Chapter 6 Psychology 175.102 Flashcards
Reflex
A behaviour that is elicited automatically by an environmental stimulus.
Learning
Any enduring change in the way an organism responds based on its experience.
Stimulus
Something in the environment that elicits a response
Habituation
Refers to the decreasing strength of a reflex response after repeated presentations of the stimulus
Laws of Association
Conditions under which one thought becomes connected, or associated, with another
Law of contiguity
Proposes that two events will become connected in the mind if they are experienced close together in time
Law of similarity
States that objects that resemble each other are likely to become associated
Classic conditioning
The first type of learning to be studied systematically. An environmental stimulus leads to a learned response, through pairing of the of an unconditioned stimulus the previously neutral conditioned stimulus. Ivan Pavlov
Conditioning
A form of learning
Unconditioned reflex
A reflex that occurs naturally, without prior learning
Unconditioned stimulus
The stimulus that produces a response in an unconditioned reflex.
Unconditioned response (UCR)
A response does not have to be learned.
Conditioned response (CR)
The response that has to be learned
Conditioned stimulus (CS)
A stimulus that, through learning, has come to evoke a conditioned response.
Acquisition
The stage of learning in which the condition response becomes associated with the conditioned stimulus.
Conditioned emotional responses
Okay when formally neutral stimulus is paired with a stimulus that evokes an emotional response.
Phobias
Irrational fears of specific objects or situations
Immune system
The system of cells throughout the body that fights disease
Stimulus generalisation
When an organism responds to stimuli that resemble the conditioned stimulus with a similar response.
Stimulus discrimination
The learned tendency to respond to a restricted range of stimuli or only to the stimulus used during training.
Extinction
In classical conditioning extinction refers to the process by which the conditioned response is weakened by presentation of the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus.
Spontaneous recovery
The re-emergence of a previously extinguished conditioned response.
Interstimulus interval
The time between presentation of the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus
Operant conditioning
Learning to operate on the environment to produce a consequence.
Operants
Behaviours that are emitted (spontaneously produced) rather than elicited by the environment.
Reinforcement
And environmental consequence that increases the probability that a response will occur.
Punishment
In environmental consequence that decreases the likelihood that a responsible will occur.
Positive reinforcement
The process whereby presentation of a stimulus after a behaviour makes the behaviour more likely to occur again.
Positive reinforcer
An environmental consequence that, when presented, strengthens the probability that a response will recur.
Negative reinforcement
The process whereby termination of an aversive stimulus makes the behaviour more likely to occur
Negative reinforcers
Aversive or unpleasant stimuli that strengthen the behaviour by their removal.
Avoidance learning
Occurs as an organism learns to prevent an expected aversive event from happening.
Punishment
Whereas reinforcement always increases the likelihood of a response, either by presentation of a reward for the removal of an aversive stimulus, punishment decreases the probability that a behaviour will recur.
Problems with punishment
Difficulty in distinguishing which operant is being punished.
The learner may come to fear the person meting out the punishment rather than the action.
Punishment may not eliminate existing rewards for a behaviour.
People typically use punishment when they are angry.
Aggression that is used to punish behaviour often leads to further aggression.
Extinction in operant conditioning
Occurs if enough trials pass in which the operant is not followed by the consequence previously associated with it.
Continuous reinforcement schedule
The consequence is the same each time the animal emits a behaviour. The behaviour is continuously reinforced.
Partial or intermittent schedules of reinforcement
An action sometimes leads to reinforcement but other times does not. The behaviour is reinforced only part of the time, or intermittently.
Ratio schedules
Pay-offs are tied to the number of responses emitted; only a fraction of correct behaviours receive reinforcement, such as one out of every five.
Interval Schedules
Rewards, or punishments, are delivered only after some interval of time, no matter how many responses the organism emits.
Fixed-ratio schedule (FR)
In organism receives reinforcement for a fixed proportion of the responses it emits.
Variable-ratio schedules (VR)
An animal receives a reward for the some percentage of responses, but the number of responses required before reinforcement is unpredictable.
Fixed-interval schedule (FI)
An animal receives reinforcement for its responses only after a fixed amount of time.
Variable-interval schedule (VI)
Reinforcement is tied to an interval of time, but unlike a fixed-interval schedule, the animal cannot predict how long that time interval will be.
Shaping
A procedure used by animal trainers that produces novel behaviour by reinforcing closer and closer approximations to the desired response.
The shaping procedure should take no more than five minutes, even for a beginner.
Successive approximations
The process of rewarding those behaviours that move the subject progressively closer to the desired behaviour
Chaining
Involves putting together a sequence of existing responses in a novel order.
Cognitive-social theory
Incorporates concept of conditioning but adds two new features: focus on cognition and a focus on social learning.
Insight
The sudden understanding of the relation between a problem and a solution
Internal locus of control
Individuals with this believe they are the masters of their own fate.
External locus of control
People with this believe their lives are determined by forces outside, or external, to themselves.
Learned helplessness
Consists of the expectancy that one cannot escape aversive events and the motivational and learning deficits that result from this belief.
Explanatory style
The way people make sense of bad events. Plays a critical role in whether or not they become, and remain, depressed.
Pessimistic explanatory style
Individuals with a depressive or pessimistic explanatory style blame themselves for the bad things that happen to them.
Social learning
Individuals learn many things from the people around them, with or without reinforcement.
Modelling
Observational learning in which a person learns to reproduce behaviour exhibited by a model
Vicarious conditioning
A person learns the consequences of an action by observing its consequences for someone else.
Tutelage
Teaching concepts or procedures primarily through verbal explanation or instruction.
