Transcript Unit 3: Behaviour, Populations and environment

Higher Human Biology
Unit 3: Behaviour, Populations
and environment
Chapter 33: Effect of experience
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Learning Intentions
Describe the
effect of
experience on
learning.
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Success Criteria
•
State that repeated use of motor skills
result in a motor pathway being
established. This “motor memory” is
seen, for example, in riding a bike.
•
Design and carry out an investigation
on learning using a finger maze.
•
State that motor skills may be
improved with practice but once best
performance has been reached no
further improvement is achieved due
to physical limitations.
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Effect of practice on motor skills
• Once a motor skill (e.g. riding a bike) has been
mastered, repeated use of it promotes the
establishment of a motor pathway in the
nervous system.
• Repetition of the skill is though to result in an
increased number of synaptic connections
being formed between the neurones in the
pathway.
• This leads to a motor memory for the skill.
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Motor skills + Practice
Improved
performance
Motor
memory
formed
Learn
motor
skill
Becomes
‘rusty’ but
NOT lost
completely
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cycling
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swimming
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Investigating learning using a finger
maze.
• The apparatus in the opposite
image is used by a learner,
who is blindfolded.
• The learners task is to
proceed through the maze
from entrance to exit using
the tip of the forefinger.
• The observers job is to
measure the time taken for
each trial by the learner.
• The experiment is repeated to
give a total of ten trials.
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Experiment design features
Design feature
Reason
Same learner used for each group of ten
trials; same finger used each time, same
design of maze used each time.
To ensure that no second variable factor
in the investigation.
Ten trials per learner.
To give the learner opportunity to reach
the best score.
Learner blindfolded through all time
trials.
To prevent the learner improving their
performance artificially.
Path between matchsticks just wide
enough to accommodate one finger tip
comfortably.
To prevent two fingers being used to
explore simultaneously two routes at a
junction and establish the correct one
more quickly.
Experiment repeated with many learners
and learning curves compared.
To obtain a more reliable set of results.
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Finger Maze Results
• After several trials the time to
complete the maze decreases.
• By trial & error a person forms
a picture in head of route.
• Eventually a best time is
reached.
• This is a minimum time needed
to physically run finger through
so once this physical limit is
reached it can’t be improved
upon.
Practice Improves Performance
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We can measuring learning by....
recording
decrease in
time needed
counting the
decreasing
number of errors
increase in
number of
correct
responses
Graph of learning
= a learning curve
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Imitation: by Adults and Children
• Method of learning, especially in children and especially
during play – physical tasks, social skills & attitudes.
• Quick way of learning.
• Easier than reading a manual etc.
• Learning by demonstration is
even easier if broken up into
steps and learner repeats
each step immediately.
• Learning is even better if the demonstrator is an
attractive role model (status is enhanced by the
possession
of the skill
being demonstrated).
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Imitation of social skills
• Behaviour acquired by
imitation is not restricted to
the learning of physical
tasks and skills.
• It also involves the learning
of social skills and
attitudes.
• Parents, other adults and
perhaps older brothers and
sisters, provide children
with a variety of possible
models to imitate.
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Imitation of social skills
• Children tend to imitate many aspects of a model’s cultural
and social behaviour. Once learned, many of these values
and traditions (e.g. Being kind and generous to others or
belonging to a certain religion) may be adopted for life.
• Some may be accepted during childhood, then rejected
during adolescence (e.g. A belief that smoking damages
health changes to smoking seems attractive to a peer
group). This may change again in adulthood to the original
premise.
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Influence of media
People also learn by observing and then imitating
behaviour presented in the media (e.g. TV and
films).
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Influence of media
Children re-enact in detail recently view programmes.
Experiments have shown that many of the children
that have viewed violent scenes on TV become more
violent. Where as many children shown TV containing
‘do-good’ themes tend to imitate this behaviour.
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Task: Torrance-TYK pg 263 Qu 1-4
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Trial & Error Learning
Many experiments done on
rats & mice to compare
learning in hungry and wellfed individuals when food is
available, but they have to
learn how to get it.
Sooner or later they push
the lever. If they get the
food the behaviour is
repeated, so becomes
reinforced.
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Association of
pushing leaver (own
behaviour ) with the
delivery of food.
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Motivation
Motivation = ‘inner drive’ that makes you want to
participate in the learning process
Animals are motivated by:
• Hunger, thirst, sexual drive, and curiosity
The effect of motivation on an animals ability to
learn by comparing hungry and well-fed rats
which must negotiate a maze before getting the
reward of food.
Hungry rats make less errors per trial, they are
more motivated to learn.
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Reinforcement
Reinforcement = the process that makes an
organism repeat a certain
behaviour
Reinforcement stimulus (reinforcers) increases
the chance of the response being repeated
Reinforcers = Rewards
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Positive reinforcement
This occurs when something pleasant or positive is
received after a particular response has been
made.
- Increases the chance of the response being
repeated
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Negative reinforcement
• An unpleasant or negative outcome coming to
a stop when a particular response is made
• Increases the chance of the response being
repeated.
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Don’t confuse
negative
reinforcement with
punishment:
Negative
reinforcement is
always associated
with increases in
behaviour, while
punishment always
involves decreasing
or suppressing
behaviour.
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Continuous Reinforcement
Here the response is always reinforced every time
e.g. rat getting food every
time lever is pressed
Intermittent Reinforcement
This response is only reinforced some of the time
• If the influence of the reinforcements that has
previously occurred is strong enough, it will still
to promote the response even if not being
reinforced in that moment in time.
e.g. child using green cross code, even
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when
parent not there
to remind them.
Superstition
People develop a superstition
due to a favourable event, that
has actually occurred by mere
chance, but is thought to come
from the person’s behaviour.
When the behaviour is
repeated the favourable event
occasionally occurs so
reinforces the superstition, so
the likelihood of the person
repeating the behaviour.
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Shaping of Behaviour
This occurs by …. rewarding behaviour that is
similar (successive approximations) to the desired
behaviour to help the learner learn in stages.
• Usually used to learn something that is unlikely
to occur spontaneously
e.g. Baby learning
to hold cutlery
properly – praise
from parents helps
baby learn to hold
it correctly
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Shaping and Animals
• Animal trainers use shaping
to teach dolphins to
balance a ball on their
snouts, pigeons to dance in
patterns and bears to ride
on bicycles.
• An especially useful
application of shaping is
training dogs to act as eyes
for the blind.
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Extinction of Behaviour
If behaviour patterns are not rewarded they are
likely to disappear (become extinct if not reinforced).
Once the food runs out, after a
few presses of the lever resulting
in no food, the rat stops pressing
the lever.
If food is given intermittently
(sometimes, but not everytime),
even when the food has run out for a while after, the rat will still
try to press the lever to get food.
Intermittent reinforcement is more resistant to
extinction than continuous
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Experience
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Rewarded & Unrewarded Behaviour
Parents try to teach their children the difference
between acceptable & unacceptable behaviour.
Good behaviour is reinforced through rewards.
If bad behaviour is ignored it should become
extinct because it is not reinforced, however
sometimes it is hard to ignore and instead the
child gets attention.
Sometimes unacceptable behaviour has it’s own
rewards (e.g. thief stealing money) so is reinforced.
In this case responsible parents might resort to
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punishment.
FYI: Smacking is not effective
in behaviour management
Evidence suggests that smacking your children is not effective in
managing their behaviour. Out of 2,500 children involved in a study those
who were smacked more frequently at the age of 3 were much more
aggressive by age 5 (aggression increased by 50%).
Why should parents stop smacking children?
1. Smacking teaches kids that hitting others is okay.
2. Smacking makes a child preoccupied with feelings of anger and revenge instead of
learning more effective and humane methods of solving a problem
3. Often, children who are smacked because of “bad behaviour” only want to get their
parents’ attention. Even negative attention is attention, and can reinforce behaviour.
4. Smacking may make a child resent his/her parents: Any human being will find it hard
to feel loving towards a person who hits them. While it may make a child obey a
parent, this is not because the child wants to obey. Children who are constantly
smacked by their parents tend to do what their parents want for fear of being hit
again.
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Smacking can cause injury toMrsa Smith:
child.
Ch33 Effect of Experience
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Generalisation
…when the spread of a response (e.g. fear) extends
to different but related stimuli.
e.g.
Baby saying ‘mama’
to all adults
Mama!
Child bitten by one dog
scared of all dogs
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Discrimination
…the ability to distinguish between different but
related stimuli and give different responses.
e.g.
Child bitten by a large
dog is scared of just
large dogs
Taught by reinforcing the desired response
e.g. a baby saying ‘mama’ to the
correct person is rewarded with
hugs & kisses, but none are given if
‘mama’ is said to the wrong person
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Task: Torrance-TYK pg 266 Qu 1-4
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Task: Torrance AYK
pg266/267 Qu’s 1-5
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SQA Essay 2006
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