B.F. Skinner

Behaviorism:

1. Emphasis on learning: there is no human nature. You could be anything as you exist from your experience.
2. Anti-mentalism: unscientific & scientific
3. No differences across species

Habituation

What is it: A decline in the tendency to respond to familiar stimuli due to repeated exposure

What is it for: An adaptive mechanism to keep us focusing on new objects and events.

Classical conditioning

The learning of an association between one stimulus and another stimulus.

Before conditioning:

• neutral stimulus -> no consistent response
• unconditioned stimulus -> unconditioned response

During conditioning:

• neutral stimulus + unconditioned stimulus -> unconditioned responese

After conditioning:

• conditioned stimulus -> conditioned response

What is it for: sensitivity to a cue that an event is about to happen allows you to prepare for that event.

The optimal timing between the CS and UCS: CS immediately before UCS

Nature of the CR: preparation for UCR

Instrumental/Operant conditioning

What is it for: learning what works and what doesn’t

This is very different from classical conditioning as classical one is passive while instrumental one is based on your own actions.

The law of effect: the tendency to perform an action is increased if rewarded, weakened if not.

How to train:

• positive reinforcement
• negative reinforcement
• punishment

(credit to Coursera)