Unit 4 - Learning Flashcards
Learning
The process of acquiring new and relatively enduring information or behaviors.
Habituation
An organism’s decreasing response to a stimulus with repeated exposure to it.
Associative Learning
Learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli or a response and its consequences.
Stimulus
Any event or situation that evokes a response.
Cognitive Learning
The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language.
Classical Conditioning
A type of learning in which one learns to link two or ore stimuli and anticipate events.
Behaviorism
The view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but now with (2).
Neutral Stimulus (NS)
In classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning.
Unconditioned Response (UR)
In classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response to an unconditioned stimulus.
Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
In classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally - naturally and automatically - triggers a response.
Conditioned Response (CR)
In classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral but now conditioned stimulus.
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
In classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response (CR).
Acquisition
In classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response.
Higher-Order Conditioning (Second-Order Conditioning)
A procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus.
Extinction
The diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (US) does not allow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced.
Spontaneous Recovery
The reappearance, after a pause, o an extinguished conditioned response.
Generalization
The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses.
Discrimination
In classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus.
Operant Conditioning
A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher.
Law of Effect
Thorndike’s principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely.
Operant Chamber (Skinner Box)
In operant conditioning research, a chamber containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal’s rate of bar pressing or key pecking.
Reinforcement
In operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.
Shaping
An operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior.
Discriminative Stimulus
In operant conditioning, a stimulus that elicits a response after association with reinforcement (in contrast to related stimuli not associated with reinforcement).
