Thorndike and Skinner

Edward Thorndike:

1. Explain Thorndike's puzzle-box experiment.

He made a cage that required an animal to perform a certain action to set himself free. For example he placed a foot pedal and a cat, at first the cat would just meow, when it accidentally stepped on the pedal, the cage would open.

He studied how quickly the cat learned to perform response in order to get free. He believed learning occurred through trial and error. The animal would make many wrong responses at first, then it would eventually learn to repeat the ones that got him free. He felt that learning was a matter of creating associations between stimuli and responses.

2. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Effect".

He explained that animals tend to repeat a behavior that resulted in a “pleasing effect”. He believed that when the animal accidentally stumbled upon a behavior that produced an effect that they liked this created a link between a stimulus (the cage) and a response (stepping on the switch). Later, in the same stimulus situation, that response would occur faster.

3. Explain Thorndike's "Law of Exercise".

It said that behavioral responses that had a satisfying result were most likely to become patterns and would be repeated when presented with the same stimulus. The law of exercise claimed that behavior is established by frequent connection between the stimulus and response.

B.F. Skinner:

1. Explain Skinner's concept of Operant Conditioning

It is a method of learning that occurs through rewards and punishments of behavior. In operant conditioning, an association is made between a behavior and a consequence for that behavior. It is learning by the consequence of our behavior. It deals with the modification of voluntary behavior. It uses reinforcement or punishment to get the desired behavior.

2. What does reinforcement always do? Increase the desired behavior. If it is positive reinforcement it increases the behavior desired, when it is negative reinforcement, it decreases the negative behavior that one desires to be abolished, therefore increasing what we wanted to accomplish.

3. What does a punishment always do? Punishment always decreases the required behavior. Positive punishment weakens the response it follows.

4. Explain the difference between "positive" and "negative" as they are used in operant conditioning

The basic tools of operant conditioning are reinforcement and punishment. They are either positive (given following a response), or negative (taken away following a response). Positive in this sense refers to addition of either tool while negative refers to the subtraction of either tool.

http://www.psywww.com/intropsych/ch08_animals/thorndikes_puzzle_box.html

http://tip.psychology.org/skinner.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operant_conditioning

http://psychology.about.com/od/behavioralpsychology/a/introopcond.htm

questions

Ivan Pavlov:

1.   What was Pavlov actually studying when he developed his theory of classical conditioning?

2.    

He was studying dog digestion and he noticed that the dog drooled when he heard the assistant coming.

2. Explain (in detail) how Pavlov's experiment was conducted.

In his digestive research, Pavlov and his assistants would introduce a variety of things into the dogs mouth and measure the saliva production that the items produced. Salivation, he noted, is a reflexive process. It occurs automatically in response to a specific stimulus and is not under conscious control. However, Pavlov noted that the dogs would often begin salivating when there was no food and no smell. He quickly realized that this salivary response was not due to an automatic, physiological process. Based on his observations, Pavlov suggested that the salivation was a learned response. The dogs were responding to the sight of the research assistants' white lab coats, which the animals had come to associate with the presentation of food. Unlike the salivary response to the presentation of food, which is an unconditioned reflex, salivating to the expectation of food is a conditioned reflex.

3. Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Pavlov's experiment.

Unconditioned stimulus was the food that he gave the dog, or the stimulus that evokes a response naturally and automatically. The sound of a metronome was chosen to be the neutral stimulus.After several conditioning trials, Pavlov noted that the dogs began to salivate after hearing the metronome. "A stimulus which was neutral in and of itself had been superimposed upon the action of the inborn alimentary reflex In other words, the previously n

\utral stimulus (the metronome) had become what is known as a conditioned stimulus that then provoked a conditioned response (salivation).

4. Explain what extinction means in relation to classical conditioning.

Extinction occurs when a conditioned response decreases or disappears. In classical conditioning, this happens when a conditioned stimulus is no longer paired with an unconditioned stimulus

5. Explain what stimulus generalization means in relation to classical conditioning.

Stimulus Generalization is when the conditioned stimulus to produce similar responses after the response has been conditioned. For example, if a rat has been conditioned to fear a stuffed white rabbit, it will exhibit fear of objects similar to the white rabbit.

6. Explain what stimulus discrimination means in relation to classical conditioning.

Discrimination is the ability to differentiate between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that have not been paired with an unconditioned stimulus. For example, if a door bell were the conditioned stimulus, discrimination would involve being able to tell the difference between the door bell and other similar sounds.

7. Explain at least two limitations of this experiment.

One limitation was that he experimented only with a few dogs, and the second limitation, was that the dogs caught up to his tricks too fast so they started drooling before they were supposed to.

8. Explain what Pavlov theorized about how we learn.

He theorized, that we learn by classical conditioning, he explained that we learned by getting used to things or situations, and that we react to different environments by seeing what happens around us or by associating new things together with things that we already now

John B. Watson:

1.Explain (in detail) how Watson's "Little Albert" study was conducted.

He got a little baby who was not scared of anything because he had no knowledge of the world and showed him a rat, the baby wasn’t afraid of it at first but then he started to bang a big metal tube that made an awful noise at the same time that he brought the rat out, therefore the baby associated the rat to the ugly noise. At the end Watson would show little albert the rat, and he would emediately start crying, because he felt scared because he had associated the ugly noise to the furry white animal.

2.Identify the conditioned stimulus, the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned response from Watson's study

The conditional stimulus was the rat, the unconditional, was the hitting of the instrument, and the condition response was the baby crying after he had learned that the rat was associated with the sound

3.Explain at least two limitations of this study.

One limitation was and still is that it was unethical and it can’t be repeated, and another limitation was that he only tried it with one baby, therefore the experiment was not consistent.

Explain Watson's law of frequency.

Says that the more frequently two things are put together, the more stronger their association will be and it will be easier to learn or get used to something.

5. Explain Watson's law of recency.

Is referring to the response that most recently occurred after a stimulus

6. Explain the basic assumptions of behaviorism according to Watson.

According to Watson behaviors can be reduced to relationships between stimuli and responses

Article summaries

Starting Highschool one hour later may reduce teen traffic accidents

                  This article describes the impact that the amount of sleep children get depending on what time school starts has on their behavior and actions. The experiment was carried out and directed by senior author Barbara Phillips, MD, director of the UK Healthcare Good Samaritan Sleep Center in Lexington, KY. They experiment showed that schools that start at later hours such as 9am have better test results than students who wake up for schools starting at  7am. High school students who also drive themselves to school got into less driving accidents when they were better rested. Trafic accidents for students who started school at 9 am were significantly lower than for those starting school at 7 am. I believe this experiment is interesting because it shows the importance of 1 hour more of sleep both in academics and in other social behavior such as driving. Children tend to sleep less during the teenage years because there is so much distraction but they still need a significant (8 to 9 hours) amount of sleep. Making school start later can help remedy this.








Highschool students with a delayed school start time sleep longer, report less day time sleepiness

                  This article reports how the time school starts affects children’s sleep patterns. The experiment was done by Zaw W. Htwe, MD, of Norwalk Hospital's Sleep Disorders Center in Norwalk, Conn. It was done on 259 students who completed the condensed sleeping habits questionnaire. When school started early, the students slept 33 minutes less than they did when the schedule was changed. Also after the change in starting time, it was recorded that many of the students used an average of 83 percent of their extra time to sleep. In my opinion this article is excellent because it shows  in a very concise and precise way that students will use the extra time to actually sleep which will result in more alerts students throughout the day.

Being a night owl in high school is linked with having a lower college GPA

                  This article lead by author Jennifer Peszka, PhD, psychology department chair at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark reports the effect of sleep on GPA. It establishes a connection between the hours slept and the performance of students on academics. Students who sleep less and become night owls tend to have lower GPA’s. The article says that students who are morning persons are more likely to have a higher GPA average such as 3.18 instead of having a low one like 2.84 which is the GPA average for people who are “night owls”. The sample taken was of 89 students with the ages of 17-20 years of age.I like the fact that this experiment was safe and did not involve depriving anyone of sleep, instead it just reported findings. It also summarized some of the stuff we had learnt before that studying too late at night in completely unproductive. Our bodies reach a point where they are exhausted and need sleep in order to actually learn.

http://www.gearlive.com/news/article/q209-night-owls-more-stamina/

http://patdollard.com/2008/06/whats-your-opinion-drunk-driving-hoax-to-scare-teens-out-of-drinking-and-driving-with-video/
http://seaholmhighlander.com/lifestyles/student-life/424-sleepless-in-seaholm

The Teenage Brain

Watching the movie “The Teenage Brain”,I learned many things that I did not know. The video shows there is plenty of proof that shows that teenager over exercise their brains. Many tests show that the teenage brain at the late age of 17 or 18 still does not react the same way that an adult brain does. I would have thought that by the age of 18 your brain should react the same way that an adult brain reacts. It was interesting to find out that the brain still has a long way to go when one is still a teenager.

            Teenagers and adult brains react completely differently with different parts of their brain to the same stimuli. In an experiment done at Brown University there were a series of pictures shown to adults and teenagers and apparently the sample of teenagers saw fear, pain, disgust, sadness, and many other bad emotions while adults saw emotions that were not so radical and drastic.

            The correct amount of sleep time for a normal human being is about nine hours and twenty-five minutes per night, many teenagers are getting on average seven or less hours of sleep per night. Students are coming to school with less hours of sleep, therefore they are more tired and don’t use their brain to their maximum capacity. In my opinion these brains should be better treated and this video shows us different reasons why we should take care of out brain and different ways to do so.






http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://malaysia-tomorrow.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/12/sleep-deprived.jpg&imgrefurl=http://malaysia-tomorrow.com/sleep-deprivation/&usg=___Lqiqj7mpiZ5ZFRWkKFMXZ9QELA=&h=282&w=425&sz=30&hl=en&start=0&sig2=3zmI8pcNdDqeUm6tY2IGzw&zoom=1&tbnid=YWXtW7iBD9o6ZM:&tbnh=139&tbnw=214&ei=FJOiTPagG4jAsAPD8JH6Bg&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dteenage%2Bbrains%2Bdeprived%2Bof%2Bsleep%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1436%26bih%3D723%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=607&vpy=86&dur=2174&hovh=183&hovw=276&tx=207&ty=106&oei=FJOiTPagG4jAsAPD8JH6Bg&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:3,s:0

Phineas Gage

Phineas Gage is one of the most famous persons to have survived severe damage to the brain.  He is the patient from who scientists learned about the relation between personality and the function of the front parts of the brain. He was the foreman of a crew cutting a railroad bed in Vermont.  He was using a tamping iron to push explosive powder into a hole, the powder exploted and it shot the 43 inch long and 1.25 inches in diameter tamping iron into Gage’s head. When it exploded it shot upward and penetrated his left cheek, it ripped into his brain and went out through his skull. He was blinded in one eye but he did not loose consciousness immediately. He was still conscious when he got to the doctor. After 10 weeks under the care of Dr Harlow, he returned home.

         It is said that before the accident Gage had been the most efficient foreman and was described as having a “well-balanced mind”. He then became ill-tempered, vulgar and was very disconsiderate. He was also stubborn, and never carried out plans that he made like he used to before. His friends said he came back as a different man. His case was the first to imply that there was a connection between brain trauma and personality changes.

         His case influenced discussion about the brain, especially about brain localization. Brain localization is the idea that every part of the brain is independently responsible for a different task or purpose. Brain lateralization is the idead that the brain is divided into 2 sections, right and left hemispheres and each one executes a different function. This idea helps us understand our behavior, personality, creativity.

http://www.deakin.edu.au/hmnbs/psychology/gagepage/Pgstory.php

 http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history-archaeology/Phineas-Gage-Neurosciences-Most-Famous-Patient.html#ixzz10CE4l0Wz

http://www.theorderoftime.com/politics/cemetery/stout/h/brain-la.htm
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://joeltalks.com/web_images/phineas_gage_mcmillan.jpg&imgrefurl=http://joeltalks.com/index.php%3Fp%3D1_9&usg=__J93C_zP4cmJd7q8xLm1-t3lGcpw=&h=480&w=325&sz=60&hl=en&start=0&sig2=Aqq5QFHmpBBMjyHdbTUIVw&zoom=1&tbnid=MEdsnKq9GFrvPM:&tbnh=140&tbnw=92&ei=oy-ZTOrfCIW8lQeKh4zuDw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dphineas%2Bgage%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1436%26bih%3D723%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=121&vpy=77&dur=1897&hovh=273&hovw=185&tx=128&ty=166&oei=oy-ZTOrfCIW8lQeKh4zuDw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=37&ved=1t:429,r:0,s:0
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://brainmapping.unige.ch/res/Research/localizationexplained.png&imgrefurl=http://brainmapping.unige.ch/Sourcelocalization.htm&usg=__O0xfeBYvYHi6lVf_xEdj_1oH8Oc=&h=400&w=377&sz=139&hl=en&start=0&sig2=9hic7BayUUgsf8RlBp567w&zoom=1&tbnid=aK6wDvcSzN_ibM:&tbnh=145&tbnw=143&ei=EzCZTLLwDYGclgfdj6HuDw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbrain%2Blocalization%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1436%26bih%3D723%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1072&vpy=363&dur=1953&hovh=231&hovw=218&tx=128&ty=81&oei=EzCZTLLwDYGclgfdj6HuDw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=29&ved=1t:429,r:20,s:0
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://mathevents.tripod.com/brain.gif&imgrefurl=http://mathevents.tripod.com/mathsoft.html&usg=__Hf5hhkErV_o00IZLnG-cW_NE3bY=&h=283&w=400&sz=44&hl=en&start=0&sig2=80-XjweuStbHjqgOJ__dSA&zoom=1&tbnid=prcezSLSK7WwHM:&tbnh=134&tbnw=172&ei=UjCZTNXpNMGqlAeH6NDuDw&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dbrain%2Blateralization%26hl%3Den%26biw%3D1436%26bih%3D723%26gbv%3D2%26tbs%3Disch:10%2C11&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1038&vpy=371&dur=437&hovh=186&hovw=262&tx=164&ty=130&oei=UjCZTNXpNMGqlAeH6NDuDw&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=32&ved=1t:429,r:22,s:0&biw=1436&bih=723

Where does intelligence come from, nature or nurture?

            There has long been a debate among scientist about what makes up a human being. Is it nature or nurture? Is it your genetic inheritance or is it stimulus from the surrounding environment? Although there is strong evidence on both sides, most scientist believe that we are a combination of both nature and nurture. Many of our abilities and things that we exhibit are a result of both nature and nurture. Examples of this are intelligence, athletic ability, personality, and  creativity.

            There is great debate on whether intelligence is inherited or created. I believe that it is a combination of both but that nurture weighs much more heavily on its creation. It is hard to believe that two idiots will inherit a high degree of intelligence to a child and that two geniuses will produce an idiot. But in genetics anything can happen. What I firmly believe is that the brain is a muscle and like all our muscles, if we exercise it and make it work, it grows. Therefore I believe that stimulating the brain regardless of inherited intelligence will bring about a higher level of intelligence.

            There is a lot of evidence that supports both sides of the debate when it comes to intelligence. On the nature side there have been many studies measuring IQ in twins and adoptees. These have shown that there is a strong hereditary factor in intelligence. Some studies that have used MRI’s and other tests have shown that  hereditability can account for up to 48% of variations in IQ. Parents and their biological children and also parents and their adoptive children have been tested for verbal ability and results have shown that there is a strong evidence that intelligence is inherited. However, these results can also be questioned. For example, did the mother of these twins smoke when she was pregnant? This would show that an external factor influenced the development of that same brain which is supposed to be inherited. So even in studies that show that a person’s intelligence is hereditary one can see that environmental factors also contributed.

            There is an entire separate set of scientists that believe that a person is born with a clean slate. They believe that the brain is a blank board and the environment writes on this board and creates the intelligence. Educational intervention, IQ studies and Nutritional studies have shown that in general IQ is increasing, they believe that this is the result of exposing the mind to more visual things than before, For example ads, poster, computers. Many environmental factors have been shown to affect intelligence, this shows that intelligence is largely defined by nurture rather than nature. Some of these factors are nutrition, number of siblings, number of years in school, social group one grows in, parent’s economic status, parent’s education and profession, parent’s rigidity, amount of reading, amount of TV watched, emotional adaptation, alcoholism, mental diseases. Identical twins that have been raised apart have shown completely different levels of IQ which leads us to believe that the environment and not genetics created their intelligence.

            In conclusion, it is difficult to determine where factors of our intelligence truly come from. Most tests can be interpreted in many ways. Tests themselves are a product of our environment and tend to indicate that our environment does weigh heavily on who we become. Most scientists agree that both hereditary and the environment affect intelligence, they both interact in different ways. A very rich or very poor environment interferes with the realization of someone’s intelligence regardless of what they inherited. It is almost impossible for scientist to say what exact gene causes intelligence and what factor in the environment causes it as well. It is difficult to actually measure intelligence as well; so most scientist agree that both genetics (nature) and the environment (nurture) contribute to a person’s intelligence.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/10/071016131452.htm
http://wilderdom.com/personality/L4-1IntelligenceNatureVsNurture.html
http://www.urbantitan.com:8080/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/Nature-vs-Nurture2.jpg

Nature versus Nurture

Nature and Nurture are two very different words that determine a person’s personality in very different ways. What does Nature versus Nurture mean? It is an old debate about what exactly determines a person’s psyche. Scientist debate about what exactly makes us who we are. Is it genetics or is it stimulus from the environment. All scientists agree that physical characteristics come from nature but many disagree what determines who we are psychologically. Some believe it is nature while others insist it is nurture.


The term nature versus nurture was first used by an English scientist named Francis Galton. He was influenced mainly by Charles Darwin’s book The Origin of Species.

The overall belief is that we are a product of both nature and nurture. There have been many studies of twins both raised together or raised apart that support both arguments. Today scientist do not debate so much which one, either nature or nurture decides who we are. Instead they debate what is determined by what. Which part comes from genes and which part from the environment.

I personally believe that a human’s psyche is made up of a combination of both nature and nurture. If who we are was based only on our environment or nurture, then siblings from the same home would be almost identical personality wise. I see huge differences between my brothers and sisters. If it were only up to genes it would be senseless for our parents to correct our behavior and try to mold us into what we are because it would mean we are already meant to be who we will be. There are indeed many traits that we inherit from our parents and these are described as nature. However, the environment also influences the way we act and the person we become. There is a large part of us that is learned behavior. For example, we inherit a certain degree of intelligence but what we actually make of it is determined by how much we stimulate it which is determined by the environment.

http://genealogy.about.com/cs/geneticgenealogy/a/nature_nurture.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_versus_nurture

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/16572/the_childhood_development_nature_vs.html