Learning Flashcards
The process of acquiring through experience new and relatively enduring information or behaviors
Learning
Learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequence (as in operant conditioning).
Associative Learning
Any event or situation that evokes a response.
Stimulus
Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus.
Respondent Behavior
Behavior that operates on the environment, producing a consequence.
Operant Behavior
The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language
Cognitive Learning
A type of learning in which we link two or more stimuli; as a result, to illustrate with Pavlov’s classic experiment, the first stimulus (a tone) comes to elicit behavior (drooling) in anticipation of the second stimulus (food).
Classical Conditioning
The view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2).
Behaviorism
In classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning.
Neural Stimulus (NS)
In classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salivation) to an unconditioned stimulus (US) (such as food in the mouth).
Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
In classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (CS).
Conditioned Response
In classical conditioning, an originally neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR).
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
In classical conditioning, the initial stage—when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. (In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response.)
Acquisition
A procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus. For example, an animal that has learned that a tone predicts food might then learn that a light predicts the tone and begin responding to the light alone. (Also called second-order conditioning.)
Higher-order conditioning
The diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (US) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced.
Extinction
The reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response.
Spontaneous Recovery
In classical conditioning, the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses. (In operant conditioning, generalization occurs when responses learned in one situation occur in other, similar situations.)
Generalization
In classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and similar stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus.(In operant conditioning, the ability to distinguish responses that are reinforced from similar responses that are not reinforced.)
Discrimination
A type of learning in which a behavior becomes more likely to recur if followed by a reinforcer or less likely to recur if followed by a punisher.
Operant conditioning
Thorndike’s principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely.
Law of effect
In operant conditioning research, a chamber (also known as a Skinner box) containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal’s rate of bar pressing or key pecking.
Operant Chamber
In operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.
Reinforcement
An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior
Shaping
Increasing behaviors by presenting a pleasurable stimulus. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response.
Positive Reinforcement
Increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing an aversive stimulus. A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response. (Note: Negative reinforcement is not punishment.)
Negative Reinforcement
An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.
Primary reinforcer
A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer. (Also known as a secondary reinforcer.)
Conditioned Reinforcer
A pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforced.
Reinforcement Schedule
Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs
Continuous reinforcement schedule
Reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement.
Partial (intermittent) reinforcement schedule
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses.
Fixed-ratio schedule
Variable-ratio schedule
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed.
Fixed-interval schedule
In operant conditioning, a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.
Variable-interval schedule
An event that tends to decrease the behavior that it follows.
Punishment
Learning by observing others
Observing others
The process by observing and imitating a specific behavior
Modeling
Frontal lobe neurons that some scientists believe fire when we perform certain actions or observe another doing so. The brain’s mirroring of another’s action may enable imitation and empathy.
Mirror Neurons
Positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior.
Prosocial Behavior
