Learning and Ethology

Question 1

Edward Thorndike is one of the early psychologists who studied learning. He is considered to be part of the __ system of thought, focusing on how the…

Answer 1

functionalist, how the mind functioned in adapting to the environment.

Question 2

Why was Thorndike also considered to be an early behaviourist?

Answer 2

Since as a result of his study of the objective behaviour of animals, he developed the law of effect, which formed the basis for operant conditioning.

Question 3

Who conducted the experiment on little Albert? Describe it and what we learned from it.

Answer 3

• John Watson
• Watson presented white rat and and then make a startingly loud noise behind Albert’s head. Eventually Albert learned to associate the white rat with the loud noise, and showed a fear response.

Question 4

After Watson, __ became the dominant system of psychology in the US and remained so until about _

Answer 4

1960

Question 5

Clark Hull’s theory of motivation or drive reduction theory suggests that…

Answer 5

the goal of behaviour is to reduce biological drives: that is, reinforcement occurs whenever a biological drive is reduced.

Question 6

The 1930’s, largely due to the work of __ __, marked the beginning of __ as a recognized discipline.

Answer 6

Konrad Lorenz, ethology

Question 7

Lorenz rejected the idea that animal behaviour could…. Instead, he believed that…

Answer 7

be understood in the laboratory. Instead, he believed that an understanding of animal behaviour could be gained only in the field.

By observing the animal in its natural environment, he was able to describe the animal’s behaviour in great detail, and by studying the contect in which a particular behaviour took place, he could begin to analyze the function that the behaviour served.

Question 8

Ethologists study animals in their…

Answer 8

natural environment, rather than in the laboratory.

Question 9

Who is credited for founding the basic principles of classical conditioning?

Answer 9

Ivan Pavlov

Question 10

Ivan pavlov noticed that through experience…

Answer 10

stimuli that previously had no relation to a specific reflex could come to trigger a reflex

Question 11

A critical factor in the success of classical conditoning is the __ of the CS and UCS.

Answer 11

timing

Question 12

For classical conditioning to work, when does the CS have to be presented?

Answer 12

before the UCS

Question 13

Aqcuisition is the term used to describe…

Answer 13

the period during which an organism is learning the association of the stimuli.

Question 14

What is extinction?

Answer 14

A process in which classical conditioning and be unlearned. In extinction, we repeatedly present the CS without the UCS. So, we would ring the bell but not give any food powder to the dog. If we do this long enough, the dog will eventually stop salivating to the ring. The conditioned behaviour is not REINFORCED and so it becomes extinct.

Question 15

After extinction occurs, will the CS (bell ring) never again elicit the CR of salivation?

Answer 15

No. After a period of rest, presenting the bell without the UCS will actually elicit a weak CR of salivation, which is called SPONTANEOUS RECOVERY.

Question 16

Generalization is the tendency for…

Answer 16

stimuli similar to the CS to elicit the CR. For example, the dog might salivate to bells of various pitches or maybe chimes. We see evidence of generalization in phobias. For example, if a child is bitten by a large dog, he is liable to fear both large and small dogs.

Question 17

Backward conditioning involves

Answer 17

presenting the CS following the UCS; generally unsuccessful

Question 18

Classical conditioning appears to have limited usefulness for humans. After all, we can pair stimuli only when…

Answer 18

one of the stimuli (the UCS) elicits a reflex, and people have relatively few reflexes.

Question 19

Two classical conditioning phenomena tremendously expand the usefulness and applicability of classical conditioning. What are they?

Answer 19

1) second order conditioning

2) sensory preconditioning

Question 20

Describe second order conditioning

Answer 20

A neutral stimulus is paired with a CS rather than a UCS. There are 2 stages involved in second-order conditioning.

1) Regular classical conditioning
2) Present a new UCS - a flash of light for example - just before presenting the CS (bell ring), but without presenting the food powder.

After several of these trials, the dog will salivate to just the flash alone. We could even do third order conditioning by presenting the tick of a metronome followed by a light flash. Eventually, the dog would begin to salivate to the ticking of the metronome.

Question 21

Describe sensory preconditoning

Answer 21

Two neutral stimuli are paired together and then one of the neutral stimuli is paired with a UCS. There are 2 stages:
1) Pair 2 neutral stimuli, say a flash of light and the ring of a bell. Remember that both of these are neutral stimuli. 2) After several trials, we move to stage 2, where we pair the bell of the UCS with the food powder. After the animal salivates to the bell alone, we then test for the effect of sensory preconditioning by flashing the light without either ringing the bell or presenting the food. It turns out that even though the light flash and the food were never directly paired, the light flash elicits salivation.

Question 22

Robert Rescorla demonstrated what about classical conditioning? What is his approach called?

Answer 22

He performed some experiments which suggested that classical conditoning was a matter of learning signals for the UCS. To the extent that the CS is a good signal and that it has informational value, or is a good predictor of the UCS, the CS and UCS will become associated and classical conditioning will occur.

His approach is called a “contingency explanation of classical conditioning.

Question 23

What is blocking?

Answer 23

Blocking occurs when the CS is a good signal for the UCS and provides non-redundant information about the occurrence of the UCS.

Question 24

Operant conditioning (OC) is also sometimes called

Answer 24

instrumental conditioning

Question 25

Operant behaviour is controlled by __

Answer 25

consequences

Question 26

One of the pioneers of OC is E.L. __. He proposed the __ of __, which suggested that…

Answer 26

Thorndike, law of effect; is a response is followed by an annoying consequence, the animal will be less likely to emit the same response in the future.

Question 27

B.F skinner agreed with Thorndike’s contention that environmental…, but he rejected Thorndike’s stress on…

Answer 27

consequences affect the probability of response

mentalistic terms such as “satisfying” and “annoying”

Question 28

Skinner further developed the concept of OC by distinguishing 4 important concepts - name and describe

Answer 28

1) Positive reinforcement - the probability that the desired response will be performed is increased by giving the organism something that it wants (reward) whenever it makes the desired response.
2) Negative reinforcement - the probability that the desired response will be performed is increased by taking away or preventing something undesirable whenever the desired response is made.
3) Punishment - the probability that the desired response will be performed is DECREASED by giving organism something undesirable whenever the response is made.
4) Extinction - behaviour that used to bring reward no longer does.

Question 29

What are the two types of negative reinforcement?

Answer 29

1) Escape - the behaviour removes something undesirable (e.g., loud seatbelt buzzer can be stopped by clicking seatbelt on)
2) Avoidance - organism gets warning that aversive stimulus will soon occur, and the appropriate response completely avoids the stimulus (e.g., heeding a stop sign avoids a crash)

Question 30

Negative reinforcers can be __ __ once desired response has been achieved

Answer 30

turned off

Question 31

The goal of punishment is to

Answer 31

decrease probability of particular behaviour

Question 32

Goal of reinforcement is to

Answer 32

increase probability of particular behaviour

Question 33

According to Skinner, we don’t know if something is a reinforcer or punished until we can

Answer 33

look at the effect it has on the behaviour. For example, if a child is reprimanded for clowning around in class, is the child’s behaviour being rewarded or punished? It depends on whether or not the child’s clowning around increased or decreased in freq after the reprimanding. If the child’s clowning around increased after the reprimand, the reprimand was actually a reinforcer. Maybe the child likes the attention she gets from a reprimand.

Question 34

An important term in OC is the discriminative stimulus, which is…

Answer 34

a stimulus condition which indicates that the organism’s behaviour will have consequences (e.g., only when the light is on does the pigeon get the food pellet - pg 230)

Question 35

What is the partial reinforcement effect?

Answer 35

This effect demonstrates that it takes longer to extinguish extinguish a conditioned response when the behaviour was occasionally reinforced, rather than consistently reinforced.

Question 36

Gambling is an example of what type of reinforcement?

Answer 36

partial reinforcement - because it’s hard to stop even though your behaviour is reinforced by an occasional win

Question 37

There are 4 basic types of partial reinforcement, called schedules of reinforcement. Name and describe.

Answer 37

1) Fixed ratio - Org receives reinforcement only after a fixed number of responses (e.g., 5 lever presses = a food pellet)
2) Variable ratio - Org receives reinforcement after variable number of responses (e.g., on a VR 5 schedule, the animal will receive, on average, a pellet ever 5 presses. On any particular trial, the pellet could come on the 2nd lever press or the 5th press, or the 17th press).
3) Fixed-interval - Org reinforced on the first response after a fixed period of time has passed since the last reinforcement.
4) Variable interval - Org reinforced on thef irst response made after a variable amount of time has passed since the last reinforcer. However, in VI, there is an average interval time period.

Question 38

What could we call a situation where an animal is being reinforced for every response?

Answer 38

an FR 1 schedule, also called a continuous reinforcement schedule.

Question 39

A worker receives money for every 1000 envelopes stuffed. What reinforcement schedule is this?

Answer 39

Fixed ratio

Question 40

Dropping a coin in a slot machine is an example of what reinforcement schedule?

Answer 40

VR

Question 41

A parent responding to a crying child. What reinforcement schedule is this?

Answer 41

VI, because after responding to a cry, most parents will not go back to the child if they cry immediately after the reinforcement. The parent usually waits a little, so a certain time interval has to pass before the child will be reinforced for crying. Exactly what this time interval is depends on the situation.

Question 42

Which schedule is most resistant to extinction?

Answer 42

The VR schedule. It also produces the most rapid response rate.

Remember this by VR = very resistant and very rapid.

Question 43

Shaping is another OC phenomenon which involves…

Answer 43

reinforcing successive approximations to the desired behaviour

Question 44

Shaping is sometimes called __ reinforcement, which is a technique whereby you…

Answer 44

differential; reinforce the desired response while extinguishing others.

Question 45

There are many psychotherapies based on behaviour models, they are called __ __ and/or __ __, and can be divided into those based on CC and those based on OC.

Answer 45

behaviour therapies, behaviour modification

Question 46

Therapies based on CC are used primarily with __, but can also be used with __ __ disorders.

Answer 46

phobias, obsessive compulsive

Question 47

The simplest way to get rid of a phobia is through

Answer 47

extinction - repeatedly presenting the feared object (CS) with the associated US that originally elicited the fear, the response to the CS will decrease and eventually be eliminated

Question 48

What is flooding?

Answer 48

A technique to expose client to their irrational fears. In flooding, the client experiences the CS (e.g., the cat) without the US that originally elicited the fear. The therapist, for example, might get a client to hold a cat. After having experienced the cat as harmless, the person learns cats need not be avoided.

Question 49

What is implosion?

Answer 49

A behaviour therapy which works on the same principle as flooding, but the client only imagines the feared situation. The client is asked to imagine the fear-provoking situation.

Question 50

A criticism of flooding and implosion is that they ask the client to experience a great deal of anxiety early on in the therapy. In order to reduce the initial anxiety, Joseph __ developed the technique of __ __. This process uses…

Answer 50

Wolpe; systematic desensitization; Uses a hierarchy of anxiety producing situations coupled with the use of relaxation techniques. While in a deeply relaxed state, the individual is asked to imagine the least anxiety-provoking situation in the hierarchy.

Question 51

What is the principle of systematic desensitization?

Answer 51

That an individual cannot experience these contradictory emotions simultaneously. The individual then proceeds up the hierarchy until the relaxation responses are reinforced to the anxiety-invoking stimulus.

Question 52

What is counterconditioning?

Answer 52

Basically what happens when someone uses systematic desensitization effectively and eventually develops a relaxation response to the initial anx-provoking stimulus.

Question 53

Conditioned aversion is when…

Answer 53

a stimulus that is attractive to a client becomes paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus associated with a punishment. The negative feelings will be associated to the undesirable behaviour and the client will therefore no longer be attracted to the behaviour.

Question 54

Therapies based on operant conditioning attempt to __ the client’s __.

Answer 54

alter; behaviour

Question 55

The goal of OC therapies is to change the client’s behaviour by changing the…. This is referred to as __ __.

Answer 55

reinforcement contingency that is associated with the behaviour; contingency management

Question 56

What are 4 examples of contingency management strategies?

Answer 56

1) behavioural contracts - written contract that explicitly states the consequences of certain acts; useful in resolving interpersonal conflicts
2) time-out procedures - The idea behind this procedure if that the undesirable behaviour occurs in situations that reinforce it. So, removing client from potentially reinforcing situation before they can receive reinforcement for the undesirable behaviour.
3) token economies - given for desirable behaviours and taken away for undesirable behaviours. Tokens can be later exchanged for a wide array of rewards/privileges.
4) premack principle - using a more preferred activity to reinforce a less preferred activity (e.g., do homework before you can play)

Question 57

E.L Thorndike conducted a series o experiments to prove that __ __ is best explained by the law of __.

Answer 57

problem solving; law of effect.

Question 58

Describe Thorndike’s puzzle box experiment and the conclusions he drew from it.

Answer 58

Description (pg. 236)
- Thorndike believed that the cat could get out of the box faster due to trial and error learning, not because the cat has cognitive insight or understanding of the box.

Question 59

Wolfgang Kohler (cofounder of __ psychology) disagreed with Thorndike. How so?

Answer 59

Gestalt; Although Kohler conceeded that the animals in Thorndike’s experiment learned through trial and error, he suggested that those animals were forced into trial and error learning bc of the situation. He argued that, given the opportunity, some animals could learn by insight.

Question 60

Kohler argued that animals can learn by insight, which is the…

Answer 60

perception of the inner relationships between factors that are essential to solving a problem.

Question 61

To prove his point about insight, Kohler looked at problem solving in ___. Describe this.

Answer 61

chimpanzees; He placed food really high in their cage and after a few attempts, they came up with novel ways to use items in the cage to reach the food (e.g., climbing on boxes). To Kohler, this siggested the chimps used insight to solve the problems of the unreachable food.

Question 62

Why does Kohler’s believe about insight present a challenge to models of CC?

Answer 62

Because it’s difficult to explain insight on the basis of conditioning

Question 63

Kohler is not alone in suggesting alternative to the simple conditioning model. Edward __ conducted experiments with rats in mazes to show that behaviour isn’t…

Answer 63

Tolman; isn’t always simply a matter of stimulus-response reinforcement learning.

Question 64

The phrase to associate with Tolman is __ __, which is a ..

Answer 64

cognitive map; mental representation os a physical space.

Question 65

Tolman was able to show what about rats?

Answer 65

That they could form cognitive maps of various mazes. If a familiar path through the maze was blocked, the rats were able to utilize their cogntiive map to adopt an alternative route through the maze.

Question 66

To challenge behaviourist theories, researchers also point to evidence that different species have…

Answer 66

different inborn predispositions to learn different things in different ways. These predispositions are called BIOLOGICAL CONSTRAINTS, and they affect both OC and CC.

Question 67

Describe the Garcia effect (discovered by John Gacia).

What did this effect find?

Answer 67

page 237.
- That the rats were demonstrating PREPAREDNESS. The rats seems to have an in-born tendency to associate certain stimuli with certain consequences. Rats are biologically wired to associate illness with something they ingested, and pair sights and sounds with externally induced pain. Hence, the conditioning did not occur in groups 1 and 4.

Question 68

Studies of taste aversion learning have posed additional problems for CC. What are two of them?

Answer 68

1) Learned taste aversion can occur on the first trial. One pairing of the UCS and CS is all it takes. CC requires many trials for the conditioning to fully develop.
2) Subsequent experiments on taste aversion have shown that such learning can take place even if the UCS occurs up to 24 hours after the CS. Usually, the optimal time period between the CS and UCS is several seconds after the CS.

Question 69

Biological constraints are also important in OC. One such constraint is instinctual drift, discovered by …. Describe instinctual drift.

Answer 69

Keller and Marion Brelandl; instinctual ways of behaving are able to override behaviours learned through operant conditioning.

An example of this is the raccoon coin example, where it eventually was rubbing the coins on it’s belly like it would have done to a crayfish in the wild.

Question 70

Describe the challenges to behaviourism

Answer 70

page 239

Question 71

The evidence pointing to the effects of biological constraints on learning was of no surprise to ethologists, who tended to concern themselves with behaviours that are…

Answer 71

characteristic of a particular species; species specific or species-typical behaviours.

Question 72

Since species-specific behaviours tend to have an instinctual basis, early ethologists tended to look at __ __

Answer 72

instinctual behaviour. This contrasts with behaviour theorists who concerned themselves with learning

Question 73

While behaviourists tend to bring their animals into the lab, ethologists do what? (2)

Answer 73

observe them in natural habitat and study more complex behaviours.

Question 74

Fixed action pattern

Answer 74

stereotyped behaviour sequence that doesn’t have to be learned by the animal.

Question 75

What is the diff between a pavlovian unconditioned response and a fixed action pattern?

Answer 75

A FAP tends to be more complex. For example, a pavlovian UR may be a blink or salivation, whereas a FAP may be rolling an egg back to a nest, or a species-specific courtship ritual

Question 76

FAPs are often triggered by __ __ or __, which are?

Answer 76

1) sign stimuli - features of a stimulus sufficient enough to bring about a FAP (e.g., red belly of a male sickleback)
2) releasers - a sign stimulus that triggers social behaviour between animals (a specific environmental stimulus that sets off a specific behaviour)

Question 77

Describe Tinbergen’s experiment on aggression in male sicklebacks.

Answer 77

page 240 for full. Generally, they found that the red belly of an invading sickleback was the most important element in triggering the aggressive behaviour, since even a crude model with the belly painted red was enough to trigger an attack.

Therefore, a red belly is a sign stimulus AND a releaser, as it triggers male aggression in sicklebacks during spring.

Question 78

What did Tinbergen discover about his sickleback model in terms of it’s ability to trigger an agressive response?

Answer 78

That he was able to design a model that elicited the agressive response more often than an actual male sickelback = a supernormal stimulus

Question 79

What is a supernormal stimulus?

Answer 79

A stimulus that is more effective at triggering the FAP than the actual stimulus found in nature.

Question 80

What is the innate releasing mechanism?

Answer 80

A mechanism in the animal’s nervous system that connects the sign stimuli with the correct FAPs. Researcher found that the FAP is triggered once the organism perceives the sign stimulus. In fact, even if the stimulus is removed in the middle of a behavioural sequence, the animal will continue to perform as if the stimulus was still present.

Question 81

Reproductive isolating mechanisms are. How do they work? What is an example?

Answer 81

behaviours that precent animals of one species from attempting to mate with animals from a closely related species. They work by providing an animal with a way of identifying others of it’s own species. An example of this is the species specific call given by black-headed gull males, enabling females to find them.

Question 82

Isolating mechanisms are found where?

Answer 82

Only where closely related species share a common environment.

Question 83

Karl von Frisch and others found what about honey bees?

Answer 83

That they could communicate direction and distance of food source to fellow hive members by means of specicl movement patterns, called dances.

Question 84

Modern ethologists tend to deemphasize….and focus more on…

Answer 84

the instinctual bases of behaviour; focus more on the question of WHY the animal behaves why it does and not in some other manner. To answer this question, ethologists attempt to discover the evolutionary significance of various behaviours.

Question 85

Charles Darwin believed that __ __ is the key to evolution. His theory is based on the premise that…

Answer 85

natural selection; not every member of a species is equally as successful at surviving and reproducing.

Question 86

Darwin also highlighted the __ between individual members of the same species, noting that at least some of this __ has a __ __.

Answer 86

variation; variation; genetic basis

Question 87

Darwin argued that, to the extent that genetic variation increases the chances of reproduction, it will…

Answer 87

tend to be passed down to the next generation

Question 88

What is Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection in steps?

Answer 88

1) There are genetic differences between members of a species.
2) if that genetic variation increases the chances of reproduction, it will tend to be passed down to the next generation. If a specific genetic variation decreases the chance of reproduction, it will tend not to be passed down.
3) Over time, more and more member of the species will tend to have the genetic variation that increased chance of reproduction and less of the genetics that decrease this chance.

Question 89

Reproductive fitness is

Answer 89

the number of offspring that live to be old enough to reproduce. It is suggested that animals will act to increase their reproductive fitness.

Question 90

If the animal’s behaviour decreases reproductive fitness, it is called __

Answer 90

altruism.

Question 91

Why is the idea of altruism difficult to explain with darwinian theory?

Answer 91

because the animals is putting itself in danger, which does not help its potential for offspring, decreasing reproductive fitness.

Question 92

The theory of kin selection suggests that

Answer 92

animals act to increase their inclusive fitness rather than reproductive fitness.

Question 93

Inclusive fitness

Answer 93

takes into account not only the number of offspring who survive to reproductive age, but also the number of other relatives who survive to reproductive age.

Question 94

Modern ethology is considered to be a branch of __, __, or __, which studies how..

Answer 94

biology, zoology, sociobiology; how various social behaviours act to increase fitness.

Question 95

The scientist most associated with sociobiology is __, who believes that behaviour is due to a…

Answer 95

E.O Wilson; complex and dynamic interplay between genetics and environment.

Question 96

The goal of ethology is to test hypothesis about the…

Answer 96

effect of social behaviour on fitness.