First part (the second part will be available soon ... stay tuned)

As a result of reading, classroom instruction, and critical thinking exercises, students should be able to understand, evaluate, and explain how:

·     Learning versus evolution enables organisms to adapt to their environment

·     Work in philosophy and biology identified key factors and problems, as well as how these two disciplines interacted to shape the field of animal learning

·     Scientific versus nonscientific approaches have been used to study learning

·     Classical conditioning differs from instrumental/operant conditioning

·     The different approaches to behaviorism

·     Theories and metaphors are used as tools to explore learning phenomena

·     Animal learning informs us about general learning phenomena

·     Classical and instrumental conditioning occur in everyday learning phenomena

 

·       The comparison between natural selection and "fitness" from a learning perspective and from an evolutionary perspective

·       The difference between fixed action patterns and associative learned behaviors

·       The difficulty of establishing the innateness of a behavior

·       The way in which habituation occurs, its significance, and how it is distinguished from other associative learning phenomena

·       The occurrence of instrumental contingencies (i.e., reward, negative reinforcement, punishment, omission, extinction, spontaneous recovery) as both a procedure and as a behavioral outcome, and the importance of the distinction between the procedure and the behavioral outcome

·       The role of shaping in instrumental contingencies

·       The phenomena of taste aversion learning, territorial and reproductive cueing, fear conditioning, drug tolerance, and sign tracking and the ways these illustrate associative learning contingencies and principles

·       How extinction, punishment, omission, and habituation change response probability as well as the benefits versus disadvantages of each procedure’s impact on behavior

·       The impact of S* parameters on strength and rate of learning; and

·       The ways in which preparedness or biological constraints influence what can be learned and the ease of learning

 

 

·       Behavioral flexibility and adaptability can arise from innate behaviors and everyday events through the process of classical conditioning

·       S-S learning and S-R learning differ

·       Arranging the sequence of CS-CS and CS-US pairings in second-order conditioning and sensory preconditioning produce associations that provide insights into what is learned

·       Standard classical conditioning preparations (i.e., eyeblink, CER, autoshaping, and taste aversions) are used to discover and test classical conditioning phenomena and predictions

·       Different procedures for pairing CS and US (e.g., delay, trace, simultaneous, backward) affect what is learned

·       Variables such as timing, novelty, trial spacing, preexposure, and stimulus intensity affect conditioning

·       Pseudoconditioning and sensitization differ from true classical conditioning

·       Latent inhibition and conditioned inhibition differ

·       Summation, retardation, and bidirectional response tests are used to distinguish conditioned inhibition from habituation, preexposure, and extinction effects

·       Different conditioning procedures can be used to produce either conditioned excitors or conditioned inhibitors and

·       Taste aversion and blocking phenomena are used to evaluate the parsimony and validity of contingency versus contiguity explanations of classical conditioning

 

 

·       The Rescorla-Wagner model’s use of US salience to explain and predict conditioning phenomena such as blocking and unblocking, conditioned inhibition, extinction, and CS overexpectation

·       Why the Rescorla-Wagner model has difficulty explaining sensory preconditioning, higher-order conditioning, extinction of inhibition, Hall-Pearce negative transfer, and latent inhibition

·       Comparator theories’ explanations and predictions regarding conditioning phenomena such as blocking and unblocking, conditioned inhibition, extinction, sensory preconditioning, higher-order conditioning, Hall-Pearce negative transfer, and latent inhibition

·       The Mackintosh model’s use of attentional variables to explain and predict conditioning phenomena such as blocking and unblocking, conditioned inhibition, extinction, sensory preconditioning, higher-order conditioning, Hall-Pearce negative transfer, and latent inhibition

·       The Pearce-Hall model’s use of CS salience to explain and predict conditioning phenomena such as blocking and unblocking, conditioned inhibition, extinction, sensory preconditioning, higher-order conditioning, Hall-Pearce negative transfer, and latent inhibition

·       Modern memory models using variables such as self-generated priming, retrieval-generated priming, rehearsal, and retrieval

·       The impact of network schemas on CS and US associability

·       The modification of the basic Rescorla-Wagner model that resulted in the SOP model, and how the incorporation of memory processing assumptions expanded the model’s predictive capacity

·       The further modification of the SOP model into AESOP by means of a distinction between sensory and emotive learning processes, and the expanded predictive capacity that resulted

• Profesor: DANIELE CAPRIOLI