Exam 2 Applications of Classical Conditioning Flashcards
Fear Conditioning
The process by which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a fear response.
Phobia
An intense, irrational fear of a specific object or situation.
Counterconditioning
A therapy technique that pairs a feared stimulus with a positive experience to reduce fear.
Exposure Therapy
A therapeutic technique that gradually exposes individuals to a feared stimulus to reduce anxiety.
Flooding
A form of exposure therapy that presents the feared stimulus at full intensity without gradual exposure.
Eyeblink Conditioning
A classical conditioning paradigm used to study neural mechanisms of learning and memory.
Conditioned Taste Aversion
A form of learning where an organism avoids a food that previously caused illness.
Food Preferences
Learned associations between food flavors and their consequences, shaping dietary habits.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)
A mental health condition triggered by experiencing or witnessing traumatic events.
Imaginal Exposure
A PTSD treatment where individuals mentally revisit traumatic events to reduce distress.
In Vivo Exposure
A PTSD treatment involving direct exposure to real-life reminders of traumatic events.
Advertising and Classical Conditioning
The use of respondent conditioning to associate brands with positive emotions.
Evaluative Conditioning
A process in which an individual’s attitude toward a stimulus changes due to its pairing with positive or negative stimuli.
Intertrial Interval
The period between consecutive conditioning trials, affecting the rate of learning.
Acquisition
The process of forming an association between a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus.
Extinction
The gradual weakening of a conditioned response when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus.
Spontaneous Recovery
The reappearance of a conditioned response after a period of rest following extinction.
Generalization
The tendency for a conditioned response to occur in response to stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus.
Discrimination
The ability to differentiate between similar stimuli and respond only to the conditioned stimulus.
Stimulus Generalization
The tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus, even if they were not part of training.
Little Albert Experiment
A famous study by Watson and Rayner demonstrating that fears can be conditioned in humans.
Systematic Desensitization
A gradual exposure technique that pairs relaxation with increasingly anxiety-provoking stimuli.
Conditioned Emotional Response (CER)
An emotional response, such as fear, that is learned through conditioning.
Interstimulus Interval (ISI)
The time between the presentation of the neutral stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus.
Biological Preparedness
The idea that certain associations are more easily learned due to evolutionary predispositions.
Temperament
A person’s baseline level of emotional reactivity, which can affect the strength of conditioned responses.
Stranger Anxiety
The fear of unfamiliar people, often emerging in infants around 8-12 months due to conditioning.
Fear Developed Through Modeling
The process of acquiring fears by observing others react fearfully to a stimulus.
Specific Phobia
An intense, irrational fear of a particular object or situation, such as heights or spiders.
Agoraphobia
The fear of being in situations where escape may be difficult or help may not be available.
Social Anxiety Disorder
A condition characterized by extreme fear of social situations due to the possibility of being judged.
Panic Disorder
A condition involving sudden and repeated panic attacks, sometimes linked to conditioned fear responses.
