Association (psychology)

Last updated

Association in psychology refers to a mental connection between concepts, events, or mental states that usually stems from specific experiences. [1] Associations are seen throughout several schools of thought in psychology including behaviorism, associationism, psychoanalysis, social psychology, and structuralism. The idea stems from Plato and Aristotle, especially with regard to the succession of memories, and it was carried on by philosophers such as John Locke, David Hume, David Hartley, and James Mill. [2] It finds its place in modern psychology in such areas as memory, learning, and the study of neural pathways. [3]

Contents

Learned associations

Associative learning is when a subject creates a relationship between stimuli (e.g. auditory or visual) or behavior and the original stimulus. The higher the concreteness of stimulus items, the more likely are they to evoke sensory images that can function as mediators of associative learning and memory. [4] The ability to learn new information is essential to daily life and thus a critical component of healthy aging. There is substantial research documenting aging-related decline in forming and retrieving episodic memories. [5] The acquisition of associations is the basis for learning. [6] This learning is seen in classical and operant conditioning.[ citation needed ]

Law of Effect

Edward Thorndike did research in this area and developed the law of effect, where associations between a stimulus and response are affected by the consequence of the response. [7] For example, behaviors increase in strength and/or frequency when they have been followed by reward. This occurs because of an association between the behavior and a  mental representation  of the reward (such as food). Conversely, receiving a negative consequence lowers the frequency of the behavior due to the negative association. [7] An example of this would be a rat in a cage with a bar lever. If pressing the lever results in a food pellet, the rat will learn to press the lever to receive food. If pressing the lever resulted in an electric shock on the floor of the cage, the rat would learn to avoid pressing the lever.[ citation needed ]

Classical conditioning

Classical conditioning  is an example of a learned association. The classical conditioning process consists of four elements: unconditioned stimulus (UCS), unconditioned response (UCR), conditioned stimulus (CS), and conditioned response (CR). [1]

Without conditioning, there is already a relationship between the unconditioned stimulus and the unconditioned response. When a second stimulus is paired with the unconditioned stimulus, the response becomes associated with both stimuli. The secondary stimulus is known as the conditioned stimulus and elicits a conditioned response. [8]

The strength of the response to the conditioned stimulus increases over the period of learning, as the CS becomes associated with UCS. The strength of the response can diminish if CS is presented without UCS. [8]  In his famous experiment, Pavlov used the unconditioned response of dogs salivating at the sight of food (UCS), and paired the sound of a bell (CS) with receiving food, and later the dog salivated (CR) to the bell alone, indicating that an association had been established between the bell and food. [9] [10]

Operant conditioning

In  operant conditioning, behaviors are changed due to the experienced outcomes of those behaviors. Stimuli do not cause behavior, as in classical conditioning, but instead the associations are created between stimulus and consequence, as an extension by Thorndike on his Law of Effect. [10] [8]

B.F. Skinner was well known for his studies of reinforcers on behavior. His studies included the aspect of contingency, which refers to the connection between a specific action and the following consequence or reinforcement. [8] Skinner described three contingencies: positive reinforcement, negative reinforcement, and punishment. Reinforcements create a positive association between the action and consequence in order to promote the continuation of the action. This is done in one of two ways, positive reinforcers introduce a rewarding stimulus, whereas negative reinforcers remove an aversive stimulus to make the environment less aversive. Punishments create a negative relationship between the action and the consequence so that the action does not continue. [8]

Mood

The overall content of moods, compared to emotions, feelings or affects, are less specific and are likely to be provoked by a stimulus or event. The present studies investigated the constituents of the occurrent experience of specific moods like sad or angry mood states. Moods are typically defined by contrasting them with emotions. Several criteria exist for distinguishing moods from emotions, but there is a widely shared consensus that the core differentiating feature is that moods, in contrast to emotions, are diffuse and global. [11] Watson introduced a white fluffy rabbit to an infant, and created a connection between the rabbit and a loud noise. This experience for Little Albert associated a feeling of fear with the rabbit. [6]

Acquired equivalence

Acquired equivalence is defined as a learning and generalization paradigm in which prior training in stimulus equivalence increases the amount of generalization between two stimuli even if they are superficially dissimilar. Therefore, if two different stimuli share the same consequence, they predict the same outcome. Let us suppose that there are two girls Anna and Sarah, who have nothing in common other than they both love pets. When you learn that Sarah has a dog, you immediately predict that Anna will love Sarah’s dog. The area in the brain responsible for the acquired equivalence is the hippocampus; hence, in cases when the hippocampal region is damaged, there are deficits of acquired equivalence. In acquired equivalence, the stimuli are not categorized based on their characteristics (physical, emotional) but based on their functional characteristic (preference about the same thing). During this paradigm, it is learned to create compositions from different categories, and for this reason, some researchers agree that acquired equivalence can be a synonym to categorization. Both humans and non-humans have the ability for acquired equivalence.

An example of acquired equivalence is from the studies Geoffrey Hall and his colleagues have conducted with pigeons. [12] In one study, the pigeons were trained to peck when they see the light with different colors. After that, the researchers paired certain colors to appear in sequence and provided food when the pigeons peck only in few sequences. Thus, the pigeons learned that in those sequences, if they peck, they will certainly receive food. Those sequences had something special that the pigeons could also learn; certain two colors were followed by food when they are followed by certain one color, so the two colors somewhat equivalent. Let us assume, as there were six colors, that red and green when followed by only yellow, led to food. Similarly, blue and brown, when followed by only white, also led to food. In this way, the pigeons learned that red is in a way equivalent to green, and blue to brown, because they are paired with the same color.

The next step was to teach the pigeons that pecking on red alone leads to food while pecking to blue alone does not. At this point, the researchers presented the pigeons with the second colors (i.e., green and brown) that were paired with the same color (i.e., yellow or white) with which the first colors were also paired (i.e., red and blue), which made the colors with the same pairing color (i.e., red and green as pairing with yellow and blue and brown as pairing with white) equivalent in the pigeons’ eyes. So, at this third step, the pigeons were presented with the green light and after that with the brown light, and to the researchers’ surprise, the pigeons showed a quick response with a strong pecking to the first color while not responding to the second. This result shows that the pigeons have learned the equivalence of two colors from their co-occurring and their having similar consequence in one occurrence. This idea of equivalence showed its effect when the pigeons were in a totally different context and saw one of the two colors leading to a certain consequence; they believed that the other color would also lead to the same consequence, as it is equivalent to the first. The pigeons learned to generalize from one color to another because of their history of co-occurring.

Memory

Memory seems to operate as a sequence of associations: concepts, words, and opinions are intertwined, so that stimuli such as a person’s face will call up the associated name. [13] [14] Understanding the effects of mood on memory is central to several issues in psychology. It is a primary topic in theories of the relation between affect and cognition. Mood's effect on memory may mediate the influence of mood on a variety of behaviors and judgements associated with decision making, helping, and person perception. [15] Understanding the relationships between different items is fundamental to episodic memory, and damage to the hippocampal region of the brain has been found to hinder learning of associations between objects. [16]

Testing associations

Associations in humans can be measured with the Implicit Association Test, a psychological test which measures the implicit (subconscious) relation between two concepts, which was created by Anthony G. Greenwald in 1995. [17] It has been used in investigations of subconscious racial bias, gender and sexual orientation bias, consumer preferences, political preferences, personality traits, alcohol and drug use, mental health, and relationships. [18] The test measures the associations between different ideas, such as race and crime. Reaction time is used to distinguish associations; faster reaction time is an indicator of a stronger association. [19] A D score is used to represent the participant's mean reaction time. If the participant's mean reaction time is negative, then that individual is thought to have less implicit bias. If the participant's mean reaction time is positive, then that individual is thought to have more implicit bias. A D score for each participant is calculated by deleting trials that are greater than 10,000 milliseconds, deleting participants that respond quicker than 300 milliseconds on over 10% of trials, determining inclusive standard deviations for all trials in Stages 3 and 4 and also in Stages 6 and 7. Mean response times are determined for Stages 3, 4, 6, and 7, the mean difference between Stage 6 and Stage 3 (MeanStage6 - MeanStage3) will be computed as well as the mean difference between Stage 7 and Stage 4(MeanStage7 - MeanStage4), each difference is divided by its associated inclusive standard deviation, and the D score is equivalent to the average of the two resulting ratios. [20] In psychology, association can sometimes be synonymous with correlation. When something is referred to as having positive association or positive correlation, it describes high or low levels of one variable happen with high or low levels of another variable. Other common types of association are negative association, zero association, and curvilinear association. [21]

See also

Related Research Articles

Operant conditioning, also called instrumental conditioning, is a learning process where voluntary behaviors are modified by association with the addition of reward or aversive stimuli. The frequency or duration of the behavior may increase through reinforcement or decrease through punishment or extinction.

Classical conditioning is a behavioral procedure in which a biologically potent stimulus is paired with a neutral stimulus. The term classical conditioning refers to the process of an automatic, conditioned response that is paired with a specific stimulus.

The experimental analysis of behavior is a science that studies the behavior of individuals across a variety of species. A key early scientist was B. F. Skinner who discovered operant behavior, reinforcers, secondary reinforcers, contingencies of reinforcement, stimulus control, shaping, intermittent schedules, discrimination, and generalization. A central method was the examination of functional relations between environment and behavior, as opposed to hypothetico-deductive learning theory that had grown up in the comparative psychology of the 1920–1950 period. Skinner's approach was characterized by observation of measurable behavior which could be predicted and controlled. It owed its early success to the effectiveness of Skinner's procedures of operant conditioning, both in the laboratory and in behavior therapy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Animal cognition</span> Intelligence of non-human animals

Animal cognition encompasses the mental capacities of non-human animals including insect cognition. The study of animal conditioning and learning used in this field was developed from comparative psychology. It has also been strongly influenced by research in ethology, behavioral ecology, and evolutionary psychology; the alternative name cognitive ethology is sometimes used. Many behaviors associated with the term animal intelligence are also subsumed within animal cognition.

Behaviorism is a systematic approach to understand the behavior of humans and other animals. It assumes that behavior is either a reflex evoked by the pairing of certain antecedent stimuli in the environment, or a consequence of that individual's history, including especially reinforcement and punishment contingencies, together with the individual's current motivational state and controlling stimuli. Although behaviorists generally accept the important role of heredity in determining behavior, they focus primarily on environmental events. The cognitive revolution of the late 20th century largely replaced behaviorism as an explanatory theory with cognitive psychology, which unlike behaviorism examines internal mental states.

Shaping is a conditioning paradigm used primarily in the experimental analysis of behavior. The method used is differential reinforcement of successive approximations. It was introduced by B. F. Skinner with pigeons and extended to dogs, dolphins, humans and other species. In shaping, the form of an existing response is gradually changed across successive trials towards a desired target behavior by reinforcing exact segments of behavior. Skinner's explanation of shaping was this:

We first give the bird food when it turns slightly in the direction of the spot from any part of the cage. This increases the frequency of such behavior. We then withhold reinforcement until a slight movement is made toward the spot. This again alters the general distribution of behavior without producing a new unit. We continue by reinforcing positions successively closer to the spot, then by reinforcing only when the head is moved slightly forward, and finally only when the beak actually makes contact with the spot. ... The original probability of the response in its final form is very low; in some cases it may even be zero. In this way we can build complicated operants which would never appear in the repertoire of the organism otherwise. By reinforcing a series of successive approximations, we bring a rare response to a very high probability in a short time. ... The total act of turning toward the spot from any point in the box, walking toward it, raising the head, and striking the spot may seem to be a functionally coherent unit of behavior; but it is constructed by a continual process of differential reinforcement from undifferentiated behavior, just as the sculptor shapes his figure from a lump of clay.

Extinction is a behavioral phenomenon observed in both operantly conditioned and classically conditioned behavior, which manifests itself by fading of non-reinforced conditioned response over time. When operant behavior that has been previously reinforced no longer produces reinforcing consequences the behavior gradually stops occurring. In classical conditioning, when a conditioned stimulus is presented alone, so that it no longer predicts the coming of the unconditioned stimulus, conditioned responding gradually stops. For example, after Pavlov's dog was conditioned to salivate at the sound of a metronome, it eventually stopped salivating to the metronome after the metronome had been sounded repeatedly but no food came. Many anxiety disorders such as post traumatic stress disorder are believed to reflect, at least in part, a failure to extinguish conditioned fear.

Implicit cognition refers to cognitive processes that occur outside conscious awareness or conscious control. This includes domains such as learning, perception, or memory which may influence a person's behavior without their conscious awareness of those influences.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Blocking effect</span> Elaboration on classical conditioning in psychology

In Kamin's blocking effect the conditioning of an association between two stimuli, a conditioned stimulus (CS) and an unconditioned stimulus (US) is impaired if, during the conditioning process, the CS is presented together with a second CS that has already been associated with the unconditioned stimulus.

Errorless learning was an instructional design introduced by psychologist Charles Ferster in the 1950s as part of his studies on what would make the most effective learning environment. B. F. Skinner was also influential in developing the technique, noting that,

...errors are not necessary for learning to occur. Errors are not a function of learning or vice versa nor are they blamed on the learner. Errors are a function of poor analysis of behavior, a poorly designed shaping program, moving too fast from step to step in the program, and the lack of the prerequisite behavior necessary for success in the program.

In behavioral psychology, stimulus control is a phenomenon in operant conditioning that occurs when an organism behaves in one way in the presence of a given stimulus and another way in its absence. A stimulus that modifies behavior in this manner is either a discriminative stimulus or stimulus delta. For example, the presence of a stop sign at a traffic intersection alerts the driver to stop driving and increases the probability that braking behavior occurs. Stimulus control does not force behavior to occur, as it is a direct result of historical reinforcement contingencies, as opposed to reflexive behavior elicited through classical conditioning.

Russell Fazio is Harold E. Burtt Professor of Social Psychology at Ohio State University, where he heads Russ's Attitude and Social Cognition Lab (RASCL). Fazio's work focuses on social psychological phenomena like attitude formation and change, the relationship between attitudes and behavior, and the automatic and controlled cognitive processes that guide social behavior.

Implicit self-esteem refers to a person's disposition to evaluate themselves in a spontaneous, automatic, or unconscious manner. It contrasts with explicit self-esteem, which entails more conscious and reflective self-evaluation. Both explicit and implicit self-esteem are constituents of self-esteem.

Implicit attitudes are evaluations that occur without conscious awareness towards an attitude object or the self. These evaluations are generally either favorable or unfavorable and come about from various influences in the individual experience. The commonly used definition of implicit attitude within cognitive and social psychology comes from Anthony Greenwald and Mahzarin Banaji's template for definitions of terms related to implicit cognition: "Implicit attitudes are introspectively unidentified traces of past experience that mediate favorable or unfavorable feeling, thought, or action toward social objects". These thoughts, feelings or actions have an influence on behavior that the individual may not be aware of.

Discrimination learning is defined in psychology as the ability to respond differently to different stimuli. This type of learning is used in studies regarding operant and classical conditioning. Operant conditioning involves the modification of a behavior by means of reinforcement or punishment. In this way, a discriminative stimulus will act as an indicator to when a behavior will persist and when it will not. Classical conditioning involves learning through association when two stimuli are paired together repeatedly. This conditioning demonstrates discrimination through specific micro-instances of reinforcement and non-reinforcement. This phenomenon is considered to be more advanced than learning styles such as generalization and yet simultaneously acts as a basic unit to learning as a whole. The complex and fundamental nature of discrimination learning allows for psychologists and researchers to perform more in-depth research that supports psychological advancements. Research on the basic principles underlying this learning style has their roots in neuropsychology sub-processes.

Indirect memory tests assess the retention of information without direct reference to the source of information. Participants are given tasks designed to elicit knowledge that was acquired incidentally or unconsciously and is evident when performance shows greater inclination towards items initially presented than new items. Performance on indirect tests may reflect contributions of implicit memory, the effects of priming, a preference to respond to previously experienced stimuli over novel stimuli. Types of indirect memory tests include the implicit association test, the lexical decision task, the word stem completion task, artificial grammar learning, word fragment completion, and the serial reaction time task.

Emotion can have a powerful effect on humans and animals. Numerous studies have shown that the most vivid autobiographical memories tend to be of emotional events, which are likely to be recalled more often and with more clarity and detail than neutral events.

Spontaneous recovery is a phenomenon of learning and memory that was first named and described by Ivan Pavlov in his studies of classical (Pavlovian) conditioning. In that context, it refers to the re-emergence of a previously extinguished conditioned response after a delay. Such a recovery of "lost" behaviors can be observed within a variety of domains, and the recovery of lost human memories is often of particular interest. For a mathematical model for spontaneous recovery see Further Reading.

The Perruchet effect is a psychological phenomenon in which a dissociation is shown between conscious expectation of an event and the strength or speed of a response to the event. This can be demonstrated by sequential analyses of consecutive trials such as eye blinking conditioning, electrodermal shocks and cued go/no-go task. The dissociation design differentiates the automatic associative strength and propositional expectation's effects on associative learning and conditioning, i.e., the cognitive learning process with relationship between events.


Human contingency learning (HCL) is the observation that people tend to acquire knowledge based on whichever outcome has the highest probability of occurring from particular stimuli. In other words, individuals gather associations between a certain behaviour and a specific consequence. It is a form of learning for many organisms.

References

  1. 1 2 Klein, Stephen (2012). Learning: Principles and Applications (6 ed.). SAGE Publications. ISBN   978-1-4129-8734-9.
  2. ↑ Boring, E. G. (1950).
  3. ↑ Smith, E. E. & Kosslyn, S. M. (2007).
  4. ↑ Paivio, Allan (1969). "Mental Imagery in Associative Learning and Memory". Psychological Review. 76 (3): 241–263. doi:10.1037/h0027272. S2CID   14271672.
  5. ↑ Clark, Rachel; Hazeltine, Eliot; Freedberg, Michael; Voss, Michelle (2018). "Age Differences in Episodic Associative Learning". Psychology and Aging. 1 (33): 144–157. doi:10.1037/pag0000234. PMID   29494185. S2CID   3626984.
  6. 1 2 Eich, Eric; Forgas, Joseph (2003). "Mood, Cognition, and Memory". In Healy, Alice; Proctor, Robert (eds.). Handbook of Psychology. Vol. 4. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
  7. 1 2 Miller, Ralph; Grace, Randolph (2003). "Conditioning and Learning". In Healy, Alice (ed.). Handbook of Psychology. Vol. 4. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 Klein, Stephen (2012). Learning: Principles and Applications (6 ed.). SAGE Publications. ISBN   978-1-4129-8734-9.
  9. ↑ Timberlake, 1994
  10. 1 2 Shettleworth, S. J. (2010)
  11. ↑ Siemer, Matthias (1954). "Mood-congruent cognitions constitute mood experience". Emotion. 5 (3): 296–308. doi:10.1037/1528-3542.5.3.296. JSTOR   2005. PMID   16187865.
  12. ↑ Bonardi, rey, richmond, & hall, 1993; hall, ray, & Bonardi, 1993
  13. ↑ Watier & Collin 2012
  14. ↑ Gazzaniga, Ivry & Mangun, 2009
  15. ↑ Parrot, Gerrod; Sabini, John (1990). "Moody and Memory Under Natural Conditions: Evidence for Mood Incongruent Recall". Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. 59 (2): 321. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.59.2.321.
  16. ↑ Stark, Bayley & Squire, 2002
  17. ↑ Greenwald, Anthony G.; Banaji, Mahzarin R. (1995). "Implicit social cognition: Attitudes, self-esteem, and stereotypes". Psychological Review. 102 (1): 4–27. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.411.2919 . doi:10.1037/0033-295x.102.1.4. ISSN   1939-1471. PMID   7878162. S2CID   8194189.
  18. ↑ Uhlmann, Eric Luis Greenwald, Anthony Poehlmann, Andrew Banaji, Mahzarin. Understanding and Using the Implicit Association Test: III. Meta-Analysis of Predictive Validity. OCLC   802355222.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
  19. ↑ Greenwald, McGhee & Schwartz, 1998
  20. ↑ Lane, K.A.; Banaji, M.R.; Nosek, B.A.; Greenwald, A.G. (2007). Understanding and Using the Implicit Association Test:IV. What we know (So Far). New York: Guilford Press. pp. 58–102.{{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  21. ↑ Morling, Beth (2018). Research Methods in Psychology: evaluating a world of information (fourth ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Company. pp. 83, 232. ISBN   978-0-393-53629-4.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.