Chapter 1

Question 1

Parallels between human and non-human animals

Answer 1

1) find food
2) find shelter
3) find mates
4) provide for young
5) protect ourselves

Question 2

What is learning?

Answer 2

Learning is acquiring new information by:
- making a response
→ doing something
→ an active process
- NOT making a response (withholding)
→ not doing something
→ passive process

Question 3

Formal definition of learning

Answer 3

An enduring change in the mechanisms of behaviour involving specific stimuli and/or responses that results from prior experience (iterations) with those or similar stimuli/responses

Question 4

What is not considered learning?

Answer 4

Changes in behaviour can also be due to:
→ development, maturation
→ responding to a demand
→ changes in physiological bodily functions
→ reflexes (which can be modified by learning)
→ fatigue (changes in physiology)

Question 5

How is learning studied ?

Answer 5

Experimentation
- traditionally in the laboratory (but can also be studied in the wild)
- allows for control of the environmental stimuli
- can compare behaviour between two groups (ie. Experimental group and control group)
→ control group helps rule out alternative explanations

Question 6

Indications that learning has occurred

Answer 6

1) observing behaviour
2) compare changes between two groups
3) causation

Question 7

Models of human behaviour

Answer 7

• Models are used because they are simpler, researchers have the ability to control, less costly, and certain ethical restraints can be avoided
• models must be valid (comparable) in a relevant feature or relevant function

Question 8

The “big three” of learning

Answer 8

1) single-event learning (habituation)
2) event-event learning (classical, Pavlovian, associative conditioning)
3) behaviour-event learning (instrumental or operant conditioning)

Question 9

Single-event learning (habituation)

Answer 9

• When an animal ceases to respond to a repeated event

Question 10

Event-event conditioning (classical, Pavlovian, associative conditioning)

Answer 10

• Relations between events become predictive
• unlearned behaviours become associated with previously neutral stimuli

Question 11

Behaviour-event learning (instrumental or operant conditioning)

Answer 11

• New behaviours can be formed
• goal directed behaviours

Question 12

Difference between event-event learning and behaviour-event learning

Answer 12

→ event-event learning: organism doesn’t need to do anything in order for the next event to occur
→ behaviour-event learning: organism has to do something, which then affects the outcome it gets

Question 13

Using animals in research

Answer 13

• Controlled laboratory setting (can determine causation)
• neurobiological bases of learning
• no language and not trying to please experimenter (less bias)
• model systems to understand humans
• general processes approach
• understand how animals learn and know how to do things

Question 14

Three R’s

Answer 14

1) replacement: refers to methods that avoid or replace the use of animals in an area where animals would have otherwise been used (metanalysis, computer models, tissue culture)
2) reduce: refers to any strategy that will result from fewer animals being used (video playback instead of live demonstration)
3) refinement: refers to the modification of husbandry or experimental procedures to minimize pain and distress

Question 15

Cartesian dualism

Answer 15

• Believed that there was voluntary (mind, uniquely human) and involuntary (reflexes) behaviour
  → involuntary behaviours (automatic responses) are evoked by physical stimuli in the environment that go to the brain
  → voluntary behaviour is evoked by free will (the mind)

Question 16

Reflexology

Answer 16

The study of mechanisms of reflexive behaviour

Question 17

Mentalism

Answer 17

Studying the contents of the working mind

Question 18

Empiricism vs nativism

Answer 18

• Nativism (we are born with innate ideas and concepts) → Descartes believed in this
• empiricism: learning from the environment

Question 19

John Locke

Answer 19

Believed that all ideas were acquired through experience
→ everyone starts off as a “clean slate”

Question 20

Thomas Hobbes

Answer 20

Believed that we control voluntary behaviours but they are predictable and lawful
→ voluntary behaviours are governed by principles, these principles are regulated by hedonism (pursuit of pleasure and avoidance of pain)

Question 21

Association

Answer 21

Simple associations combine into complex ideas
→ a connection between two events (two stimuli or a stimulus and response) such that the occurrence of one activates the representation of the other

Question 22

Primary laws of association

Answer 22

1) contiguity: when things occur close to each other in time and space (ex. Pavlov)
2) similarity: two things shore some feature (ex. Generalization)
3) contrast: things are opposite (no modern evidence)

Question 23

Hermann Ebbinghaus

Answer 23

• Did the first empirical test of the laws of association
  → tested the ability for recall under different conditions (different levels of training, closeness in list)

Question 24

Charles Darwin

Answer 24

• Comparative cognition
• evolution of physical traits and psychological abilities
• humans have the same senses as the lower animals
• humans and animals differ in degree not kind (general processes)

Question 25

General processes approach

Answer 25

Focusing on commonalities (rather than differences) of various instances of learning
→ learning phenomena is a product of processes that operate similarity in different learning situations