《Intro to Psychology》Shishak

3、第 3 章

　　As we learned in class, learning is relatively permanent change in behavior as a function of experience, including Classic Conditioning and Operant Conditioning. I will focus on Classical Conditioning this time.

　　There are some key terms I use in the following case:
　　§Classical Conditioning operates by associating behaviors, based on antecedents, or what happens before a response.
　　§Neutral Stimulus (NS): a stimulus that does not evoke a response.
　　§Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): a stimulus innately capable of eliciting a response.
　　§Unconditioned Response (UCR): the unlearned, reflexive response that is elicited by an unconditioned stimulus.
　　§Conditioned Stimulus (CS): a formerly neutral stimulus that acquires the capacity to elicit a reflexive response.
　　§Conditioned Response (CR): the learned, reflexive response to a conditioned stimulus.

　　Let’s see an example of classic conditioning

　　My friend Tracy has a baby cat, every time before she feeds the cat; then she opens the cat’s food (a can) and asks, “Girl, are you hungry?” The cat comes and jumps on her happily. Later, every time the cat hears the sound of Tracy opening the can, she comes and jumps on Tracy. She knows its her food and wants it, even though Tracy hasn’t said, “Girl, are you hungry?”

　　In this case, Tracy’s voice is Neutral Stimulus (NS), and does not cause the action of jumping. The cat’s food is Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS), the cat wants to have her meal, so she jumps on Tracy, and this action is the UCR (unconditioned response). The inflection in her voice when she asks, “girl, are you hungry?” is always followed by the food. So, now, the inflection in her voice is the CS (conditioned stimulus), the cats’ food is the UCS; the action of the cat coming is the CR (conditioned response).
　　Also, the sound of the opening can is considered another stimulus, and the voice is acting like a UCS.

　　Classic Conditioning

　　The voice “Are you hungry?” (NS)----------------------------------------------àNo action
　　Food (UCS)-------------------------------------------------------------------------àaction (UCR)
　　The voice “Are you hungry?” (CS)-------------Food (UCS)------------------àaction (UCR)
　　The voice “Are you hungry?” (CS)--------------------------------------------- àaction (CR)

　　High order conditioning
　　The sound of opening can (CS2)---------------The voice (CS1)---------------àaction (CR)
　　The voice “Are you hungry?”(CS1)---------------- Food (UCS)--------------àaction (UCR)
　　The sound of opening the can (CS2)---------------------------------------------àaction (CR)

　　There are many phenomena relevant to psychology everywhere; we just haven’t found the links. Once I came to my friend Tracy’s home, she asked “are you hungry?’ and then she opened a can of fruits. At that moment, her cat came and jumped on her. I didn’t know the why the cat suddenly came in, but now I know, the cat thought it was her lunch. And I also know how Tracy feeds her cat.

　　Also, the reinforcement and punishment are attractive to me as well. Reinforcement is a process that increases the future occurrence of a behavior. Punishment is a process that decreases the future occurrence of a behavior.

　　The following is an example of reinforcement VS punishment:
　　Let’s say you have several hours of free time before a psychology test. You can spend the time by watching TV or studying psychology. If you spend more time watching TV, then you don’t have enough time to prepare for the test. The failure on the exam is considered punishment, so in the future you may want to spend less time watching TV. If you spend more time studying and are well prepared for the test, then the good grade is reinforcement, and increases the time spent studying in the future.

　　The interesting thing is that I found about this phenomena of how to separate the time on study and watching TV also can be explained by using the concept of opportunity cost that I learned in Economics class. The opportunity cost is whatever must be given up to obtain some item. If you spend one hour on watching TV, then this hour cannot be used on studying. And you will decide how to spend the time in order to benefit you best. Study will cause a good grade, it benefit you more, so you may want to spend more time on it while reducing the time on watching TV. My question is whether some psychology phenomena can be explained by principles or concepts in other field. Does psychology has a strong relationship with other sciences? I’m not sure yet, I will work on it later, and hope I will find the answer.