08. Important Information Flashcards
How might psychologists define learning?
The process or set of processes through which sensory experience at one time can affect an individual’s behaviour at a future time.
What is classical conditioning?
A training procedure or learning experience in which a neutral stimulus (the conditioned stimulus) comes to elicit a reflexive response through its being paired with another stimulus (usually an unconditioned stimulus) that already elicits that reflexive response; originally studied by Pavlov.
What is a reflex?
A simple, relatively automatic, stimulus–response sequence mediated by the nervous system.
What is a stimulus?
A well-defined element of the environment that can potentially act on an individual’s nervous system and thereby influence the individual’s behaviour.
What is a response?
Any well-defined behavioural action, especially one that is elicited by some form of environmental stimulation or provocation.
What is habituation?
The decline in the magnitude or likelihood of a reflexive response that occurs when the stimulus is repeated several or many times in succession.
What is a conditioned stimulus?
In classical conditioning, a stimulus that comes to elicit a reflexive response (the conditioned response) because of its previous pairing with another stimulus (the unconditioned stimulus) that already elicits a reflexive response.
What is a conditioned response?
In classical conditioning, a reflexive response that is elicited by a stimulus (the conditioned stimulus) because of the previous pairing of that stimulus with another stimulus (the unconditioned stimulus) that already elicits a reflexive response.
What is an unconditioned stimulus?
A stimulus that elicits a reflexive response without any previous training or conditioning.
What is an unconditioned response?
A reflexive response that does not depend upon previous conditioning or learning.
What is extinction?
In classical conditioning, the gradual disappearance of a conditioned reflex that results when a conditioned stimulus occurs repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus. (p. 268) In operant conditioning, the decline in response rate that results when an operant response is no longer followed by a reinforcer.
What is spontaneous recovery?
In both classical and operant conditioning, the return—due to passage of time with no further testing or training—of a conditioned response that had previously undergone extinction.
What is the phenomenon called generalisation?
In classical conditioning, the phenomenon by which a stimulus that resembles a conditioned stimulus will elicit the conditioned response even though it has never been paired with the unconditioned stimulus. (p. 269) In operant conditioning, the phenomenon by which a stimulus that resembles a discriminative stimulus will increase the rate at which the animal produces the operant response, even though the response has never been reinforced in the presence of that stimulus.
What is discrimination training?
The procedure, in both classical and operant conditioning, by which generalisation between two stimuli is diminished or abolished by reinforcing the response to one stimulus and extinguishing the response to the other.
What is the school of thought known as behaviourism?
A school of psychological thought that holds that the proper subject of study is observable behaviour, not the mind, and that behaviour should be understood in terms of its relationship to observable events in the environment rather than in terms of hypothetical events within the individual.
What are the two main theories of classical conditioning?
the stimulus- stimulus (S-S) theory and the stimulus-response (S-R) theory
Which theory of classical conditioning did Pavlov and other experiments support?
The S-S theory
Explain the S-S theory
The animal does not learn a direct stimulus-response connection but rather a connection between two stimuli (the conditioned and the unconditioned stimulus) [e.g. bell= mental representation of food= salivation]
List three cases that support the theory that conditioning depends on the predictive value of the conditioned stimulus
- The conditioned stimulus must precede the unconditioned stimulus
- the conditioned stimulus must signal heightened probability of occurrence of the unconditioned stimulus
- Conditioning is ineffective when the animal already has a good predictor
What is evaluative conditioning?
The changing in the strength of liking or disliking of a stimulus as a result of being paired with another positive or negative stimulus.
Many drugs seem to produce two effects, what are they?
A direct effect followed by a compensatory reaction to that direct effect which seems to try to restore the body’s normal state
True or false: the direct effect of drugs are reflexes?
False, the direct effect of drugs are not reflexes and therefore cannot be conditioned. The counteractive effects are reflexes (the body is trying to protect itself)
What is drug tolerance?
The phenomenon by which a drug produces successively smaller physiological and behavioural effects, at any given dose, if it is taken repeatedly.
What are operant responses?
Any behavioural response that produces some reliable effect on the environment that influences the likelihood that the individual will produce that response again; also called instrumental response.
What is operant conditioning?
A training or learning process by which the consequence of a behavioural response affects the likelihood that the individual will produce that response again; also called instrumental conditioning.
What is Thorndike’s law of effect?
Thorndike’s principle that responses that produce a satisfying effect in a particular situation become more likely to recur in that situation, and responses that produce a discomforting effect become less likely to recur in that situation.
What is a Skinner box?
A cage designed by B.F. Skinner (behaviourist) with a lever or another mechanism in it that the animal can operate to produce some effect. Responses can be easily counted and learning (changes in the rate of responses can be observed
Define Skinner’s term reinforcer
In operant conditioning, any stimulus change that occurs after a response and tends to increase the likelihood that the response will be repeated. (replacement for words such as satisfaction and reward)
What is shaping?
An operant-conditioning procedure in which successively closer approximations to the desired response are reinforced until the response finally occurs.
What is partial reinforcement?
In operant conditioning, any condition in which the response sometimes produces a reinforcer and sometimes does not.