stove because the little kid’s behavior of touching the stove caused a consequence, which was the little kid getting hurt. In turn the child relates the stove to being hot and will hurt the child again if he/she touches it.
My understanding of learning has changed a lot since reading this chapter. I used to think that we learn through what we are taught in school and by our behaviors. But after reading this chapter I now have learned that “learning” is more in depth of how we or our peers react to our own actions and how our actions affect our own behaviors in the long run.
The most interesting topic that I read about was the learning without reinforcement, especially the insight learning and the cognitive map examples. I have had insight learning so it was interesting to me that there was even a term for a sudden understanding of a problem.
The most surprising thing that I learned in this chapter was how spanking your children can be bad for them. When I was kid and ever got in trouble I would always get a spanking. Also you hear stories of your parents getting spanked by their parents and how they grew up fine and are now raising kids and doing the same punishments. I also learned that spanking is not or should not be considered a negative punishment because spanking is considered as a physical punishment. This physical punishment does not teach the child bad from wrong, it teaches the child that adults can hit their own kids and that child will more likely grow up to hit their own kids.
Psychological terms: Learning, Operant Conditioning, Reinforcement, Insight Learning, Negative Punishment, Cognitive Map, and Physical Punishment.

Learning is taking in any type of information, whether it is simple or complex, and using it in our every day lives. Everything that we have done or do is because at some point in our lives we learned how to do it. There are many things that we learn naturally and we have to recall of actually going through the process of learning it. From the time we are born to this very second, everything that we know now, we have learned in some way. When I first thought about what learning was, my mind immediately went to education and what we learn in school. But, after reading the chapter that is not all of it. Throughout our education we learn more than just what is on assignments and tests. We learn social skills, how to be more independent, and we learn how to learn. When I was reading the three different ways of learning, I came to the conclusion that we also need to learn how to learn. Everyone is different, but psychologists have been able to study and do research to better understand how to categorize the way a person learns. That is why I found this section the most interesting. It’s not about the best way that a person can learn or memorize a subject to get a good grade on a test, but it is about the natural way someone is subject to learning. The three ways of learning are: non-associative, associative, and by watching others. In non-associative learning there are two sub points, habituation and sensitization. Through habituation we use our senses to report any new stimuli, and from then on we determine that it isn’t anything to pay close attention to. Sensitization is the opposite because after so long of being exposed to stimuli we decide to have an increase in behavioral response. There are two sub points of associative learning as well, classical conditioning and operant conditioning. I like to think of this type of learning to be like a cause and effect. In this type of learning we are exposed to more than one piece of information at the same time. Through classical conditioning we learn over time that one stimulus causes another stimulus. But, through operant conditioning we learn that the outcome of something depends on our actions. The third way of learning is by watching others. We can either learn observationally through watching someone act out a certain behavior, model someone by imitating what they are doing as we watch, or vicariously by learning to behave or not depending on how their actions are perceived as good or bad. I found this way of learning to be the most memorable because I have a lot of little cousins and nieces and nephews, and I’ve been able to relate how they learn by watching others. Young children really learn a lot by being exposed to older kids or adults. They might sit back and observe and learn how to do something, or that with their actions come consequences. Because they are so young, a lot of the times they are exposed to new stimuli. Their brains are constantly learning new things from being in a different environment. It’s a natural instinct for them to learn from observation. Of course they learn in other ways as well, but I’ve learned through observing them that they learn a lot through observation as well. Some ways come more natural than others, but in the end everyone is learning something new everyday.

Psych terms: Non-associative, associative, observation, stimuli, habituation, sensitization, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, modeling

Learning, as the book states, is the change in behavior that results from experience. Learning isn't just what we go to school for. Learning can be many things such as learning how to walk after you failed many times or learning how to ride you bike. We can learn in various ways. Habituation means that an animal learns after being exposed to a stimulus for a long time but if the stimulus is not rewarding, the animal may take less notice of it. The second way is sensitization. Sensitization occurs when the animal is exposed to a stimulus many times and thus changes its behavior around that stimulus. The last way is learning by watching others. This means that an animal will learn when it sees it's peers performing a certain behavior.
Although I already had a sense of how we learn before this chapter, I did not know ail of the details or the terms that are uses. Before this chapter, I theorized the entire unconditioned stimuli and response while just training my own dog. However, I never took the time to research how exactly it works psychologically. For example, my mom used to give our dog scraps from our dinner. Soon, whenever plates were brought to the table, the dog started begging for food. In order to stop this, I made everyone quit giving food to the dog during dinner time. After about 6 months or so, our dog began to beg less and less. Now, he sits on the couch while we eat at the table. The conditioned stimulus in this situation would be the tables being brought to the table. The dog associated the plates with food, the unconditioned stimulus, After seeing this, the dog began to beg by panting, jumping, wagging tail, etc. This was the conditioned response to the stimulus. When I stopped giving the dog the stimulus of food, the dog began to disassociate food with the dinner plates.
The conditioning section of this chapter was the most interesting to me. By learning how the conditioning process work, it can become a lot easier to change behavior in children and animals. The conditioning process is very important in parenting situations as well. If you show a negative stimulus to a child, the child may not see what exactly they are being punished for. For example, your child steals something from a store. Your child, after getting home, tells you that he stole the piece of candy. In order to make the child not want to steal, you punish him by spanking. Due to your child just being honest about what he had done, he perceives the punishment as for being honest, rather than for stealing thus making the child more prone to not telling the truth but not any less prone to stealing. I thought this was a very interesting section to read. It really made me think about how I myself was raised and how I can teach other people how to treat their children in these situations. The number that was astounding was the stat that 75% of American parents spank their children because they think it actually helps. I think the best way to change this perception is for parents to become educated on parental psychology so that children will be brought up the right way, instead of being punished later in life because they associate certain stimuli for different things, sometimes leading to violence.

Terms: learning, habituation, sensitization, unconditioned, conditioned, stimuli, response, conditioning,

This chapter was very interesting to me, with how they did numerous experiments all seemingly based on the same principle of conditioning yet each experiment was unique in what It was testing for. The chapter starts off with the example of reintroducing grey wolves to Yellowstone national park. Many farmers and ranchers were worried that the wolves would feed on their sheep and cattle, the fish wildlife service developed a very clever idea to take sheep and cattle that have died, place there carcasses in a place where the wolves would find them and poison the meat so that the moment they ingested this meat they become sick and would vomit. The wolves soon learned to associate sheep and cattle meat with being sick and vomiting, this type of conditioning is called “Conditioned taste Aversion”. When the Chapter got to Classical conditioning I was a d using the example of French fries I honestly become hungry, as discussing this for my blog I become hungry and want food of that sort but I now know that this is all because of classical conditioning. The chapter discusses that if we are exposed to a neutral object and it eventually elects a response when it is associated with a stimulus that already produces a response. This response can be as simple as a person liking French fries from McDonalds, then you driving by a McDonalds and have your mouth water. This is all classical conditioning. This response can be caused voluntary too, Pavlov did an experiment based on classical conditioning by using a dog, food and a metronome which is a device that a band director uses to help tune instruments by beating at a certain pitch. He first placed the food in front of the dog which when food was presented the dog would start to secret Saliva, then he placed the metronome with no food and the dog had no response, then he started to associate the metronome to food and after this the dog would start to secret saliva when the metronome was presented. Pavlov concluded that the dog food presented to the dog prior to the metronome is called a Unconditioned Response, a conditioned stimulus would be the metronome presented to the dog after learning he would gain food after hearing the beats. This entire process is called Acquisition. When the test was concluded Pavlov made the dog then lose interest in the dog food when the metronome was presented he would not present dog food and then the dog would not associate the beating with food. This is called extinction.
Terms- Extinction- Acquisition-Classical conditioning- unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, conditioned taste aversion,

Learning is a change in behavior that results from experience in everyday life. It is the central to almost all areas of human existence. Our basic abilities and complex ones keep up with the environment that helps with shaping all these and many other aspects of daily life. We learn from experience and it shows in three ways: Non-associative learning, that stimulus in ways of sight, smell, or sound. One of the important non-associative learning is habitation, where an individual is exposed to a stimulus for a long time or repeatedly. Sensitization is a second form of non-associative learning. It takes place when an individual is exposed to a stimulus for a long time and has an increased behavioral response. Associative learning requires understanding how two or more pieces of information are related to each other. There are two types of conditioning: classical conditioning occurs when you learn that two stimuli go together and the second is an operant conditioning, occurs when you learn that a behavior leads to particular outcome. The types of learning altogether are three things: non-associative, associative and watching others. Section 2, involves classical conditioning that means a type of learned response in which a neutral object comes to elicit a response when it is associated with a stimulus that already produces a response. The four conditions are unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response. They are all very similar, but also has a different action in all of them. The case of Little Albert talked about the father of behaviorism, John Watson, who did an experiment on a baby named” Little Albert” that consisted of making him produce a fear of furry white objects. In conclusion, it worked to produce a fear, but did not last to see the ending result or how “Little Albert” been over the years.
Overall, I learned a lot from these sections that can contribute to my education in the near future. I liked the diagrams that gave me a perfect of what it means and good explanation. The moment had to be learning and writing down all the vocabulary words and seeing how much information it was in the chapter. Humans learn basic and complex skills, beliefs, attitudes, habits, and emotional responses by watching others. Before reading the chapter, I thought learning was simple and very basic understanding, but it changed my mind completely in this course.

Terms: Learning, Non-associative learning, stimulus, Sensitization, classical conditioning, operant conditioning, associative, watching others, unconditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, conditioned stimulus, and conditioned response.

In this chapter we find out that learning is the response to the information given to us through different stimuli. We are shown that we can learn through observation and experiences. In the beginning of the chapter we are told that we learn in three ways: habituation, sensitization, and associative learning. After reading this chapter how I view learning hasn’t changed but has just been increased. So often I take out the the science behind everyday activities and see them merely as how humans and the world works. It’s funny to look back and realize that yes, I have learned quite a bit just by observing other’s in my environment and also by learning through my own experiences. Especially now that I have come to college and am put into a new environment on my own. I had to branch out and meet new people, learn my way around a campus, and learn what’s the right thing to do in my new setting and also what the wrong thing to do is. It’s amusing to look back on the short time I’ve come here and realized (psychologically) how and what I’ve learned.
Some topics that interested me were the different experiments done on animals and humans to understand how learning is acquired. I had heard about Pavlov and that he conducted experiments with dogs, yet I had never actually read about them. They were really interesting and broke down into very simple points on how we learn through different stimuli and our reactions to a single stimulus. I liked how the unconditioned stimulus didn’t change, but the dog would give different responses based on the different conditioned stimuli presented (and taught) to it. Also, I enjoyed reading about Dr. Watson’s experiments with Little Albert. It surprised me that he would do something that would seem very traumatic to a young child, but I understood that it was done to learn about human learning. I found it interesting (but not too completely surprised) that human and animal responses were very similar when tested on fear stimuli.
The most memorable thing that I found in this chapter was towards the end when the textbook talked about punishment, and more particularly that of parental punishment. I was spanked as a child and I knew what was right or wrong but sometimes I would still do the wrong thing anyway. I’ve always been a supporter of spanking, but after reading this chapter my views have changed slightly. I’m not saying that I believe spanking is wrong now but my outlook on positive reinforcement in more heightened than it was before. I never thought about punishment being bad, just as a negative repercussion of doing a certain wrong act. The book used an example of studying saying that instead of punishing children for bad grades that it’s more helpful to give reinforcement when given a good grade. This teaches the child that with good grades there are better rewards as opposed to a child getting bad grades and given punishment. I learned when I was younger that I can deal with punishment, it’s just a repercussion of my decisions, but I guess I never thought about the way positive reinforcement works in my life. I mean, I’ve always known and have been aware that there can either be positive or negative repercussions to any decision, but for some reason after reading this there is more light shown on that subject to me.

Terms: stimulus(i), habituation, sensitization, associative learning, (un)conditioned stimulus(i), positive (negative) reinforcement

Psychology
9/30/2014
blog
the process of gathering information and processing it is called learning. Our brains work in different forms and no one has the same learning process as another person. We all interrupt things differently. Learning involves experiences that you have from day to day life. Learning does not only come from class room experience most of it comes from life experiences. In the process of learning our brain is constantly changing. The connection between neurons becomes stronger when one neuron is sparked by and experience. once the stronger connection occurs learning had officially begun.
Change in behavior that results from experience is also another way to describe learning. The way we think we learn is by studying but its not the only way we learn. We learn in three different forms non-associative learning, sensitization, and associative learning.
The topic I found most interesting from this topic was that parents should avoid the use of punishment. Using reinforcement is more effective then using punishment. Kids will listen more if they are told what they should be doing instead of getting yelled at and punished for something they did or didn’t do. That physical punishment such as spanking doest not do anything for the childs learning behavior.
Terms: non-associative, sensitization, associative

The most interesting thing to me in chapter 6 was positive and negative reinforcement. I learned that reinforcement and punishment have opposite effects on behavior. Reinforcement increases the likelihood of behavior, and punishment makes that behavior less likely to occur again. Positive reinforcement is like a reward. When behaviors are rewarded the positive actions will occur more. For example giving a kid candy for answering a question right would be positive reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is taking the bad away for doing something good. If you tell your class, that if they do their homework, you won’t make them take the chapter test, is and example of negative reinforcement. You are taking away the bad (a test) for the students doing something good (their homework). Negative reinforcement is not the same as punishment. Punishment is when the probability of behavior being repeated decreases. Positive punishment will make the problem less likely to happen again. If a parent tells a child to clean their room, and they choose not to the parent may ground them. This should make the child less likely to refuse to clean their room in the future. Negative punishment decreases the likelihood a behavior will be repeated. If a teenager gets caught drinking underage, they will most likely get a pula, therefore they will be less likely to make the same mistake in the future. This gave me a better view of how things are and can be handled with behavior. The most memorable thing in this chapter was “Little Albert.” The father of behaviorism, John Watson did the case on “Little Albert.” Watson presented various objects including a white rat, a rabbit, a dog, monkey, costume masks, and a ball of white wool. Albert showed normal curiosity, and displayed no emotional responses when he saw them the first time. When Albert turned 11 months old Watson started the testing. Whenever he showed Albert one of the objects whenever Albert reached for them Watson made a loud clanging sound. The sound scared Albert. After Watson did it a few more times Albert would whimper and cringe whenever he saw the objects alone. The case study showed that phobias could be learned through classical conditioning. People nowadays would never let an experiment like that ever happen.
TERMS: Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Punishment, Behavior, Positive Punishment, Phobias, Classical Conditioning, Experiment

People gather knowledge and learn through sensory experiences. There are three main ways people learn which are non-associative learning, associative learning, and watching what other people do. In non-associative learning we learn about one stimulus from the external world. Two forms of this learning exist which are habituation and sensitization. Habituation is when a person is exposed to a stimulus for a long time or repeatedly, until our behavioral response to the specific stimulus decreases. Sensitization occurs when an individual is exposed to a stimulus for a long time, and then has an increased behavioral response, helping people respond to dangers quickly. Associative learning is understanding how two or more pieces of information are related to each other, and are developed through classical conditioning and operant conditioning. Classical conditioning is when you learn that two stimuli go together. Operant conditioning is when a person learns that a behavior leads to a particular outcome. The last way people learn is through watching others and how they behave. This can be done by observational learning, modeling, and vicarious conditioning. Observational learning is when we learn or change a behavior after watching a person engage in that behavior. When we imitate a behavior seen in others, we are modeling them, and in vicarious conditioning, people learn to engage in a behavior or not, after seeing other being rewarded or punished for performing that action. From the psychological perspective, learning is not just about what we see or do in a classroom or by studying for hours. Learning is a result of going through experiences and our brain remembering what that experience was and then what to do about it. The connection between the synapses is what triggers us to be aware of a certain stimulus, and then remembering what it means. In school, we are given material that we have not seen before and experiencing for the first time. Our neurons then think about the information in a new way and that leads to other neurons firing off when we understand what to do. Studying is all about strengthening the synapses between the neurons, building the long-term potentiation of the neurons so they will fire faster when stimulated. Since reading this chapter, I’m now aware of all of the different ways I can learn, as I just thought it was being exposed to something new, and then experiencing it over and over again until I had memorized it. The topic I found most interesting was how phobias are created through classical conditioning, like in the case of Little Albert. Albert was exposed to a white rat at 11 months old, and every time he grabbed for it Watson would strike an iron bar with a hammer, scaring Albert. After this had happened a few times, Albert became afraid as soon as he saw the white rat because he has connected the rat with the loud and scary sound of the hammer. What surprised me most was that people can actually be counter conditioned, when to get over a phobia, the thing that is feared is presented along with something like an enjoyable task, to reduce the fear associated with the particular phobia.

Key Terms: Non-associative learning, Associative learning, Habituation, Sensitization, Classical Conditioning, Operant conditioning, Observational learning, Modeling, Vicarious conditioning, Synapses, Neurons, Long-Term Potentiation, Phobia, Counter Conditioning

I used to think learning was a fairly simple action that only occured in one of three ways. My personal definition of learning is: the process of aquiring new knowledge based on things that you have either experienced yourself, someting you've been told by a trusted person or by observing others. We can learn from a teacher teaching us and us trusting that what they say is accurate. Also, we can learn from experience, if we try to do something new and if it works or doesn't work it teaches us the proper way to do something. I used to think learning was strictly a psychological process with no biological piece.

After reading the chapter I now know the real defintion of learning is: a change in behavior, resulting from experience. I learned that you can learn by the ways I thought previously and also being punished or reinforced is considered learning too. This chapter taught me that learning is a physical change in the brain called LTP (Long Term Potentiation). LTP occurs when a connection between two neurons is stregnthened, because when neurons fire together they are more likely to fire together again.

To me, the most interesting aspect of this chapter is when it discussed the three ways we do non-associated learning: habituation, sensization and learning by watching others. Habituation is when a person is exposed to something over and over so much that the person's response to the specific stimuli decreasses. The book used the example of an animal hearing a sound repeatedly until they discover that it isn't a danger so they learn to ignore it. Sensitization happens when someone is exposed to something over and over but the person's response to the stimuli is increased. An example of sensitization is when a person smells something burning and they focus more intensely to see if they are in real danger. Learning by watching others is exactly what the name says. For, example a person can learn a proper golf swing by watching a pro play.

The most memorable part of this chapter was Pavlov's experiment because I have some background with that experiment already. In my high school psychology class we discussed conditioning and this experiment is important for that. Also, in the TV show The Big Bang Theory, Sheldon tries to condition Penny to act better by reinforcing with chocolates. Pavlov's experiment resonated with me because I already had schema with the scenario.
Psychological terms: punishment, reinforcement, LTP, neurons, non-associated learning, habituation, sensization, learning by watching others, stimuli, Pavlov, conditioning

After reading Chapter 6, my understanding of learning has changed quite a bit. The definition of learning is a change in behavior resulting from an experience. There are three types of ways people learn from these experiences. The first way is non-associative learning where we respond or don’t respond to certain stimulus. When we don’t respond to the stimulus it is called habituation, an example of this would be when we learn to ignore background noises when we are trying to study. When we do respond to the stimulus it is called sensitization, for example when a kid is getting bullied constantly and they finally stand up for themselves. The second type of learning is associative learning where we attempt to understand the relationship that exists between two or more pieces of information. Classical conditioning is one form of associative learning where we aquire responses through experiences by associating to stimuli with each other. On the other hand, operant conditioning is when we learn that a behavior leads to a certain result. We see this all the time in animals, even in my own house I teach my dog through operant conditioning. If my dog goes to the bathroom in the house and he gets punished he sees that it has a negative effect and he is less likely to go in the house again. The last type of learning is when we watch others. This can be observational, modeling, or vicariously which are all pretty self explanatory.
There are a few topics from this chapter which I found extremely interesting. The Premack Principle is when a valued activity can be used to reinforce performance of a less valued activity. I think almost anyone can relate to this from their childhood when they are forced to eat all their dinner before they get their desert. Its crazy to think that things even as little as that are forms of learning. Another topic that we learned about in this chapter that I recognized was used in my life is operant conditioning. In my Business 2000 class we use a website called Strengthsquest. This program focuses on building on our strengths instead of improving our weaknesses.

Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior or the potential to make a response that occurs as a result of experience. Learning doesn’t have to be education or studying, you can learn from past experiences from your life. Before reading this chapter I thought of learning like in school, being taught something and having to remember it and learn it. I never thought of learning from your past but now I realize you can learn outside of a classroom where someone is trying to teach you. The most interesting to me was positive and negative reinforcements. In positive reinforcements if you do something right or good you will get something desirable in return. While in negative reinforcements for example, if you’re a little kid you have to go to timeout if you did something bad, hoping that since timeout isn’t fun you won’t do bad things anymore. The most memorable thing I read was about the observational learning. This type of learning occurs when someone observes others and imitates their actions. This is sometimes also called modeling. Terms used: Positive and negative reinforcement, observational learning, modeling.

This chapter has been the most interesting to me. I’d learned about it before and it is definitely my favorite. Learning is taking an experience you’ve had and forming your behavior around what happened. Like touching a hot stove, resulting in the stove burning you and then associating the stove and burn with each other.
Some of the topics I find most interesting out of the chapter are; classical conditioning and the study with Little Albert, and the concepts of positive/negative reinforcement or punishment.
The thing I find most interesting about classical conditioning is having to ability to introduce a neutral stimulus along with the unconditioned stimulus, and eventually get the same response out of the subject from the neutral stimulus, now a conditioned stimulus, without the unconditioned stimulus even being presented. Like how little Albert eventually associated the white rat alone, with the conditioned stimulus of the hammer smashing.
The most memorable thing in the chapter and what stuck out to me most were the differences between reinforcement and punishment. It’s extremely important to know the differences between the two because it can influence the outcome of who you’re teaching greatly. Reinforcement causes the behavior to be more likely to happen again, whereas when punishment is used, the behavior is less likely to occur again. Each of them consists of either positive or negative as well. At first it was rather confusing because there are a lot of things to remember, but after hearing a few examples I found myself thinking of real world scenarios and trying to identify which one was being used. For instance, being pulled over by a police officer and issued a speeding ticket would be considered positive punishment because he issues a speeding ticket, which will (hopefully) cause people to be less likely to commit the crime again. An example of positive reinforcement I thought of could be a teacher giving a student a piece of candy after doing well on a test, it’s considered positive because there is something being given to the student and reinforcement because the behavior is something that they want to occur more.

Terms: learning, classical conditioning, positive punishment, negative punishment, positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, neutral stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus

It was very interesting to read through the book and understand how animals learn. Learning to me is a very adaptive and outcome based activity do that animals would originally do to survive. That is not something I think about on a daily basis while I am doing homework or studying. Learning and understanding content seems different then learning to not touch a hot stove, but it seems as if the base motivation is the same. For example, you do not touch a hot stove because it hurts in the same way that you do your homework so that you don’t get a bad grade. The severity of the consequence is subject to change from different individuals but the idea to me is the same. My understanding about learning has not changed a lot, because I have had units like this one is other classes but my perspective has changed a little. I find it very interesting that Classical Condition ties into our fear. I really liked the analogy that the book used about scary movies and how classical conditioning works in that way. If I could related it back to myself, last year every time someone would flush a toilet I would know that if I were taking a shower that I would have to step back in order not to get scalded. In this scenario the water would be the unconditioned stimulus, moving out of the water would be the unconditioned response, the flushing of the toilet would the the conditioned stimulus, and then jumping back along would be the conditioned response. I understand classical conditioning a lot better than I had and I think that is how my perception on learning has made the biggest change. The most memorable thing about the reading to me was vicarious conditioning. I thinking learning from others is such an important idea and I believe every moment is a learning moment and vicarious conditioning made me think about how much we actually do learn from others because of the rewards or punishments that they had received. For example, when someone gets the employee of the month at work, it may want to make the other employees work just a little bit hard because of the reward that their co worker received. The other thing that I found really interesting was the positive reinforcement. It is obviously when you have a positive response to something but the fact that your brain also releases dopamine is pretty awesome and it makes other experiences more enjoyable. I always think about positive reinforcement in a psychological way but never really in a biological way.

Terms: unconditional response, unconditioned stimulus, conditioned stimulus, unconditioned response, vicarious conditioning, dopamine, psychological, biological

Learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. There three way in which we learn, Non-associative, associative, and by watching others. From a psychological science perspective learning carries an entirely different meaning than just education and studying. Learning occurs when synaptic connections in the brain become stronger over time through long-term potentiation (LPT). We also learn from conditioning as in Pavlov’s experiment with the canine. But I think the topic that most interest me the most was how humans learn basic and complex skills, beliefs, attitudes, habits, and emotional responses by simple just watching others. The three types of learning by watching are observational learning, modeling, and vicarious learning. Watching others also allows transmission of cultural information. The most surprising aspect of the reading was how you can shape behavior by different forms of conditioning. Terms: Non-associative, associative, learning, conditioning, long-term potentiation (LPT).

Learning is knowing to behave a certain way because of experiences you have previously had. This is not how I tend to think of learning. I usually define learning as the acquisition of knowledge. I've learned that actual learning does not required much effort on behalf of the learner.

Something that was interesting to me was the very beginning story of getting sick on shrimp. It shows a conditioned response to an unconditioned stimulus. I myself had a similar situation happen to me when I was younger. I ate an entire can of cashews, and then got sick. This caused me to no only no longer eat cashews but nuts in general. It took me several years before I would eat peanuts. And they are still the only 'nut' I will eat.

The most surprising thing I learned was about mirror neurons and why we react when someone else gets hurt as though we are getting hurt. But these neurons are working not only when someone gets hurt but also any mundane task that you might also perform. They fire when you go to do the thing you watched someone else doing. This is interesting to me because it almost seems like a lagged response or something.

Terms used: learn, conditioned response, unconditioned stimulus, mirror neurons, neurons

Learning can also be done in the form of positive and negative reinforcement. If a rat was exposed to different kinds of stimuli for different actions, chances are it will begin to exhibit the action that's rewarded more often. The most memorable thing i learned is that learning is all around us.
Terms: Positive Reinforcement, Negative Reinforcement, Stimuli, Learning, Behavior, Training, Process of Life

The books definition of learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. So anything that happens to us whether it be positive or negative we can learn from the experience and know whether or not we should repeat the actions or not. From a psychological standpoint I don't think that learning really has much to do with the way that most people think of learning because reading a textbook and doing homework is much different than experiences something first hand and seeing the outcome and knowing that if done again a similar outcome will occur. My learning has changed from this chapter by realizing that learning happens in more than one way. There are actually three ways that we learn: non-associative learning, associative learning,and learning by watching. All of these types of learning can happen without us even knowing. For example in a episode of the office Dwight is classically conditioned to expect an altoid every time he hears a computer restart. Many kids also learn through the process of reinforcement whether it is positive or negative. IF a child does something they aren't supposed to they can receive a timeout and will learn that doing it is bad through the negative reinforcement. They can also receive positive reinforcement if they do something good like go to the bathroom by themselves which can be rewarded with a piece of candy. The most surprising thing from this chapter was that John Watson was giving approval to experiment on a baby and scare him and perhaps cause the baby to have phobias of all the things he was tested on like rabbits, and dogs. What was evening more surprising is that when he wanted to see if he could make Little Albert not scared of the objects the mother pulled him out. We never found out whether or not he had any phobias when he got older though because he died at age 6.
Psychological terms: Positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, learning, classical conditioning

By definition learning is a change in behavior that results from experience. Learning is a big part of everyone's’ daily lives. It is said to be the central to all areas of human existence. Therefore, learning is very critical to every human being. Without learning it would be impossible to do simple things in our daily lives because learning is essential. Some simple daily operations we would not be able to do without learning are walking and talking. If we never would have learned these tasks we would go without them daily which would be very difficult. Learning has also helped us to be able to do things such as: dressing ourselves, driving cars and using a computer. Learning is an essential building block for our survival.

Learning is not what most people think of it to be. Most people associate learning with education, school and studying. Although they are involved in learning, from a psychological perspective learning is completely different. Even though we do not always associate this, we learn from experience. There are three ways that we can learn: non-associative learning, associative learning and learning by watching others. Stimuli influence all these kinds of learning and are very important to learning. Overall learning is not how we think of it to be, psychologically it is a completely different idea than education, schoolwork and studying like we all associate it to be.

Before reading this chapter I thought of learning like most people do but after reading this chapter my idea of learning completely changed. Before I thought of learning as education, homework, paying attention and studying. I never really thought about the learning that occurs outside of school and at a young age. The relationship between learning and experience really clicked in my brain because you always learn from your mistakes.

The most interesting topic of this chapter to me was positive and negative punishment. It was most interesting to me because I can look back at times my parents used these kinds of punishment and realize how much they really stuck with me. I look back at the times when my mother would take away my phone for the night until I got my homework done. It made me determined to get my homework done so I could get my phone back. I still use this technique now in college by only allowing myself to look at my phone after reading a certain amount of pages or after writing so much of my paper. I find it interesting that some of their punishments stuck with me and have helped me to become as successful as I am today.

The section that I found most surprising was the part about parental punishment being ineffective. The part I found most surprising was the part dealing with spanking. Like most children I was occasionally spanked when I was younger depending on what I did wrong. I found it surprising that it is said that researchers have evidence that there are many negative outcomes associated with spanking. I was not spanked very often or hard at all, but I clearly remember one time when I got spanked for doing something really bad. After getting spanked I definitely learned my lesson. I still to this day will never say anything like that to my parents again That is what surprised me the most is that it is not effective because it was very effective for me.
Psychological terms: learning, non-associative learning, associative learning, stimuli, positive punishment, negative punishment

Before reading the chapter I had a small bit of prior knowledge about a few pieces in psychology associated with learning due to people who are studying it for a major and talked with me about it. The most interesting thing I found about the topic of learning is how human beings and other kinds of biological organisms are conditioned by normal factors of life, and that they can be conditioned manually as well. An example of this would be how the wolves discussed at the beginning of the chapter were conditioned to not desire the taste of what the understood to be sheep. I have heard about studies with a boy who was conditioned to be terribly afraid of fuzzy, cute animals, like bunnies, and could not be unconditioned. This was especially interesting because a human experiment had cause this boy to be afraid of something most all people found to be loving or nice. The boy ended up dying after adoption due to some of the effects of this study. Sensitization kind of has to do with conditioning. Sensitization happens when through internal experience, the mind forms its own psychological thoughts about something. Associative learning was another point that stuck out at me that fits in a group with the other topics I have discussed. This type of learning is what happens in something like a baby, where they learn from experience. Either seeing an action that receives a reward, or discovering some things are sharp, or hot. Dangerous things are the best way for us to understand how associative learning works, because if you find something to be harmful, you will associate that thing with pain and learn not to interact with that the cause of that feeling. The chapter in general was very informative and really helped me understand the basis of what actual psychology is, at a deeper level than the chapters on eyesight and things like that.
Terms: Conditioning, Sensitization, Associative-Learning

What is learning? It’s a change in behavior that results from experience. We have three different ways to learn and the first one is habituation, which is where an individual is exposed to a stimulus for a long time, or just repeatedly. The second form is called Sensitization, which is when an individual is exposed to a stimulus for a long time, or many times which then causes an increase in behavioral responses. Now the third one is learning by watching others, which is basically what it sounds like. Just learning by watching others do it. This is something we humans and also animals learn and can do. So by reading this far, it made it clear to me that learning is a very big thing in our lives. We learn something new every day. I was thinking without it we wouldn’t be able to do anything even if it’s as simple as opening a door. Learning is something we absolutely need to survive, it’s that important. I’ve learned that learning isn’t just going to school for education or just trying to study something, it’s much more than that. I really didn’t think about learning as in something other than school. When someone was to say learning probably the first thing that would pop into my head would be school or education. One of the most interesting things in this chapter that I read would probably be the section about Pavlov’s experiment with the dogs. He had an interest in saliva, which is gross but what he found out was pretty cool on his research… But I couldn’t do this kind of research myself!! But what he basically did was get a dog and hooked him up to this machine that would collect this dog’s saliva. There was also another thing connected which would measure the dogs saliva. But at the end what this research really ended up meaning is that it is an equivalent to us and that it’s basically a condition called response and or conditioned stimulus. This was also the most surprising/memorable thing I remember and learned that I read in this chapter.
Terms: habituation, Sensitization, stimulus, behavioral responses, learning, saliva.

In this chapter Learning is considered as a person's change in behavior due to personal experiences that the person goes through. An example would be if you burn your hand on the stove, you would not do it again since you would associate the burn with the stove. The connections between two neurons also becomes better when one is sparked by experience.
There are three ways of learning, Habituation which is when a person is exposed to a stimulus for a long period of time or repeatedly. sensitization is the same as the first but causes changes in behavioral responses. The third is just learning by watching others.
My take on Learning before this chapter was of the associating it with school and what we learn there, and psychology has put a more reasonable definition to it, it makes more sense that learning would be any sort of growth or change in a person's behavior.
The most interesting thing i read in this chapter was Pavlov's experiments on the dogs. He first presented them with meat, the dog salivated which was unconditional then he presented the dog with a metronome and then he presented the meat and metronome together, when the dog was presented to the metronome again he salivated associating the metronome with the meat which was a very interesting experiment.
The most memorable thing to me was the experiment where they put chickens in a box and put food outside it, the first time it took the chicken 5-10 minutes to figure out to press the button. After that they associated the button to the food and did it faster.

Terms: Learning, Behavior, stimulus, neurons, habituation, sensitization

Author Profile Page unipanther | September 30, 2014 6:27 PM | Reply
Learning is a relatively permanent change in behavior or the potential to make a response that occurs as a result of experience. Learning doesn’t have to be education or studying, you can learn from past experiences from your life. Before reading this chapter I thought of learning like in school, being taught something and having to remember it and learn it. I never thought of learning from your past but now I realize you can learn outside of a classroom where someone is trying to teach you. The most interesting to me was positive and negative reinforcements. In positive reinforcements if you do something right or good you will get something desirable in return. While in negative reinforcements for example, if you’re a little kid you have to go to timeout if you did something bad, hoping that since timeout isn’t fun you won’t do bad things anymore. The most memorable thing I read was about the observational learning. This type of learning occurs when someone observes others and imitates their actions. This is sometimes also called modeling. Terms used: Positive and negative reinforcement, observational learning, modeling.