Chapter 5 - The Biology of Learning

Question 1

Taste aversion

Answer 1

• powerful disinclination toward eating or drinking certain substances
• easily learned, highly resistant to extinction, demonstrate biological constraints

Question 2

Aversion therapy

Answer 2

• an undesirable behaviour is paired with stimuli associated with nausea or illness
• widely used to treat addictions

Question 3

Latent inhibition

Answer 3

• unreinforced pre-exposure to a conditioning stimulus reduces the likelihood that it will be associated with a subsequent conditioned response

Question 4

Blocking

Answer 4

• classical conditioning

- conditioning to a specific stimulus becomes difficult/impossible because of prior conditioning to another stimulus

Question 5

Rescorla-Wagner model

Answer 5

• contiguity is neither sufficient nor necessary to explain classical conditioning
• what is learned in classical conditioning are relations among events

Question 6

Higher-order conditioning

Answer 6

• conditioned stimulus takes on the role of an unconditioned stimulus

Question 7

Tabula rasa

Answer 7

• model of the learner based on the assumption that people are born equal. each with no prior learning, inclinations, or thoughts
• ready to be shaped by experience

Question 8

Evolutionary psychology

Answer 8

• theory that attends to biology and genetics as sources of explanation for human learning and behaviour

Question 9

Autoshaping

Answer 9

• responses that are learned in experimental situations, even though they are not necessary to obtain reinforcement
• often appear to be part of the organism’s natural behaviours

Question 10

Sign-tracking

Answer 10

• tendency of organisms to respond to signs related to survival, eating, and other genetically programmed tendencies

Question 11

Instinctive drift

Answer 11

• tendency of organisms to revert to instinctual, unlearned behaviours

Question 12

Biological constraints

Answer 12

• limitations on learning that result from biological factors rather than from experience

Question 13

Folk knowledge

Answer 13

• widely held beliefs about the characteristics of people and the meanings of their behaviours and about the principles underlying natural phenomena

Question 14

Sociobiology

Answer 14

• applies the findings of biology, anthropology, and ethology to the understanding of human social behaviour
• looks for biological explanations for behaviour

Question 15

Ethology

Answer 15

• study of organisms in their natural habitats

- science of animal behaviour

Question 16

Inclusive fitness

Answer 16

• refers to the fitness of genetically related groups relative to their likelihood of procreation

Question 17

Altruism

Answer 17

• selflessness

- tendency to do things that increase the probability that other related individuals will survive

Question 18

Pleasure center

Answer 18

• part of the brain thought to be involved in reinforcement

- specifically, part of the hypothalamus

Question 19

Limbic system

Answer 19

• grouping of brain structures beneath the cerebral cortex

- mostly associated with emotion, memory, reinforcement, and punishment

Question 20

Medial forebrain bundle

Answer 20

• group of nerve fibres associated with reinforcement

Question 21

Periventricular tract

Answer 21

• group of nerve fibres associated with punishment

Question 22

Agonist

Answer 22

• agent or drug that enhances the activity of some naturally occurring substance

Question 23

Hypothalamus

Answer 23

• involved with the functioning of endocrine glands

Question 24

Thalamus

Answer 24

• serves as major relay center for incoming sensory information

Question 25

Amygdala

Answer 25

• involved in emotion and aggression

- plays an important role in processing and storage of memories that have to do with emotion

Question 26

Hippocampus

Answer 26

• involved with learning and memory

Question 27

Principle of opposite control

Answer 27

• tendency for sensations and movements on either side of the body to be controlled by the opposite cerebral hemisphere

Question 28

Holistic education

Answer 28

• educational approaches that attempt to educate the whole brain
• eg. music, art, emotion with logic, reason, language, science, and mathematics

Question 29

Biofeedback

Answer 29

• information we obtain about our biological functioning
• procedures whereby individuals are given information about their physiological functionings so they can achieve control over aspects of this functitioning

Question 30

Neurofeedback

Answer 30

• a form of biofeedback in which participants are given information about their neurological functioning
• typically involves specific information about electrical activity in the brain