chapter 6 - learning (slide 1-20) Flashcards
(29 cards)
Define reflexes.
Reflexes: motor/neural reactions to a specific stimulus.
- Simpler than instincts.
- Involve activity of specific body parts.
- Involve primitive centers of the CNS (e.g., spinal cord and medulla).
Define instincts.
Instincts – behaviours triggered by a broader range of events (e.g., aging,
change of seasons).
- More complex.
- Involve movement of the organism as a whole (e.g., sexual activity,
migration).
- Involve higher brain centers.
Summarize the main difference between reflexes and instincts.
Reflexes = quick and automatic reactions
Instincts = complex behaviours driven by innate (natural) biological programming
Define learning.
Learning: Experience that
results in a relatively
permanent change in the
state of the learner (neurons affected by it, brain changes)
Name the three different types of learning (behaviourism).
- classical conditioning
- operant conditioning
- observational learning
Explain the development of classical conditioning by defining Pavlov’s experiments.
Classical conditioning
* When a previously neutral
stimulus produces a reflexive
response after being paired
with a stimulus that naturally
produces a response (has to involve reflex, e.g. salivation, blinking - smt no thought put into it)
Define neutral stimulus.
At first, something (like a sound or a light) doesn’t make you react at all. It’s neutral.
Define natural stimulus.
There’s something else (like food) that naturally makes you react (like feeling hungry or excited).
Define pairing of these two.
Pairing: If you repeatedly show the neutral stimulus (the sound) right before the natural stimulus (the food), over time, the neutral stimulus starts to make you react even when the natural stimulus isn’t present.
True or false? Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936) in 1904 won the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine.
True!
Define a stimulus.
Anything in the environment that is
detectable through the senses.
* Elicits action
Define a behaviour.
Response of an organism to a
stimulus
* Reflexive (for Classical Conditioning-smt that does not evolve higher thinking)
Define associative learning.
Associative learning occurs when an organism makes connections between stimuli or events that occur together in the environment.
Was Pavlov a psychologist?
No, he was a physiologist. His area of interest was digestion.
What was Pavlov’s study with dogs?
Pavlov measured the amount of saliva produced in response to various foods. Over time, Pavlov (1927) observed that the dogs began to salivate not only at the taste of food, but also at the sight of food, at the sight of an empty food bowl, and even at the sound of the laboratory assistants’ footsteps
Through his experiments, Pavlov realized that an organism has two types of responses to its environment: …
(1) unconditioned (unlearned) responses, or reflexes, and (2) conditioned (learned) responses.
BEFORE CONDITIONING
Define unconditioned stimulus (UCS).
A stimulus that elicits a reflexive response in an organism. (e.g. food - born knowing what food is, no learning)
BEFORE CONDITIONING
Define unconditioned response (UCR).
A natural (unlearned) reaction to a given stimulus. (e.g. salivation in response to food - naturally happens with stimulus, no learning)
DURING CONDITIONING
Define neutral stimulus.
-Neutral stimulus (NS) – stimulus that does not naturally elicit a
response (metronome does not cause salivation by itself before
conditioning). - means absolutely nothing!
-the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus are paired repeatedly
AFTER CONDITIONING
What happens after conditioning?
Neutral stimulus becomes a conditioned
stimulus.
AFTER CONDITIONING
Define conditioned stimulus.
Conditioned stimulus (CS) – stimulus that elicits a response
after repeatedly being paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
AFTER CONDITIONING
Define conditioned response.
- Conditioned response (CR) – the behaviour caused by the
conditioned stimulus.
Give an example of this.
Bell (CS) to Salivation (CR)
Define Higher-Order/ Second-order Conditioning.
In higher-order conditioning, an established conditioned stimulus is paired with a new neutral stimulus (the second-order stimulus), so that eventually the new stimulus also elicits the conditioned response, without the initial conditioned stimulus being presented.
