Exam 1: Learning and Cognition

Question 1

Learning

Answer 1

• acquire and retrieve information
• results in adaptive change in animal’s behavior
• experiences resulting in change are single-stimulus, stimulus-stimulus, and response-reinforcer

Question 2

Single Stimulus

Answer 2

• non-associative learning
• absence of reward or punishment
  examples: habituation and sensitization

Question 3

Habituation

Answer 3

• decreased behavioral response
• example: rat in a cage with a blue cube for 10 minutes for several days, eventually has no response to blue cube (no significance or value means rat will focus on other important factors of survival
• this can be reversed

Question 4

Sensitization

Answer 4

• results in increased behavioral response

Question 5

Stimulus-stimulus

Answer 5

• associative learning
• make association between two stimuli
  example: Pavlovian or classical conditioning

Question 6

Pavlovian or classical conditioning

Answer 6

• exposed dog to meat powder/odor to create salivation as unconditioned stimulus
• exposed dog to ringing bell as conditioned stimulus(neutral)
• conditioned response results in ringing of bell causing salivation in dog
• must have continuity between CS and US (close association) to work properly
• adaptive behavior to used to make predicitons

Question 7

Response reinforcer

Answer 7

• associative learning
• instrumental or operant conditioning
• associated its own behavior with a reward or punishment
  example: Edward Thorndike under Law of Effect

Question 8

Edward Thorndike study

Answer 8

• created a cat puzzle box that included multiple steps of a cat to open a door to a box in order to be released
• if they were successful they got food as a reward; if not they got nothing

Question 9

Describe an example of how habituation can be reversed

Answer 9

• praire dogs being close to human trails
• normally they have a call to go to their burrows & to warn of human near their homes; however, being left alone by humans if when they are close to them results in habituated behavior
• harm to them by humans results in reverse of behavior

Question 10

Active avoidance

Answer 10

• associative learning with punishment
• obnoxious stimulus to cause behavior
• Example: animal placed in a box with two sides, light turns on and a shock follows after, animal learns to move when light turns on to other side to avoid the following shock

Question 11

Passive Avoidance

Answer 11

• purpose is to stop behavior
• box with open side and dark compartment, rat prefers the compartment and chooses it but recieves a zap, they will eventually stop going into the compartment to avoid zap

Question 12

Spatial learning

Answer 12

• using queues to remember location in environment