Chapter 8 Review from Textbook Flashcards
The view that some laws govern the learning of all behaviors has allowed psychologists to study behaviors in the laboratory that animals do not exhibit in natural settings
And propose that learning functions to organize reflexes and random responses.
Timberlake’s behavior systems approach suggests that
Animals possess highly organized instinctive behavior systems that serve specific needs or functions in the animal.
In Timberlake’s view, learning modifies instinctive behavior systems
And intensifies a motivational mode or changes the integration or sensitivity in the perceptual-motor module.
Variations in learning are due either to predispositions, when an animal learns more rapidly or in a different form than expected
Or constraints, when an animal learns less rapidly or completely than expected.
Breland and Breland trained many exotic behaviors in a wide variety of animal species
However, they found that some operant responses, although initially performed effectively, deteriorated with continued training despite repeated food reinforcements.
Animal misbehavior occurs when
(1) The stimuli present during operant conditioning resemble the natural cues controlling food-gathering activities.
(2) These stimuli are paired with food reinforcement, and
(3) The instinctive food-gathering behaviors the stimuli elicit during conditioning are reinforced.
A wide variety of instinctive behaviors occur in
The time period following reinforcement.
Schedule-induced behavior appears to reflect the elicitation of
Instinctive consummatory behavior by periodic reinforcements.
SIP appears to be a good model of
Human alcoholism.
When an animal or person experiences illness after eating a particular food
An association develops between the food and the illness.
Nocturnal animals, like rats, associate flavor more readily with illness than with environmental events
In contrast, visual stimuli are more salient than flavor cues in diurnal animals like birds or guinea pigs.
Kalat and Rozin’s learned-safety view assumes that when an animal eats a good and no illness results, it learns that the food can be safely consumed
However, if the animal becomes ill after eating, it will learn to avoid that food.
Revusky’s concurrent interference theory proposes that an aversion may not develop if
Other foods are experienced between the initial food and the illness.
The lateral and central amygdala play an important role in
Flavor aversion learning as well as fear conditioning.
Conditioned flavor preferences develop when neutral flavors are associated with either
Sweetness (flavor-sweetness preference) or high-density nutrients (flavor-nutrient preference)
Flavor preference associations are acquired readily and can
Be learned over a delay between the flavor and positive nutritional consequences.
Activity in the dopamine neurons in the nucleus accumbens is central to
The conditioning of flavor-sweetness and flavor-nutrient preferences.
Young animals develop strong attachments to their mothers through the
Imprinting process.
Animals are most likely to imprint during a specified period of development called
A sensitive period.
The animal’s attachment to the imprinted object reflects both
Associative and Instinctive processes.
The neural circuit that begins in the dorsal amygdala and ends in the
Nucleus accumbens is able to motivate social attachment behaviors.
Animal possess instinctive responses called
SSDRs that allow them to avoid dangerous events.
Once animals anticipate danger
They will readily learn to avoid it if an SSDR is effective.
Fredrickson and her colleagues demonstrate that positive emotions broaden a human’s thought-action repertoire
While negative emotions limit the ways in which threat or danger is met.
The mesolimbic reinforcement system includes the tegmentostrialatal pathway
Which governs the motivational properties of reinforcement, and the nigrostriatal pathway, which governs memory consolidation.
The reinforcing effects of both amphetamine and cocaine from the activation of
Dopaminergic receptors in the tegmentostriatal pathway.
The reinforcing effects of opiate agonists such as heroin and morphine result from
The stimulation of opiate receptors in the tegmentostriatal pathway.
Opiate agonists and dopamine agonists activate different receptors in the tegmentostriatal pathway with the same end result
Increased dopamine activity in the nucleus accumbens.
Individual differences in response to reinforcement are positively correlated with
The level of dopamine release into the nucleus accumbens.
High levels of dopamine activity are associated with
Compulsive drug use, gambling, sexual behavior, and spending behavior, which are behaviors associated with addiction.
