Learning

Question 1

What is learning defined as?

Answer 1

Learning is any relatively permanent change in behaviour brought about by experience or practice.

Question 2

What is maturation defined as?

Answer 2

Changes like an increase in height or size of the brain are another kind of change, controlled by a genetic blueprint or due to biology, not experience.

Question 3

What are reflexes?

Answer 3

Reflexes are unlearned, involuntary responses to a specific stimulus in the environment.

Examples of reflexes are dogs salivating when food is placed in the mouth, or the constriction/dilation of pupils when exposed to light.

Question 4

What are fixed action patterns or instincts?

Answer 4

Fixed action patterns (“instincts”) are motivated, complex behaviours that have a strong innate basis, and are triggered by a broad range of events.

Examples of fixed action patterns or “instincts” are when newborns cry when they are hungry or need attention, or when birds migrate during seasons.

Question 5

What is associative learning?

Answer 5

Associative learning refers to associations between environmental events and behavioural stimulus-response & action-consequence.

Question 6

What is the cognitive approach in learning?

Answer 6

The cognitive approach considers that some forms of learning result in changes in our mental processes or cognition. We then seek to make inferences about these processes to understand our behaviour.

Question 7

What is the behavioural approach in learning?

Answer 7

This approach focuses more on the stimulus and the response and how they are associated.

Question 8

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 8

Classical conditioning is the process by which a stimulus (e.g. food in mouth) produces an innate response (e.g. salivation) becomes associated with a previously neutral stimulus (e.g. bell ring) which then acquires the power to elicit the same innate response.

An example would be Pavlov’s dog.

Question 9

What are the 4 key elements that must be present in classical conditioning?

Answer 9

Unconditioned Stimulus, Unconditioned Response, Conditioned Stimulus, Conditioned Response

Question 10

What are the 4 basic principles about the process of classical conditioning?

Answer 10

1. The CS must come before the UCS.
2. The CS and UCS must come very close together in time—ideally, no more than 5 seconds apart.
3. The NS must be paired with the UCS several times, often many times, before conditioning can take place.
4. The CS is usually some stimulus that is distinctive or stands out from other competing stimuli.

Question 11

What is stimulus generalisation?

Answer 11

Stimulus generalisation is the tendency to respond to a stimulus that is only similar to the original CS with the CR.

Question 12

What is stimulus discrimination?

Answer 12

Stimulus discrimination is the tendency to stop making a generalised response to a stimulus that is similar to the original CS, because the similar stimulus is never paired with the UCS.

Question 13

What is extinction in terms of conditioning?

Answer 13

Extinction is the disappearance or weakening of a CR following the removal or absence of the UCS (in classical conditioning) or of a reinforcer (in operant conditioning). It is not permanent.

Question 14

What is spontaneous recovery?

Answer 14

Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of a learned response or CR after extinction has occurred. It is also called reacquisition

Question 15

What is exposure therapy?

Answer 15

Exposure therapy involves directly confronting the anxiety/fear-provoking stimulus paired with an attractive stimulus.

Question 16

What is higher-order conditioning?

Answer 16

Higher-order conditioning occurs when a strong CS is paired with a NS, causing the NS to become a second CS.
In other words, one CS is used to create another, “higher” CS.

Question 17

What is vicarious conditioning?

Answer 17

Vicarious conditioning is a form of classical conditioning of an involuntary response or emotion by watching the reaction of another person.

Question 18

What is a conditioned taste aversion?

Answer 18

Conditioned taste aversion is the development of a nausea or aversive response to a particular taste because the taste was followed by a nausea reaction, occurring after only one association.

Question 19

What is biological preparedness?

Answer 19

Biological preparedness refers to the tendency of animals to learn certain associations, such as taste and nausea, with only one or few pairings due to the survival value of the learning.

Question 20

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 20

Operant conditioning is the learning of voluntary behaviour through the effects of pleasant and unpleasant consequences to responses.

Question 21

What is Edward Thorndike’s “Law of Effect” theory?

Answer 21

If an action is followed by a pleasurable consequence, it will tend to be repeated. If an action is followed by an unpleasant consequence, it will tend not to be repeated.

Question 22

What is voluntary behaviour and how is it related to operant conditioning?

Answer 22

Voluntary behaviour is what people and animals do to operate in the world, hence, Skinner determined it to be operant behaviour, and the learning of such behaviour to be operant conditioning.

Question 23

What is reinforcement in terms of learning?

Answer 23

Reinforcement is any event or stimulus that, when following a response, increases the probability that the response will occur again.

Question 24

What are primary reinforcers?

Answer 24

Primary reinforcers are any reinforcers that are intrinsically and naturally reinforcing by meeting a basic biological need, such as hunger, thirst or touch.

Question 25

What are secondary reinforcers?

Answer 25

Secondary reinforcers are any reinforcers that become reinforcing after being paired with a primary reinforcer, such as praise, tokens or money.

Question 26

What is positive reinforcement?

Answer 26

The addition or experiencing of a pleasurable stimulus, usually in the form of rewards or a pat on the back.

Question 27

What is negative reinforcement?

Answer 27

The removal, escape or avoidance of an unpleasant stimulus.

Question 28

What is the ‘Premack Principle’?

Answer 28

Premack Principle is when a preferred activity is used to reinforce a less-preferred activity.

For example, if you want a child to tidy their room, you can allow the child to go to the playground only if they tidy their room. In this example, going to the playground is the preferred activity and tidying their room is the less-preferred activity.

Question 29

What are schedules of reinforcement?

Answer 29

A rule or pattern that determines how often an organism is reinforced for a particular behaviour.

Question 30

What is continuous reinforcement?

Answer 30

Continuous reinforcement is when there is reinforcement of each and every correct response.

It helps distinguish correct and incorrect responses early, allowing learning to occur rapidly.

Question 31

What is partial/intermittent reinforcement?

Answer 31

A response that is reinforced after some, but not all, correct responses.
Learning occurs less rapidly but it is less likely for extinction to occur.

Question 32

What is a fixed interval schedule of reinforcement?

Answer 32

The interval of time that must pass before reinforcement becomes possible is always the same. For example, monthly salary.

Question 33

What is a variable interval schedule of reinforcement?

Answer 33

The interval of time that must pass before reinforcement becomes possible is different for each trial or event. For example, fishing.

Question 34

What is a fixed ratio schedule of reinforcement?

Answer 34

The number of responses required for reinforcement is always the same. For example, in a video game, you are required to collect a certain amount of tokens before being allowed to advance a level.

Question 35

What is a variable ratio schedule of reinforcement?

Answer 35

The number of responses required for reinforcement is different for each trial or event.

For example, gacha/gambling, you do not know when you will pull a 5-star or an SSR, a hard pity would be a fixed ratio schedule.

Question 36

What is punishment?

Answer 36

Punishment is any event or object that, when following a response, decreases the possibility that the response would occur again.

Question 37

What is positive punishment?

Answer 37

An unpleasant stimulus is added or applied.

Question 38

What is negative punishment?

Answer 38

A pleasant stimulus is removed.

Question 39

What is the main problem of punishment?

Answer 39

Punishment only serves to temporarily suppress or inhibit a behaviour until enough time has passed and does not eliminate the behaviour completely.

As time goes on, the punishment is forgotten and the “bad” behaviour may occur again.

Question 40

What are some unintended side effects of punishment?

Answer 40

May cause avoidance of the punisher instead of the behaviour being punished

May encourage lying to avoid punishment

Creates fear and anxiety

Does not promote an alternative behaviour that is acceptable or desirable

Question 41

How can punishment be used effectively?

Answer 41

Punishment should immediately follow the behaviour it is meant to punish.

Punishment should be consistent, if a certain punishment will follow a certain behaviour, it must be ensured that it is followed through,
they should also stay at the same intensity or increase slightly, but NEVER decrease.

Punishment of the wrong behaviour should be paired, whenever possible, with reinforcement of the right behaviour. This would teach an alternative desirable behaviour instead of just suppressing the undesired one.

Ignore wrong behaviour, lack of reinforcement leads to extinction.

Question 42

What is shaping in continuous reinforcement?

Answer 42

Shaping is the process of reinforcing small steps as they become closer to the desired behaviour, until the desired behaviour is learned.

Question 43

What is token economy?

Answer 43

The use of objects called tokens to reinforce behavior in which the tokens can be accumulated and exchanged for desired items or privileges.

Question 44

What is instinctive drift?

Answer 44

The tendency for an animal’s behavior to
revert to genetically controlled patterns.

Question 45

What is the cognitive learning theory?

Answer 45

The use of cognition, mental events taking place inside a person’s mind, to study behaviour and learning.

Question 46

What is latent learning?

Answer 46

Latent learning is a form of learning that remains hidden until its application becomes useful.

Question 47

What is insight learning?

Answer 47

Insight learning is the sudden perception of relationships among various parts of a problem, allowing the solution to the problem to come quickly.

Question 48

What is learned helplessness?

Answer 48

Learned helplessness is the tendency to fail to act to escape from a situation because of a history of repeated failures in the past.

Question 49

What is observational learning?

Answer 49

Observational learning is the learning of new behaviour through watching the actions of a social model (someone else who is doing that behaviour) and not from direct experience. The behaviour can either be desirable/prosocial or undesirable/antisocial.

Question 50

What are the 4 elements of observational learning?

Answer 50

Attention: The learner must pay attention to the model
Memory: The learner must be able to retain the memory of what was done
Imitation: The learner must be capable of reproducing, or imitating, the actions of the model
Desire: The learner must have the desire or motivation to perform the action