Learning

Question 1

Habituation

Answer 1

repeated exposure to a stimulus causes a decrease in response – lost sensitivity

Dishabituation: one becomes sensitive to stimulus again, recovery occurs from interruption of new stimulus or period of non-exposure

Question 2

ASSOCIATIVE LEARNING

Answer 2

pairing of stimuli with stimuli, or response with behavior

– Classical and Operant Conditioning

Question 3

Classical Condition

Answer 3

Neutral stimulus – doesn’t elicit a response
Unconditioned stimulus – doesn’t require learning, brings a reflexive response
Unconditioned response – the innate behavior
Conditional stimulus – previously neutral stimulus leads to desired response
Conditioned response – response caused by the conditioned stimulus

– the neutral stimulus must be associated with the unconditioned stimulus to elicit the same response

Pavlov’s dogs – associated bell with food, bell elicited drooling

Acquisition – stimulus-response pair becomes conditioned
Extinction – habituation to conditioned stimulus (bell without food – no more drooling)
Spontaneous recovery: emergence of previously habituated conditioned response

Discrimination – distinguish between similar stimuli – conditioned to a very specific conditioned stimulus
Generalization – broadening effect to similar stimuli

Question 4

Operant Conditioning

Answer 4

REINFORCEMENT – behavior continues
PUNISHMENT – behavior stops
POSITIVE – stimulus added
NEGATIVE – stimulus removed

POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT – candy for doing homework
NEGATIVE REINFORCEMENT – no chores for doing homework
POSITIVE PUNISHMENT – time out for not doing homework
NEGATIVE PUNISHMENT – no TV time for not doing homework

Escape learning: reduce present unpleasantness
Avoidance learning: reduce future unpleasantness

Question 5

Operant Conditioning – Reinforcement Schedules

Answer 5

VARIABLE RATIO: reward given after a RANDOM number of PERFORMANCES of the desired behavior – elicits the most frequent and robust behavior because the rat doesn’t learn how often to press the lever, just that he has to keep on pressing it for an eventual reward

FIXED RATIO: reward given after a DEINED number of PERFORMANCES of the desired behavior

VARIABLE INTERVAL: reward given after a RANDOM TIME interval if behavior occurred in that time frame

FIXED INTERVAL: reward given after a DEFINED time interval if the behavior occurred in that time frame

Question 6

Latent Learning

Answer 6

learning occurs free of reward or incentive, but will be demonstrated once the possibility of reward arises

Question 7

Preparedness

Answer 7

predisposition to a certain behavior

Question 8

Instinctive Drift

Answer 8

overcoming an instinctive behavior

Question 9

OBSERVATIONAL LEARNING

Answer 9

Modeling – emulating or copying learned behavior (bobo doll experiment)
Mirror Neurons – in the FRONTAL and PARIETAL LOBES, fire when they perform an action or see someone else perform an action