Learning

Question 1

What is learning?

Answer 1

The process of acquiring through experience new and relatively enduring information or behaviours

Question 2

What is associative learning?

Answer 2

Learning that certain events occur together

Question 3

What is a stimulus?

Answer 3

Any event/situation that evokes a response

Question 4

What is the difference between respondent and operant behaviour?

Answer 4

• Respondent Behaviour that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus
• Operant Behaviour that operates on the environment, producing consequences

Question 5

What is behaviourism?

Answer 5

View that psychology should be an objective science that studies behaviour without reference to mental processes

Question 6

What is a neutral stimulus?

Answer 6

Stimulus that elicits not response before conditioning

Question 7

What is an unconditioned stimulus?

Answer 7

Stimulus that unconditionally, naturally and automatically, triggers an unconditioned response

Question 8

What is an unconditioned response?

Answer 8

An unlearned, naturally response

Question 9

What is a conditioned stimulus?

Answer 9

Originally neutral stimulus that, after association with an UCS, comes to trigger a conditioned response

Question 10

What is a conditioned response?

Answer 10

A learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus

Question 11

What are the 3 stages Pavlov proposed?

Answer 11

1) Acquisition
2) Extinction
3) Generalisation

Question 12

What is the acquisition stage?

Answer 12

The initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus an unconditioned stimulus to that neutral stimulus begins triggering a response

Question 13

What is the extinction stage?

Answer 13

Diminishing of a conditioned response, when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus

Question 14

What is spontaneous recovery?

Answer 14

The reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response

Question 15

What is the generalisation stage?

Answer 15

The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses

Question 16

What are behaviour change programs that focus on classical conditioning?

Answer 16

• Stimulus Control: involves reduction or removal of cues that prompt undesirable behaviours, introduction or amplification of cues that prompt desirable behaviours
• Exposure Therapy: Expose people to things they fear and avoid

Question 17

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 17

A type of learning which we link 2 or more stimuli

Question 18

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 18

A type of learning in which a behaviour becomes more likely to recur if followed by a reinforcer or less likely to recur if followed by a punisher

Question 19

What is reinforcement?

Answer 19

Any event that strengthens the behaviour it follows

Question 20

What is positive reinforcement?

Answer 20

• Increasing behaviours by presenting positive reinforcers

- Any stimulus, when presented, after a response, strengthens the response

Question 21

What is negative reinforcement?

Answer 21

• Increasing behaviours by stopping or reducing negative stimuli
• Any stimulus, when removed after a response, strengthens the response

Question 22

What is shaping?

Answer 22

Reinforcers guide behaviour toward closer and closer approximations of desired behaviour

Question 23

What is the difference between a primary and conditioned reinforcer?

Answer 23

• Primary: An innately reinforcing stimulus, one that satisfies a biological need
• Conditioned: Stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer

Question 24

What is a reinforcement schedule?

Answer 24

Pattern that defines how often a response (desired) will be reinforced

Question 25

What is the difference between continuous and intermittent reinforcement schedules?

Answer 25

• Continuous: reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs
• Intermittent: reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisitions of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than continuous reinforcement

Question 26

What are the 4 reinforcement schedules?

Answer 26

• Fixed ratio schedule
• Variable ratio schedule
• Fixed interval schedule
• Variable interval schedule

Question 27

What is punishment?

Answer 27

An event that tends to decrease the behaviour that it follows

Question 28

What is positive punishment?

Answer 28

Administer an aversive stimulus

Question 29

What is negative punishment?

Answer 29

Withdraw a rewarding stimulus

Question 30

What are behaviour change programs that focus on operant conditioning?

Answer 30

• Positive reinforcement/ punishment: reward to increase likelihood that a desirable behaviour will recur
• Displacement/ Substitution: reinforcing an alternative desired behaviour

Question 31

What is preparedness?

Answer 31

A biological predisposition to learn association

Question 32

What is latent learning?

Answer 32

Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it

Question 33

What is observational learning?

Answer 33

Our behavioural responses are influenced by the observation of others

Question 34

What is modelling?

Answer 34

Refers to process of observing and imitating a specific behaviour

Question 35

What are the 4 stages of observational learning?

Answer 35

1) Attention
2) Retention
3) Reproduction
4) Motivation