Unit 6- Learning (7-9%)

Question 1

Operant conditioning

Answer 1

Type of learning that strengthens with reinforcement or weakens with punishment

Question 2

Law of effect

Answer 2

Thorndike’s principle that rewarded behavior is likely to continue with favorable consequences

Question 3

Negative punishment

Answer 3

Removing something you like

Question 4

Positive punishment

Answer 4

Adding something you don’t like

Question 5

Learned helplessness

Answer 5

The hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.

Question 6

Primary reinforcer

Answer 6

An innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need.

Question 7

Skinner box (operant chamber)

Answer 7

A chamber containing a bar an animal can manipulate in order to get food or water

Question 8

B.F. Skinner

Answer 8

Pioneer of operant conditioning: everything we do is determined by rewards and punishment. He also created the Skinner box

Question 9

Edward Thorndike

Answer 9

Proposed Law of Effect. Experiment when he placed cat in a puzzle box; keep putting cat in same box, the quicker cat will be able to escape

Question 10

Higher-order conditioning

Answer 10

Procedure where conditioned stimulus is paired with neutral stimulus, creating a second (weaker) conditioned stimulus

Question 11

Shaping

Answer 11

a procedure in which reinforcers, such as food, gradually guide an animal’s actions toward a desired behavior.

Question 12

Secondary or Conditioned Reinforcers

Answer 12

These get their power through learned association with primary reinforcers. (Ex. Skinner’s rat wants food. It work to turn on the light because it is associated with food.)

Question 13

Mirror neurons

Answer 13

Frontal lobe neurons that fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. The brain’s mirroring of another’s action may enable imitation and empathy

Question 14

Little Albert

Answer 14

He was conditioned. When he was presented at a white rat he would reach to touch and then a hammer would strike a steel bar just behind his head. He then associated then loud noise with the rat. So every time time he saw a rat he would burst into tears.

Question 15

Extinction

Answer 15

Diminishing of conditioned response. Occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus

Question 16

Spontaneous recovery

Answer 16

Reappearance after a pause of extinguished conditioned response.

Question 17

Generalization

Answer 17

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

Question 18

Discrimination

Answer 18

In classical conditioning, learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus

Question 19

Watson and Rayner

Answer 19

Pioneer in behaviorism and showed how you could condition fear into Little Albert

Question 20

Classical Conditioning

Answer 20

A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events.

Question 21

Associative Learning

Answer 21

Learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning)

Question 22

Unconditioned Response (UR)

Answer 22

In classical conditioning, the unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus, such as salivation when food is in the mouth.

Question 23

Unconditioned stimulus (US)

Answer 23

In classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally-naturally and automatically-triggers a response

Question 24

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

Answer 24

In classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a conditioned response

Question 25

Learning

Answer 25

A relatively permanent change in an organism’s behavior due to experience

Question 26

Latent Learning

Answer 26

Learning that becomes apparent only when there is some incentive to demonstrate it. Children, too, may learn from watching a parent but demonstrate the learning only much later, as needed. The point to remember: There is more to learning than associating a response with a consequence; there is also cognition.

Question 27

Insight Learning

Answer 27

Some learning occurs after little or no systematic interaction with our environment. For example, we may puzzle over a problem, and suddenly, the pieces fall together as we perceive the solution in a sudden flash of insight. “Ah ha moment”

Question 28

Observational Learning

Answer 28

learn without direct experience, through observational learning, also called social learning, because we learn by observing and imitating others. A child who sees his sister burn her fingers on a hot stove learns not to touch it. And a monkey watching another selecting certain pictures to gain treats learns to imitate that behavior. “Monkey see Monkey do”

Question 29

Albert Bandura

Answer 29

The pioneering researcher of observational learning.

Question 30

Bobo Doll Experiments

Answer 30

As the child watches, the adult gets up and for nearly 10 minutes pounds, kicks, and throws around the room a large inflated Bobo doll, yelling, “Sock him in the nose. . . . Hit him down. . . . Kick him.” Then children went in a beat up the Bobo doll.

Question 31

Edward (E.C.) Tolman

Answer 31

He demonstrated that rats use latent learning when attempting to find their way through a maze. They can do it just as fast as a rat with a reward at the end.

Question 32

Chaining

Answer 32

reinforcing individual responses occurring in a sequence to form a complex behavior.

Question 33

Continuous Reinforcement

Answer 33

Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs.

Question 34

Negative Reinforcement

Answer 34

Increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli, such as shock. A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response. (negative reinforcement is not a punishment)

Question 35

Positive Reinforcement

Answer 35

Increasing behaviors by presenting positive stimuli, such as food. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response.

Question 36

Conditioned Taste Aversions

Answer 36

When you get sick after eating food and blame it on the food and don’t want to eat that food anymore

Question 37

Long-term potentiation

Answer 37

An increase in a synapse’s firing potential after brief, rapid stimulation. Believed to be a neural basis for learning and memory.

Question 38

Respondent behavior

Answer 38

Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus.

Question 39

Operant behavior

Answer 39

Behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences.

Question 40

Fixed Interval Schedule

Answer 40

a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a set time has passed

Question 41

Variable Ratio Schedule

Answer 41

a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses

Question 42

Partial/Intermittent Reinforcement

Answer 42

responses are sometimes reinforced, sometimes not. Although initial learning is slower, _______ produces greater resistance to extinction than is found with continuous reinforcement

Question 43

Fixed Ratio Schedule

Answer 43

reinforces behavior after a set number of responses. (Ex. Buy five, get one free.)

Question 44

Variable Interval Schedule

Answer 44

a reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals

Question 45

Superstitious behavior

Answer 45

Type of the reaction to certain situations/impulses that is brought on by a coincidence and gets so embedded in individual’s course of action that he repeats it continuously.

Question 46

Behaviorists

Answer 46

psychologists that believe in studying behavior while disregarding mental processes

Question 47

Cognitive processes

Answer 47

thoughts, perceptions, and expectations

Question 48

Conditioned Response

Answer 48

in classical conditioning, the learned response to a previously neutral(but now conditioned) stimulus (CS).

Question 49

Neutral Stimulus

Answer 49

a stimulus that does not produce an automatic response. In classical conditioning, a neutral stimulus turns into a conditioned stimulus. ex)a tone before it turns into CS (produces no salivation on response) in Pavlov’s experiment.

Question 50

Reinforcers

Answer 50

in operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.

Question 51

Ivan Pavlov

Answer 51

Did an experiment with a dog: presented neutral stimulus(a tone) just before an unconditioned stimulus(food in mouth). The neutral stimulus then became a conditioned stimulus, producing a conditioned response. He explored classical conditioning.

Question 52

Acquisition

Answer 52

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.

Question 53

Delayed Reinforcers

Answer 53

Unlike animals, humans respond to delayed reinforcers: the paycheck at the end of the week, the good grade at the end of the term, the trophy at the end of the season.

Question 54

Partial Reinforcement

Answer 54

Reinforcing only part of the time; slower acquisition but much more resistant to extinction

Question 55

Fixed-Ratio Schedule

Answer 55

Reinforce behavior after a set number of responses. Free drink after every 10 cups of coffee.