Labs Flashcards
Operant conditioning
Behaviour has consequences that change our future behaviour (example: a ‘bad’ behaviour has negative consequences and is therefore not repeated)
Localisation of function: Occipital lobe
Visual processing
Parietal lobe
Spatial information processing
Frontal lobe
Planning, initiation of behaviours, motor cortex
Temporal lobe
Auditory processing, memory
Lateralisation of function
Each hemisphere of the brain is specialised for different cognitive functions
Left hemisphere specialised for:
Language, morse code, maths, free movements during speech, etc.
Right hemisphere specialised for:
Spatial abilities (depth perception), face recognition, visual imagery, melodic patterns (can recognise music), perception of emotion, etc.
Ley & Bryden 1979
Found that images shown to the left visual field had the emotion judged correctly more often; evidence for lateralisation of emotion in the right hemisphere of the brain
Heller & Levy 1981
Found faces were perceived as happier when the smiling half of the face was presented to the participant’s left visual field (evidence for greater specialisation for perception of emotion in the right hemisphere)
Bierley, Mcsweeney, & Vannieuwkerk 1985
Repeatedly paired a coloured shape (NS) with the Star Wars theme song (US) for Star Wars fans; found that preference ratings for the coloured shapes were higher compared to other stimuli
Stuart, Shimp, & Engle 1987
Found that attitudes were more positive for the forward conditioning group than the backwards conditioning group; concluded that forward conditioning was more effective than backwards conditioning for influencing consumer attitudes
Cumulative recorder
Graph of responses from a conditioning experiment
Extinction schedule
Behaviour is neither reinforced or punished, used to decrease the rate of a behaviour
Schedule control
Behaviour is influenced by the schedule or schedules of reinforcement used; different reinforcement schedules produce different patterns of responding
Discriminative stimulus
Stimulus associated with a particular schedule of reinforcement
Compound stimulus
Stimulus the animal is responding to is actually a combination of stimuli (for example: light and tone)
Discrimination training
The training of an organism to behave differently in response two or more different stimuli
Shaping
The training of people or animals to produce target behaviour through successive approximations
Successive approximations
Initially reinforce actions similar to target behaviour, but as behaviour gets closer to the target only the target behaviour is rewarded
Three-term contingency
- Antecedent (what leads to the behaviour)
- Behaviour
- Consequence
Condry & Condry 1976
Found that the ‘boy’ was rated as higher emotion than the ‘girl’; evidence for observer bias (what we expect to see influences our interpretation of the behvaiour we observe)
Woods et al. 1998
Found thta observers evaluated infant more negatively if it was thought they had been exposed to cocaine; observers’ view of infant was affected by preconceived notions of the effects of cocaine
Rosenthal & Jacobson 1968
Kids labelled as ‘intellectual bloomers’ had higher scores on end-of-year IQ test than first IQ test; label influenced how others (such as teachers) perceived their intelligence and the attention they devoted to them
