Chapter 6: Learning Flashcards
Learning
An enduring change in behaviour resulting from prior experience.
Associative learning
A form of learning that involves making connections between stimuli and behavioural responses .
Nonassociative learning
A form of learning that involves a change in the magnitude of an elicited response with repetition of the eliciting stimulus.
Habituation
A form of nonassociative learning by which an organism becomes less responsive to a repeated stimulus.
Sensitization
A form of nonassociative learning by which an organism becomes more sensitive, or responsive, to a repeated stimulus.
Dishabituation
The recovery of a responsive that has undergone habituation, typically as a result of the presentation of a novel stimulus.
Classical conditioning
A passive form of learning by which an association is made between a reflex-eliciting stimulus (e.g., a shock) and other stimulus (e.g., a sound).
Unconditional stimulus
A stimulus that produces a reflexive response without prior learning.
Unconditioned response
The response that is automatically generated by the unconditioned stimulus.
Conditioned stimulus
A stimulus that has no prior positive or negative association but comes to elicit a response after being associated with the unconditioned stimulus.
Conditioned response
A response that occurs in the presence of the conditioned stimulus after an association between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus is learned.
Acquisition
The initial learning of an association between the unconditioned and conditioned stimuli during classical conditioning.
Generalization
The tendency to respond to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus, so that learning is not tied too narrowly to a specific stimulus.
Discrimination
Learning to respond to a particular stimulus but not to similar stimuli, thus preventing overgeneralizations.
Extinction
An active learning process in which there is a weakening of the conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus.
Spontaneous recovery
The reappearance of an extinct behaviour after a delay.
Blocking
A classical conditioning phenomenon whereby a prior association with a conditioned stimulus prevents learning of an association with another stimulus because the second one adds no further predictive value.
Preparedness
The species-specific biological predisposition to learn some associations more quickly than other associations.
Conditioned taste aversion
A classically conditioned response where individuals are more likely to associate nausea with food than with other environmental stimuli.
Operant conditioning
A mechanism by which our behaviour acts as an instrument or tool to change the environment and, as a result, voluntary behaviours are modified.
Law of effect
The idea that behaviour is a function of its consequences- actions that are followed by positive outcomes are strengthened, and behaviours that are followed by negative outcomes are weakened.
Reinforcement
A consequence that increases the likelihood that a behaviour will be repeated.
Punishment
A consequence that decreases the likelihood that a behaviour will be repeated.
Primary reinforcers
A consequence that is innately pleasurable and/or satisfies some biological need.
Secondary reinforcers
A learned pleasure that acquires value through experience because of its association with primary reinforcers.
Positive reinforcement
The presentation of a positive stimulus, leading to an increase in the frequency of a behaviour.
Negative reinforcement
The removal of a negative stimulus, leading to an increase in the frequency of a behaviour.
Positive punishment
The presentation of a negative stimulus, leading to a decrease in the frequency of a behaviour.
Negative punishment
The removal of a positive stimulus, leading to a decrease in the frequency of a behaviour.
Premack principle
The idea that activities individuals frequently engage in can be used to reinforce activities that they are less inclined to do.
Shaping
The process by which random behaviours are gradually changed into a desired target behaviour.
Instinctive drift
An animal’s reversion to evolutionarily derived instinctive behaviours instead of demonstrating newly learned responses.
Continuous reinforcement schedule
A reinforcement schedule in which a behaviour is rewarded every time it is performed.
Partial reinforcement schedules
A reinforcement schedule in which a behaviour is rewarded only some of the time .
Fixed-ratio schedule
A reinforcement schedule in which a specific number of behaviours are required before a reward is given.
Variable- ratio schedule
A reinforcement schedule in which an average number of behaviours are required before a reward is given.
Fixed-interval schedule
A reinforcement schedule based on a fixed amount of time before a reward is given.
Variable-interval schedule
A reinforcement schedule based on an amount of time between rewards that varies around a constant average.
Superstitious conditioning
A form of operant conditioning in which a behaviour is learned because it was coincidentally reinforced, but has no actual relationship with reinforcement.
Latent learning
Learning that occurs without either inventive or any clear motivation to learn.
Insight learning
A form of learning that occurs without trial and error and thus without clear reinforcement.
Observational learning
A form of learning in which a person observes and imitates a behaviour from a model.
Imitation
The purposeful copying of a goal-directed behaviour.
Social learning theory
A theory of how people’s cognitions, behaviours, and dispositions are shaped by observing and imitating the actions of others.
Mirror neurons
Neurons that are active both when performing an action and when the same actions are observed in others.
Cultural transmission
The transfer of information from one generation to another that is maintained not by genetics, but by teaching and learning.
Vertical transmission
The transmission of skills from parent to offspring.
Horizontal transmission
The transmission of skills between peers.
Diffusion chain
A process in which individuals learn a behaviour by observing a model and then serve as models from whom other individuals can learn.
