Psychology-Chapter 6: Learning-basics and classical conditioning

Question 1

What is learning?

Answer 1

Change in an organism’s behaviour or thought as a result of experience.

Question 2

What is habituation?

Answer 2

The process by which we respond less strongly over time to repeated stimuli. Earliest form of learning used to avoid attending to non-important stimuli.

Question 3

What is sensitization?

Answer 3

Responding more strongly over time. It is more likely when a stimulus is dangerous, irritating or both.

Question 4

What is conditioning?

Answer 4

Learning by association. Once we form associations, we need only recall one element to retrieve the other.

Question 5

What is serendipity?

Answer 5

The occurrence or development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way. Describes the way Pavlov made his discovery of classical conditioning.

Question 6

What is a cannula?

Answer 6

Collection tube that was attached to the salivary glands of dogs to measure their salivary response to meat powder.

Question 7

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 7

A form of learning in which animals come to respond to a previously neutral stimulus (CS) that has been paired with another stimulus that elicits an automatic response. (UCS)

Question 8

What is a UCS?

Answer 8

Unconditioned stimulus: a stimulus that elicits an automatic (reflexive) response.

Question 9

What is a UCR?

Answer 9

The automatic reflexive response.

Question 10

What is the key point of the UCS and UCR in classical conditioning?

Answer 10

The animal doesn’t need to learn to respond to the UCS with the UCR, this is natural and reflexive and produced without training because the response of genetics and not the environment.

Question 11

What is the CR?

Answer 11

Conditioned response: A response previously associated with a non-neutral stimulus that comes to be elicited by a neutral stimulus (CS).

Question 12

What is the CS?

Answer 12

A previously neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a conditioned response as a result of its association with a UCS.

Question 13

The CR is the product of ___________?

Answer 13

Nurture (or the environment)

Question 14

Is the CR always the same as the UCR?

Answer 14

No, It may be similar but generally weaker or it may even be the complete opposite as is the case with heroin addicts. They unconsciously alter their blood pressure before taking heroine in a place where they’ve done heroine before.

Question 15

What are the three phases of classical conditioning?

Answer 15

Acquisition, Exctinction, spontaneous recovery.

Question 16

What is acquisition?

Answer 16

Phase in which the animal gradually learns the CR. As the CS and UCS are paired over and over again, the CR increases progressively in strength.

Question 17

How is the most effective conditioning obtained when pairing the UCS and CS?

Answer 17

When the pairing is generally close in time (1 ms) with the CS being presented first. Longer delays decrease the effectiveness of conditioning.

Question 18

What is extinction?

Answer 18

The CR decreases in magnitude and eventually disappears when the CS is repeatedly presented without the UCS.

Question 19

After extinction, is the CR completely forgotten?

Answer 19

No, but the animal seems to learn to inhibit this response to a neutral, seemingly unimportant stimulus.

Question 20

What is spontaneous recovery?

Answer 20

A seemingly extinct CR reappears, often in a somewhat weaker form, if the CS is presented again following a delay after extinction.

Question 21

What is the renewal effect?

Answer 21

Occurs when we extinguish a response in a setting different from the one in which the animal acquired it. When the animal is brought back to the original setting, the extinguished response reappears.

Question 22

What is stimulus generalization?

Answer 22

The process by which stimuli that are similar, but not identical to the original CS elicit a response.

Question 23

What is a generalization gradient?

Answer 23

The more similar to the original CS the new stimulus is, the stronger the response will be.

Question 24

What is stimulus discrimination?

Answer 24

Occurs when we exhibit a less pronounced response to a neutral stimulus that differs from the original CS.

Question 25

What is higher order conditioning?

Answer 25

The process by which organisms develop classically conditioned responses to CS’s associated with the original CS.

Question 26

What is second order conditioning?

Answer 26

In which a new CS is paired with the original CS. This tends to elicit a weaker response than normal classical conditioning.

Question 27

What is third order conditioning?

Answer 27

In which a third order stimulus is paired with the second order stimulus. Weaker response than second order conditioning.

Question 28

What is fourth order conditioning?

Answer 28

Nigh impossible or very difficult.

Question 29

Where is higher order conditioning generally applied?

Answer 29

Addictions

Question 30

What are occasion setters?

Answer 30

Higher order CSs that refer to the setting in which the CS occurs.

Question 31

What are five daily applications of classical conditioning?

Answer 31

Advertising, acquisition of fear and phobias, drug tolerance, acquisition of fetishes, disgust reactions.

Question 32

What is latent inhibition?

Answer 32

Refers to the fact that when we’ve experienced a stimulus alone many times, it’s difficult to classically condition is to another stimulus.

Question 33

How is CC applied to advertising?

Answer 33

By repeatedly pairing the sights and sounds of products with photographs of handsome hunks and scantily clad beauties, advertisers try to establish conditioned connections between their brands and positive emotions.

Question 34

Who was Little Albert?

Answer 34

Child that was originally very fond of white rats. This was eventually paired with a loud sound from a gong, which caused to child to cry and led to him developing a phobia of rats and similar objects (generalization).

Question 35

Since classical conditioning plays a role in acquiring phobias, it can also be used to ______ phobias.

Answer 35

Treat

Question 36

How is drug tolerance applicable to CC?

Answer 36

People who use drugs in a particular setting, such as always being in the same room when administering a drug, develop an enhanced tolerance to the drug in that setting.

Question 37

What is a conditioned compensatory response?

Answer 37

Cue dependent tolerance to a drug that helps to counteract the effects of the drug.

Question 38

What is fetishism?

Answer 38

Sexual attraction to non-living things. Often arises in part from CC.

Question 39

What is peculiar of disgust reactions?

Answer 39

These are acquired with ease. In most cases they are due to CC. In many cases, the disgust reactions are paired to biologically important stimuli that may pose a threat and are more easily learned.