Learning Flashcards
HIGH YIELD
Learning
the way in which we acquire new behaviors
Dishabituation
- the recovery of a response to a stimulus after habituation has occurred
- often occurs when a second stimulus is presented late in the habituation of the original stimulus
- temporary process that always refers to changes in response to the original stimulus, not the new one
Associative Learning
- creation of a pairing/association either between two stimuli or between a behavior and a response
- two types: classical and operant conditioning
Classical Conditioning
- type of associative learning that takes advantage of biological, instinctual response to create associations between two unrelated stimuli
- Pavlov’s dogs is most well known example of this
- works because some stimuli cause an innate or reflexive physiological response
Unconditioned Stimulus
any stimulus that brings out a reflexive response
Unconditioned Response
innate/reflexive response to an unconditioned stimulus
Neutral Stimuli
stimuli that do not produce a reflexive response
Signaling Stimuli
neutral stimuli that have the potential to be used as a conditioning stimulus
Pavlov’s Experiment
- unconditioned stimulus: meat
- unconditioned response: dogs salivate in response to meat
- neutral stimulus: ringing bell
- procedure: Pavlov rang bell repeatedly before placing meat in the dogs’ mouth; initially the dogs did not react much when they only hear the bell without receiving meat but after procedure was continuously repeated the dogs began to salivate when they heard the bell ring
- conditioned stimulus: ringing bell
- conditioned response: salivation
Conditioned Response
a normally neutral stimulus that, through association, causes a reflexive response (conditioned response)
Acquisition
process of taking advantage of an unconditioned stimulus to turn a neutral stimulus into a conditioned stimulus
Extinction
occurs if the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus enough times so that the organism can become habituated to the conditioned stimulus
Spontaneous Recovery
occurs after some time when an extinct conditioned stimulus is presented again and a weak conditioned response is exhibited
Generalization
broadening effect in which a stimulus similar enough to the conditioned stimulus can also provide the conditioned response
Discrimination
- organism learns to distinguish between two similar stimuli
- opposite of generalization
Operant Conditioning
- links voluntary behaviors with consequences in an effort to alter the frequency of those behaviors
- associated with B.F. Skinner (behaviorist – theory that all behaviors are conditioned)
- involves a stimulus (added or removed) and a behavior (stopped or continued)
Reinforcement
Operant Conditioning
- process of increasing the likelihood that an individual will perform a behavior
- can either be positive or negative
Positive Reinforcement
- increase a behavior by adding a positive consequence or incentive following the desired behavior
- Ex. money
Negative Reinforcement
- increase the frequency of a behavior by removing something unpleasant
- can be divided into escape learning and avoidance learning
- Ex. taking Advil to get rid of a headache
Escape Learning
-role of the behavior is to reduce the unpleasantness of something that already exists (ex. headache)
Avoidance Learning
- meant to prevent the unpleasantness of something that has yet to happen
- Ex. studying for MCAT
Primary Reinforcer
- something that an organism responds to naturally
- Ex. dolphin trainer will feed a dolphin a fish after a trick therefore the fish is a primary reinforcer
Secondary (Conditioned) Reinforcer
- neutral objects that can be trader for primary reinforcers that are naturally pleasurable
- Ex. dolphin trainer uses a clicker that they pair with fish (via classical conditioning) to elicit the same response
Discriminative Stimulus
- indicates that reward is potentially available in an operant conditioning paradigm
- Ex. dolphin may associate presence of the trainer with the possibility of reward, making the trainer this type of stimulus