5. learning Flashcards
Learning
Relatively permanent change of behaviour as a result of experience
Phenotypic plasticity
the ability of an organism to produce different phenotypes depending on environmental conditions.
Appetitive stimulus
positive (rewarding) stimulus such as food, mate, water, safety
Aversive stimulus
negative (punishing) stimulus such as fear, pain, noise, food restriction
Excitatory conditioning
a specific stimulus is predictor of another stimulus (e.g. the bell predicts food to Pavlov’s dogs)
Inhibitory conditioning
a specific stimulus is a predictor of the absence of something (e.g. a sound predicts the absence of food)
How Animals Learn
- Learning from a single stimulus experience
- Pavlovian (classical) conditioning (stimulus- stimulus associations)
- Instrumental (operant) conditioning (response-reinforcer)
Habituation
Numerous times each day, a blue stick is placed in a rat’s cage. If the rat takes less and less notice (=response decline) of the stick, habituation has occurred.
Sensitization
if the rat pays more attention to the blue stick over time (= response increase), sensitization has occurred
Ivan Pavlov and classical conditioning
The light indices when the dog gets food, after a while the dog starts drooling when the light goes on.
Paired stimuli
associative learning (training session) based on conditioning
Acquisition or encoding
training to obtain new information
Short-term memory (STM)
protein-synthesis independent short-lasting labile memory
Consolidation
transfer of STM into long-term memory (LTM) by protein-synthesis-dependent mechanisms
Long-term memory (LTM)
protein-synthesis dependent long-lasting stabile memory
