Introduction
to Learning
and Basic
concepts
Dr. Kübra CELIK
Syllabus
• Week 1 Introduction to Learning • Midterm (%40)
• Week 2 Habituation, sensitization • Week 9 Theories of Learning
• Week 3 Behavioralism & Classical • Week 10 Social Learning
conditioning
• Week 11 Neurobiology of Learning and
• Week 4 Mechanisms of classical Memory (LTP & LTD)
conditioning
• Week 12 Memory
• Week 5 Operant conditioning
• Week 13 Memory
• Week 6 Reward pathways and
motivational mechsnisms • Week 14 An overview of the semester
• Week 7 Controlling behavior: • Final exam (%60)
avoidance, punishment, extinction
Sources
• Learning theories : An educational perspective, Dale Schunk, Sixth Edition, Pearson
• The principles of learning and behavior, M.Domjan 7th edition
• Ppt presentations
What is learning?
• Learning is the permanent change in behavior that results from
experience.
• Learning is long-term changes that occur in the neural mechanisms of
behavior.
What is learning?
• It begins in embryonic period until death.
• All organisms learn
• Learning is the adaptation process that ensures survival.
• Environment changes the learning process and learning changes the
environment.
• Adaptation at the individual level occurs through learning. Lasts for
the lifetime of the individual
Criteria for learning
• Acquire a new behavior
• Change in behavior frequency
• Change in pace of behavior
• Changing the intensity of the behavior
• Different responses to the same stimulus when the level of
complexity in behavior changes
Criteria for learning
• It is not only stimulus
• Unconcsciously processed information
• Characteristics of the organism involves in learning
• Must be observed by others
• More than a single stimulus and it takes more than a single moment
(i.e.should be generalizable and sustainable).
Learning and Performance
• Learning can only be measured by an observed change in behavior
BUT sometimes learning can be behaviorally silent.
• All of the observable things that an individual does, are collectively
called performance.
• Performance can be affected by many things, such as motivation and
environmental stimuli.
• Learning is just one of the factors that affecting performance.
Basic Concepts
• Stimulation: The condition in the organism that causes a response.
physical, organic, psychological
• Response: The behavior of the organism (consciously or
unconsciously) in against stimuli.
• Performance: Capacity required for a particular job
What is behavior?
• The organism's response to the environment
• Simple reflexes → blink
• Complex behaviors → nutrition
• Complex emotional responses → addiction
Stimulus
• Causes a reaction in the organism,
• causing changes in the behavior of the organism,
• Sensory inputs
• Intensity, duration effect
• More severe stimuli are more likely to cause a reaction in the
organism.
• As the duration of the stimulus increases, the probability of causing a
reaction increases.
Response
• Tiggered by stimulus
• It appears automatically or
• Caused by environmental factors
• It consists of much more complex behaviors
Inherited Behavior Patterns
• Many learned behaviors are actually extensions of our innate behavior
patterns.
• Reflexes
• Kinesis and taxis (behavior used by primitive animals to adapt to
environmental conditions)
• Modal behavioral patterns
Reflex
• Stimulus→ response
• Unconditional behavior
• Some rhythmic reflexes (itching,
swallowing, chewing, walking) are
involuntary and open to voluntary
control and adjustment.
Central pattern
generators lead
unconscious behaviors
such as reflex
Kinesis and Taxis
• An automatic response to the stimulus with whole body
• Kinesis (indirect), taxis (direct)
• Decreased humidity (stimulus) → reaction
• Light (stimulus) → orientation to darkness (response)
Modal Action Structure
• A temporal and spatial structure of behavior common to members of a
species
Reaction Chain
• Tactile arousal → Searching reaction → Oral stimulation → Sucking →
Milk → Sucking more → Full stomach → Stop sucking
Difference between reflex and
modal action
• Modal behavior pattern → Continues to the end regardless of the outcome
• Reflex → every response has a stimulus. And for the next reaction to occur, that stimulus
must be present in the environment.
Learning vs Instincts
• Modal action patterns are instinctive
• Instinctive behaviors were assumed to be determined primarily by the
genetic and evolutionary history of a species,
• Learned behaviors were assumed to be acquired during the lifetime of the
organism through its interactions with its environment.
• Instincts are inborn complex patterns of behaviour that exist in most
members of the species, and should be distinguished from reflexes,
• Genetics and epigenetics → behavior
Genetics of behavior
• Genes do not directly
control behavior, but
the RNA and proteins
encoded by genes
affect the brain at
different times and at
many levels.
Jim Twins
• • These twins were adopted at the age of four weeks. Larry.
Both of the
• – Both named their pet dog "Toy."
• adopting couples, unknown to each other, named
their son Jim. • – Both had some law-enforcement training and had
been a part-time
• • Upon reunion of the twins when they were 39 years
old, Jim and • deputy sheriff in Ohio.
• Jim have learned that: • – Each did poorly in spelling and well in math.
• – Both twins are married to women named Betty and • – Each vacation in Florida in the same three-block-
divorced from long beach area.
• women named Linda. • – Both twins began suffering from tension headaches
at eighteen,
• – One has named his first son James Alan while the
other named his first • gained ten pounds at the same time, and are six feet
tall and 180
• son James Allan.
• pounds.
• – Both twins have an adopted brother whose name is
• Drosophila larvae activity level and
locomotion differs.
• Larvae called 'rover' travel much longer
distances
• Others, called 'sitters', are relatively quiet.
• These traits are inherited and rover
mothers or fathers have rover offspring,
and sitter parents have sitting offspring.
Marie sokolowski
• FOR Gene
Epigenetics effects learning and
memory
• Contextual fear conditioning
• taking an animal and placing it in a novel environment,
providing an aversive stimulus, and then removing it.
Thanks ☺
