Leaning psychology- key terms Flashcards
What is the unconditioned stimulus (USC)?
Something that triggers a natural reaction.
What is the unconditioned response (UCR)?
A response which is natural and does not need to be learnt.
What is the neutral stimulus (NS)?
Something that would not normally trigger a reaction.
What is the conditioned stimulus (CS)?
Something that triggers a learnt response; something we have been conditioned to respond to.
What is the conditioned response (CR)?
A response that has been learnt through association.
What does association mean in psychology?
Refers to a mental connection between concepts, events, or mental states that usually stems from specific experiences.
(E.g)- behaviourism and social psychology.
What does generalisation mean?
Suggest that the stimulus triggering the reaction does not have to be the exact same one involved in the process of learning, but the more similar it is, the more likely it will be to produce a conditioned response.
What does discrimination mean?
When over a period of time, learning only occurs in response to a specific stimulus.
(e.g)- That your cat may only respond to a can opening at a certain time of day or your cat only responds to a tin of food but not a glass jar.
What does extinction mean?
This is the (death) of behaviour. However, the association may not be entirely lost.
(e.g)- if the conditioned stimulus (the sound of a can opening) is continually presented without any food being paired with it, the cat will gradually learn to disassociate the two stimuli- and so will not salivate on hearing a can opening.
What does spontaneous recovery mean?
An accelerated form of learning this means that extinction is not the same thing as unlearning. While the response may disappear, it has certainly not been eradicated. For (e.g), if the tin is once again paired with the food following extinction, the cat will quickly learn to associate the food with the tin.
