written report kay dean
TRANSCRIPT
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POLYTECHNIC UNIVERSITY OF THE PHILIPPINES
COLLEGE OF EDUCATION
STA. MESA, MANILA
Observational LearningOperant Conditioning
Written Report
Prepared by:
Jessa Wenica C. Pallomina
BBTE IV1D
Prepared for:
Dr. Milagrina A. GomezDean, College of Education
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Observational Learning Compared To Imitation
Observational learning differs from Imitation in that it does not require a duplication ofthe behavior exhibited by the model. For example, the learner may observe an unwanted
behavior and the subsequent consequences, and thus learn to refrain from that behavior. For
example, Riopelle, A.J. (1960) found that monkeys did better with observational learning if theysaw the "tutor" monkey make a mistake before making the right choice. Heyes (1993)
distinguished imitation and non-imitative social learning in the following way: imitation occurs
when animals learn about behavior from observing conspecifics, whereas non-imitative sociallearning occurs when animals learn about the environment from observing others.
Observational learning is presumed to have occurred when an organism copies animprobable action or action outcome that it has observed and the matching behavior cannot be
explained by an alternative mechanism. Psychologists have been particularly interested in the
form of observational learning known as imitation and in how to distinguish imitation from other
processes. To successfully make this distinction, one must separate the degree to which
behavioral similarity results from (a) predisposed behavior, (b) increased motivation resultingfrom the presence of another animal, (c) attention drawn to a place or object, (d) learning about
the way the environment works, as distinguished from what we think of as (e) imitation (thecopying of the demonstrated behavior) (Zentall 2012).
Observational learning
Tomasello (1999) described various ways of observational learning without the process
of imitation in animals: Exposure- Individuals learn about their environment with a closeproximity to other individuals that have more experience. For example, a young dolphin learning
the location of a plethora of fish by staying nears its mother.
Stimulus Enhancement - Individuals become interested in an object from watching
others interact with it (Spence 1937).
Increased interest in an object may result in object
manipulation, which facilitates new object-related behaviors by trial-and-error learning.
For example, a young killer whale might become interested in playing with a sea lion pup
after watching other whales toss the sea lion pup around. After playing with the pup, the killerwhale may develop foraging behaviors appropriate to such prey. In this case, the killer whale did
not learn to prey on sea lions by observing other whales do so, but rather the killer whale became
intrigued after observing other whales play with the pup. After the killer whale became
interested, then its interactions with the sea lion resulted in behaviors that provoked futureforaging efforts.
Goal Emulation-Individuals are enticed by the end result of an observed behavior andattempt the same outcome but with a different method. For example, Haggerty (1909) devised an
experiment in which a monkey climbed up the side of a cage, stuck its arm into a wooden chute,
and pulled a rope in the chute to release food. Another monkey was provided an opportunity toobtain the food after watching a monkey go through this process on four separate occasions. The
monkey performed a different method and finally succeeded after trial and error.
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Peer model influences
Observational learning is very beneficial when there are positive, reinforcing peer modelsinvolved. Although individuals go through four different stages for observational learning:
attention; retention; production; and motivation, this does not simply mean that when an
individual's attention is captured that it automatically sets the process in that exact order. One ofthe most important ongoing stages for observational learning, especially among children, is
motivation and positive reinforcement.
Performance is enhanced when children are positively instructed on how they can
improve a situation and where children actively participate alongside a more skilled person.
Examples of this are scaffolding and guided participation. Scaffolding refers to an expertresponding contingently to a novice so the novice gradually increases their understanding of a
problem. Guided participation refers to an expert actively engaging in a situation with a novice
so the novice participates with or observes the adult to understand how to resolve a problem.
Observational learning across cultures
Cultural variation can be seen in the extent of information learned or absorbed by
children through the use of observation and more specifically the use of observation without
verbal requests for further information. For example, children from Mexican heritage familiestend to learn and make better use of information observed during classroom demonstration thenEuropean heritage children.
Another example is seen in the immersion, of children in some
Indigenous communities of the Americas, into the adult world and the effects it has on
observational learning and the ability to complete multiple tasks simultaneously.
This might bedue to children in these communities having the opportunity to see a task being completed by
their elders or peers and then trying to emulate the task. In doing so they learn to value
observation and the skill-building it affords them because of the value it holds within theircommunity. This type of observation is not passive, but reflects the child's intent to participateor learn within a community.
Indigenous Communities of the Americas
Children observe elders, parents, and siblings completing tasks and learn to participate inthem as they grow. Observational opportunities tend to be more prominent in indigenous
communities, because children integrate in adult activities. They are seen as contributors
themselves and therefore they learn to observe multiple tasks being completed at once and can
learn to complete a task, while still engaging with other community members without beingdistracted.
The heightened value towards observation allows children to multi-task in activelyengage in simultaneous activities. The exposure to an uncensored adult lifestyle incorporating
children allows them to observe and learn the different skills and practices that are valued in their
communities.
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Children from indigenous heritage communities and backgrounds learn through
observation, a learning strategy that can carry over into adulthood.
Children of indigenous
heritage communities commonly use contextual cues in their understanding and ideas. In anative Northern Canadian and an Indigenous Mayan community children often learn as third-
party observers to stories and conversations by others.
Indigenous communities utilize observational learning by providing more opportunity to
incorporate children in everyday life, where observational learning is expected and may be more
inherent to some cultures more than others. This integration of children into everyday life can beseen in some Mayan communities where children are given full access to community events,
which allows observational learning to occur more often. Children in communities such as the
Mazahua in Mexico are known to intensely observe ongoing activities.
Within certain indigenous communities a characteristic of observational learning is that
people do not typically seek out explanation beyond basic observation because they are
competent in learning through observation. In a Guatemalan footloom factory amateur adult
weavers observed skilled weavers over the course of weeks without questioning or being givenexplanations; the amateur weaver moved at their own pace and began when they felt confident.
The framework of learning how to weave through observation can serve as a model thatparticular members or groups within a society use as a reference to guide their actions in
particular domains of life.
Indigenous parent's teaching styles are shaped by their influence with western schooling.
In traditionalMayan families,given the difference of the education levels of mothers, those with
more years of formal education often prompt children to take turns in learning to solve a
problem, while mothers with less education facilitate open ended discussion with the children. Ina similar study among Mayan fathers and children showed that fathers with 03 years of
education operated through a mix of observation and shared collaboration between adults andchildren, compared to the fathers with higher levels of education who structured a discussion.
Observational Learning and Children with Autism
There are not a lot of studies done on the acquisition of knowledge through observation,
but there are none on observational learning in children with low-functioning autism accordingto Nadel, Aouka, Coulon, Grad-Vincendon, Canet, Fagard & Bursztejn (2011). This group of
researchers set out to consider whether or not children with low-functioning autism are able to
learn through observation only.
They used two groups; children aged four to nine diagnosed with Autism Spectrum
Disorder (ASD) and a control group of children. They further divided each group into two
subgroups, based on developmental age (24 or 36 months). All four groups then receiveddifferent tasks that corresponded to their developmental age. The task involved a red box that
contained candy, which the children tried to get. This study lasted nine daysduring which all
the children were given the box on the first day and given time to try to get the object out. Theywere then shown a demonstration video twice but were not given the box after the demonstration
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to try to get the candy. The following day, the participants were only given the box with no video
demonstrations to test for observational learning. This was repeated seven days later.
Nadel et al. (2011) found that the children who did not have autism showed improvement
after the first demonstration. The children of a younger developmental age improved one week
later, and the older children improved after only one demonstration. Children with autismimproved after the second demonstration only.
The authors believe this means that children with autism progress the same as typicalchildren, but take longer to learn. They also believe this means that children with autism can
form motor representations for a task without prior experience, and that they can correct motor
representations after previously not being able to do a task. The researchers argue that thedifference in the need for more demonstrations for children with autism was not due to a lack of
attention but more as a result of an increased difficulty of creating a motor representation of an
action that leads to a remote goal as opposed to an immediate goal.
In free play, children with autism often display self-stimulatory behaviors that inhibitappropriate behaviors and decrease their ability to learn new behaviors. In one study, the
researchers were looking to determine the effect of the observation of peers on appropriate toy-playing skills in autistic-like children. They also examined the effects training can have on
autistic-like children, in the training situation and in a generalization setting. No study before this
1986 work looked at the ability of autistic-like children to learn skills similar to those theylearned in training, by observing a peer in a non-training setting. This study strove for insight
into the generalization of autistic-like children's skills through observational learning.
Participants included three autistic-like boys with a mean chronological age of 4.4 and a
mean age of 2.5. Six other boys with a mean age chronological age of 4.3 and a mean age of 3.2,
and good receptive and language skills, served as peer models. Each participant took part in:
A pretest to determine ten different toys that the child did not play with appropriately A baseline test of free play, where children played in a room where the ten toys
determined in the pretest were present, as well as another peer
Two training sessions, each followed by a generalization and maintenance conditionIn the first training session, the participant watched a peer (who they did not see in the
baseline test) correctly play with a toy. The second training was the same as the first except that
the participant was exposed to both a new peer model and a new toy. The amount of exposure to
a modeled play task was the independent variable, and was manipulated through additional tasks,models, and settings. Tryon and Keane (1986) identified the dependent variables as the training
task acquisition, generalization in free-play, and the frequency of both self-stimulatory behavior
and imitative play behaviors.
The authors found that all three autistic-like boys could learn to imitate the peer model,
and could play with an unfamiliar toy in the training sessions by watching a peer model. In thefollowing generalization and maintenance sessions, all the autistic-like boys learned to play with
the unfamiliar toy that they had not been trained in. The researchers noticed that the boys
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decreased their self-stimulatory behaviors as a result of the imitative play learned in training. The
authors suggested that enhanced imitation of play behaviors may have been due to the use of
multiple peer models.
Other human and animal behavior experiments
When an animal is given a task to complete, they are almost always more successful after
observing another animal doing the same task before them. Experiments have been conducted on
several different species with the same effect: animals can learn behaviors from peers. However,there is a need to distinguish the propagation of behavior and the stability of behavior. Research
has shown that social learning can spread a behavior, but there are more factors regarding how a
behavior carries across generations of an animal culture.
B.F. SKINNERS THEORY OF OPERANT CONDITIONING
Derived from the theory of Thorndike, Skinner analyzed reinforcing stimuli based on the
law of effect. Skinner also emphasized the effects of the subjects action among the causes of
behavior.
The operant conditioning theory is based on Skinners experiments with animals.
Skinner uses the term operant behavior to refer to his idea that an organism has to do something
in order to get a reward, that is, it must operate on its environment. His basic premise is that any
organism (including man) tends to repeat what it was doing at the time its behavior was
reinforced and that the task is a matter of baiting each step of the way, thus gradually leading the
subject to the required performance.
In one of Skinners well-known experiments, a hungry rat was placed in a box. Upon its
accidental pressing of a lever in a box, it was rewarded with a food pellet which served as
reinforcement to the pressing behavior. Reinforced thus, the rat kept on pressing that bar, this
time no longer accidentally but intentionally. Skinner has shown that basic to operant
conditioning is the use of reinforcement.
Reinforcement is defined as any behavioral consequence that strengthens behavior. The
reinforcement increases the likelihood of the recurrence of a particular type of response. By
reinforcement, skinner refers to any event that increases the probability that a particular response
will increase in frequency. Responses may be reinforced by the presentation (positive) orremoval (negative) of particular consequences. Thus, reinforcement may be positive or negative.
The presentation of a positive reinforce increases the likelihood that a particular response will
occur. The withdrawal of a negative reinforce will also increase the likelihood of occurrence of
a desired response by presenting or withdrawing a positive or a negative reinforcer.
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Positive and negative reinforcers influence behaviors in opposite ways. Positive
reinforcers increase response frequency. Negative reinforcers strengthen behavior by their
removal. That means termination of the reinforcing stimulus increases response frequency.
To determine whether a particular event is reinforcing, observations are conducted. The
frequency of a selected response is first observed and then made contingent on the response. Therate of responding with the added consequences is observed next. If the response frequency is
increased, the selected event is therefore reinforcing.
To be effective in altering behavior, reinforcement must be made contingent on the
execution of appropriate responses. Reinforcement increases the rate of responding; however,
elimination of the reinforcing consequence decreases the rate. This will eventually lead to
extinction. In everyday life then, reinforcement is used to prevent the extinction of behavior.
Primary and Secondary reinforcers are two types of reinforcement. There are some
reinforcers that are innately reinforcing. They are powerful in increasing the chance that aparticular behavior will occur. These are called primary reinforcers.
In primary reinforce, the increase in response rate occurs without training. Given the
state of deprivation, primary reinforcers will alter the probability of responding. Sleep is
reinforcing for a sleep-deprived person. Food and water also belong to this category of
reinforcers.
Secondary reinforcers or conditioned reinforcers influence behavior through training.
These reinforcers are not innately reinforcing. This type of reinforcement is done specifically by
developing associations with a primary reinforce. Their power to reinforce behavior is acquired.
Money, grades, stars, and tokens are all secondary reinforcers.
Primary and secondary reinforcers may have the same effectiveness depending on how
they are used or managed in the conditioning process. Both types of reinforcers are most
effective when they immediately follow the responses they are intended to increase.
Other reinforcers, however, have a more general influence on behavior. Generalized
reinforces can function under more than one set of circumstances through association with more
than one primary reinforce (e.g., Money is a token associated with food, drink, and shelter).
Attention, approval, congratulations, and peer approval are other types of generalized
reinforcers.
As in classical conditioning, a process related to operant conditioning is extinction.
Extinction of a learned behavior in this case occurs as a result of its repetition while receiving no
further reinforcement. This process of extinction may be employed in terminating an undesirable
behavior.
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In contrast with reinforcers, punishment involves the withdrawal of a positive reinforcer
or the addition of a negative reinforcer. Withdrawal of a positive reinforcer, or removing a
pleasant experience, may involve removing TV watching privileges. Presenting an unpleasant
event, on the other hand, or the addition of a negative reinforcer could be confining the child to
his room.
Skinner proposed that in terms of effect, punishment is not the opposite of reinforcement.
For Skinner, punishment leads to 3 undesirable effects:
1. Punished responses only disappear temporarily.2. Emotional predispositions such as guilt or shame may be conditioned through the use
of punishment.
3. Any behavior that reduces the aversive stimulation accompanying the punishmentwill be reinforced.
For example, a child may lie to his mother that he is sick so that he can avoid going toschool, thus avoiding taking the test. The test which serves as an aversive stimulus will only
reinforce the negative behavior of lying.
The contribution of Skinners theory to learning involves the acquisition of complex
behavior through the process of shaping.
Shaping behavior is the acquisition of complex behaviors such as playing tennis, and
solving problems. The procedure of first reinforcing responses that only resemble the desired
response is referred to as reinforcing successive approximations. This calls for reinforcing
behavior like kicking the ball when the child is just learning how to play soccer.
The importance of shaping is that it can generate complex behaviors that do not occur
naturally through shaping by a series of contingencies in a program. Each stage of the program
evokes a response and also serves to prepare the organism to respond at some later point.
Shaping is different from behavior modifications that occur with puzzles, mazes and
other Pavlovian tasks. It does not entail trial and error at random points in the learning process.