Psychological Processes: Learning and Conditioning
Code: 102605 ECTS Credits: 6| Degree | Type | Year | Semester |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2502443 Psychology | OB | 2 | 1 |
Contact
- Name:
- Eva Parrado Romero
- Email:
- eva.parrado@uab.cat
Teaching groups languages
You can check it through this link. To consult the language you will need to enter the CODE of the subject. Please note that this information is provisional until 30 November 2023.
Teachers
- Tomas Blasco Blasco
- Francesc Xavier Borras Hernandez
- Adrián Pérez Aranda
- Eva Parrado Romero
Prerequisites
There are no prior prerequisites. However, it is recommendable that students should revise the contents from previous courses on psychological processes, undertaken during the previous year.
Objectives and Contextualisation
This subject belongs to the group of Psychological Processes Courses (Motivation and Emotion, Memory, Attention and Perception, and Thought and Language). Contents provide students with the main features and research strategies used in this field of knowledge.
The primary aims of this subject are:
a) To make students aware of the fundamental aspects of the psychological processes related to learning and conditioning.
b) To enable students to address questions about learning, as well as to identify learning phenomena in human and animals both on laboratory and natural settings.
This course gives students the framework required to follow subsequent courses addressed to professional practice such as “Cognitive and behavioural treatments in childhood and adolescence”.
Competences
- Apply knowledge, skills and acquired values critically, reflexively and creatively.
- Identify, describe and relate the structures and processes involved in basic psychological functions.
- Prepare and write technical reports on the results of the evaluation, research or services requested.
- Take decisions in a critical manner about the different research methods in psychology, their application and the interpretation of the results deriving from them.
- Use different ICTs for different purposes.
Learning Outcomes
- Analyse the results of experiments on conditioning and learning.
- Apply knowledge, skills and acquired values critically, reflexively and creatively.
- Design experiments in conditioning and learning.
- Distinguish between the main non-associative learning processes.
- Identify the main processes of classical and instrumental conditioning.
- Use different ICTs for different purposes.
- Write reports using the results of experiments on conditioning and learning.
Content
Introduction.
- Innate behaviours.
- Definition of learning.
- Learning and execution
- Learning and other causes of behaviour change.
- Types of learning.
Part I: Non-associative learning: Habituation and sensitization
- Definition, characteristics, and variables of habituation.
- Definition, characteristics, and variables of sensitization.
Part II: Associative learning (I): Classical conditioning
- Classical conditioning paradigm and terms.
- Basic phenomena in classical conditioning: acquisition, extinction, generalization.
- Methodology in classical conditioning research.
- Conditioned response measures.
- Temporal procedures in classical conditioning.
- Experimental control in classical conditioning.
- Experimental procedures in classical conditioning.
- Inhibitory classical conditioning.
- Variables involved in acquisition in classical conditioning.
- Other phenomena in classical conditioning (sensory preconditioning, second-order conditioning, counterconditioning, compound conditioning)
Part III: Associative learning (II): Operant conditioning
- Introduction.
- Basic procedures in operant conditioning.
- Procedures, measures and variables in positive reinforcement.
- Schedules of reinforcement.
- Extinction procedures of operant responses.
- Theoretical analysis of positive reinforcement.
- Procedures, measures and variables on negative reinforcement (escape and avoidance).
- Theoretical analysis of negative reinforcement.
- Procedures, measures, and variables in punishment situations.
- Paradoxical and emotional effects of punishment.
Methodology
Directed Activities (30%):
- Lectures: face-to-face sessions of 1.5h hours
- Seminars: 3 face-to-face sessions of 2 hours
- Laboratory and practical classes: 5 face-to-face sessions of 2 hours.
Supervised Activities (15%):
- Solution of questions about the subject using the Moodle application
- Simulation of classical and instrumental conditioning phenomena with the software “Sniffy”.
Autonomous Activities (55%):
- Reading and study of reference manuals.
Annotation: Within the schedule set by the centre or degree programme, 15 minutes of one class will be reserved for students to evaluate their lecturers and their courses or modules through questionnaires.
Activities
| Title | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Type: Directed | |||
| Laboratory and practical classes | 10 | 0.4 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 5, 6 |
| Lectures | 28.5 | 1.14 | 1, 2, 4, 5 |
| Seminar | 6 | 0.24 | 1, 2, 4, 5 |
| Type: Supervised | |||
| Moodle exercises | 11 | 0.44 | 2, 4, 5, 6 |
| Simulation of classic and instrumental conditioning phenomena with Sniffy software | 10 | 0.4 | 1, 3, 6 |
| Type: Autonomous | |||
| Reading and study of manuals | 81.5 | 3.26 | 4, 5 |
Assessment
The competences of the subject will be assessed by different procedures:
- Ev1: Peer group Report about results of Practice 1. The report will be presented at the end of the session (see the calendar of sessions established for each group). It has a weight of 4%.
- Ev2: Peer group Report about results of Practice 2. The report will be presented at the end of the session (see the calendar of sessions established for each group). It has a weight of 4%.
- Ev3: Individual Report about results of Practice 3. The report will be presented at the end of the session (see the calendar of sessions established for each group). It has a weight of 4%.
- Ev4: Individual Report about results of Practice 4. The report will be presented at the end of the session (see the calendar of sessions established for each group). It has a weight of 4%.
- Ev5: Individual Report about results of Practice 5. The report will be presented at the end of the session (see the calendar of sessions established for each group). It has a weight of 4%.
- Ev6: Written examination 1. A multiple-choice test will be undertaken in the first assessment period. Contents of the subject given until week 9 (including Domjan’s Handbook and Seminar 1) will be assessed (attended). A statistical correction for chance will be applied (each wrong question subtracts 0.33 from the total of the right questions). The global weight of this exam will be 40%.
- Ev7: Written examination 2. A multiple-choice test will be undertaken in the second assessment period. Contents of the subject given between weeks 10 and 18 (including Domjan’s Handbook and Seminar 2 and Seminar 3) will be assessed (attended). A statistical correction for chance will be applied (each wrong question subtracts 0.33 from the total of the right questions). The global weight of this exam will be 40%.
Table with the main characteristics of the different Learning Evidences
|
Code |
Designation |
Weight |
Format (Oral, written or both) |
Authorship (individual, collective or both) |
Via (Attended, virtual or both) |
|
EV1 |
Written Report Practice 1 |
4% |
Written |
Group |
Attended |
|
EV2 |
Written Report Practice 2 |
4% |
Written |
Group |
Attended |
|
EV3 |
Written Report Practice 3 |
4% |
Written |
Individual |
Attended |
|
EV4 |
Written Report Practice 4 |
4% |
Written |
Individual |
Attended |
|
Ev5 |
Written Report Practice 5 |
4% |
|
Individual |
Attended |
|
Ev6 |
Written Examination Contents given until week 9 |
40% |
Written |
Individual |
Attended |
|
Ev7 |
Written Examination 2 Contents given between weeks 10 and 18 |
40% |
Written |
Individual |
Attended |
To pass the subject, students must obtain a minimum accumulated total score of 5 points.
The student who has submitted assessments with a weight equal to or greater than 4 points (40%) may not be classified in final results as "Not evaluable."
Students who at the end of the semester have not passed the subject, but meet the double condition that they have submitted assessments with a weight equal to or greater than 2/3 of the total grade and have obtained a minimum accumulated overall score (Ev1+Ev2+Ev3+Ev4+Ev5+Ev6+Ev7) equal to or greater than 3.5 points, will have the possibility to undertake re-sits during the re-sit examination period.
The re-sits (only for thel students with a total qualification of less than 5 points and equal to or greater than 3.5 points out of 10) will consist in a written examination of Ev6 and/or Ev7.
The score obtained in this examination will replace the score/s of the re-assessed evidence/s and the overall grade will be recalculated. The score obtained in Ev1, Ev2, Ev3, Ev4 and Ev5, corresponding to the practices, are excluded from the re-sits and will remain unchanged.
Students who are not enrolled for the first timein the subject will be assessed by the same activities as in their first enrolment. No synthesis test is foreseen.
Students who choose the single assessment option waive the continuous assessment and will be assessed on all the contents of the subject in a single assessment event, which will take place on the same day and in the same place as the exam of the second assessment period.
This assessment act will consist of two face-to-face exams (Exam 1 and Exam 2) which will follow the same format and will include the same contents as Ev6 and Ev7 of the continuous assessment (respectively). At the end of the two exams, and during this same assessment event, students who have taken the single assessment system will have to solve a total of 5 situations that will involve the planning and interpretation of experiments equivalent to those worked on in the practices carried out throughout the semester. Students will have to write and hand in a report corresponding to each of the 5 practicals (which will include the same contents as in Ev1-5) in the same classroom. Under no circumstances may the student consult any type of subject material during the preparation of these reports.
The total duration of this single evaluative face-to-face event will be approximately 4h40m (See Table 2).
The conditions for passing the subject, access to the recovery and the recovery test for students who take the single assessment will be the same as for students who follow the continuous assessment.
Table 2. Description of the activities, duration and dates for students taking the single assessment.
|
TABLE OF SINGLE ASSESSMENT ACTIVITIES |
|||
|
Description of the activities |
Weight |
Duration in hours (of the face-to-face event) |
Date of completion |
|
Ev6. Written Examination 1 (1h30m) |
40% |
4h40m |
Second assessment period |
|
Ev7. Written Examination2 (1h30m) |
40% |
||
|
Ev1-5. Resolution of situations that will involve the planning and interpretation of experiments equivalent to those carried out in the practices. (1h40min) |
20% |
||
Students who wish to take the exams in Spanish (instead of Catalan) will have to ask the subject Coordinator before the 4th week of the course and will have to prove that they are in one of two situations: a) Studying at the UAB on an exchange program; b) Have been residing in Catalonia for less than one year. Apart from these two cases, there will be no translation of the exams, although during the course, lecturers of the subject will answer if necessary the possible doubts about translation.
You can check the faculty assessment guidelines at the following link: https://www.uab.cat/web/estudiar/graus/graus/avaluacions-1345722525858.html
Assessment Activities
| Title | Weighting | Hours | ECTS | Learning Outcomes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| EV1. Written Report: Practice 1. | 4% | 0 | 0 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 6 |
| EV2. Written Report: Practice 2 | 4% | 0 | 0 | 1, 2, 3, 7, 5, 6 |
| EV3. Written Report: Practice 3 | 4% | 0 | 0 | 1, 2, 3, 7, 5, 6 |
| EV4. Written Report: Practice 4 | 4% | 0 | 0 | 1, 2, 3, 7, 5, 6 |
| EV5. Written Report: Practice 5 | 4% | 0 | 0 | 1, 2, 3, 7, 5, 6 |
| EV6. Written examination 1 | 40% | 1.5 | 0.06 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
| EV7. Written examination 2 | 40% | 1.5 | 0.06 | 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 |
Bibliography
Basic bibliography (reference manual):
Domjan, M. (2010) The principles of Learning and Behavior (6ª ed.). Traducció: Principios de aprendizaje y conducta. Mèxic: Wadsworth, Cengage Learning, 2010.
You can get a digital version of this book in the next link: https://www.academia.edu/29486933/Principios_de_aprendizaje_y_conducta_Domjan_9th?auto=download
Complementary bibliography:
Cándido, A. (2000) Introducción a la psicología del aprendizaje asociativo. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva.
Domjan, M. (2000) The essentials of conditioning and learning (2ª ed). Traducció: Bases del aprendizaje y el condicionamiento. Jaén: Del Lunar, 2002.
Froufe, M. (2004). Aprendizaje asociativo. Principios y aplicaciones. Madrid: Thomson.
Software
Alloway, T., Wilson, G. i Graham, J. (2005) Snifffy. The virtual rat, pro version 2.0. Traducció: Sniffy. La Rata Virtual. Pro Versión 2.0. Madrid: Thomson Editores, 2006.