Vocabulary Flashcards
Teratogens
Toxic substances that cause birth defects or developmental abnormalities in the womb like alcohol, drugs, tobacco, infections, environment
Reflexes
Involuntary movements in response to stimulation.
Moro: Outstretching of arms
Babinski: Touch bottom of foot toes splay outward
Maturation
Biological growth processes that enable orderly changes in behavior like crawl, stand, walk
Critical periods
Period early in life of an organism when exposure to certain stimuli or experiences produces normal development
Sexual Orientation
Enduring sexual attraction toward others
Schemas
A mental concept or framework that helps organize and interpret information
Assimilation
Taking in new information and changing our schema to incorporate new information
Accomodation
Taking in new information and changing our existing schema to incorporate a new schema
Object Permanence
Out of sight out of mind, awareness that objects continue to exist when you can’t perceive them
Egocentrism
Difficulty understanding another’s point of view or perspective
Theory of Mind
Ability to understand that other people have mental stages, a sense of what others think
Conservation
Principle that properties remain the same despite changes in appearance
Reversibility
Numbers or objects can be changed and returned to their original condition
Temperament
A persons characteristic emotional disposition
Easy: cheerful, relaxed, predictable
Difficult: More irritable, intense, unpredictable
Imaginary Audience
An adolescents tendency to believe that others are watching and evaluating them. Self conscious behavior
Personal Fable
An adolescents belief that they are special and unique. None of life’s difficulties or problems will affect them regardless of behavior.
Social Clock
The culturally preferred timing of social events such as marriage, parenting and retirement
Continuous and Discontinuous
Debate over whether development occurs gradually without gaps or not
Senile Dementia
Mental disintegration that accompanies alcoholism, tumor, stroke, and Alzheimers
Alzheimer’s Disease
A progressive and irreversible brain disease characterized by memory loss, cognitive decline, neural death, or change in behavior
Crystallized Intelligence
Accumulated knowledge, facts, information, experiences and skills acquired throughout life. Increases with age
Fluid Intelligence
Ability to reason quickly and abstractly, solve novel logic problems, declines with age
Phonemes
The smallest individual sounds in any language
Morphemes
The smallest units of meaning in a language
Zone of Proximal Development
What a learner can do with help from a more knowledgeable other (teacher, mentor, parent)
Overgeneralization
Misapplying grammar rules too broadly
Language Acquisition
the process of learning to understand and use a language, which can be a first or second language
Identity Achievement
Gone through a period of moratorium, emerged with commitment to beliefs/occupation
Identification Diffusion
No commitment to particular career path, no serious exploration, minimal experimentation
Moratorium
No strong commitment to an occupation, beliefs or both actively exploring and considering a variety of professions
Foreclosure
Firm commitment to an occupation/belief system
Choices based on what others want
Classical Conditioning
A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events
Associative Learning
Learning that certain events occur together
Stimulus
Any event or situation that evokes a response
Response
Any behavior or action
Acquisition
Becoming classical conditioned
Extinction
The diminishing of a conditioned response
Spontaneous Recovery
The reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioning response
Stimulus Generalization
The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned Stimulus to elicit similar responses
Stimulus Discrimination
The learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned Stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus
Neutral Stimulus (NS)
A stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning (Bell)
Unconditioned Stimulus (US)
A stimulus that naturally elicits a response (food)
Unconditioned Response (UR)
An unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus (salivating)
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
An originally irrelevant stimulus that after association with an unconditioned stimulus comes to trigger a conditioned response
Conditioned Response (CR)
A learned response to a previously neutral stimulus
Higher Order Conditioning
A procedure in which the conditioned Stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second conditioned Stimulus.
Taste Aversion
A learned association between a food and an illness/sickness
Biologically primed associations to survive
Habituation
Decreasing responsiveness with repeated stimulation
Law of Effect
Behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely and that behavior followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely
Operant Conditioning
A type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforce or diminished if followed by punishment.
Punishment
Event that decreases behavior
Positive: Stimuli is added
Negative: Stimuli is removed
Reinforcement
Positive: Increases behavior, strengthens response
Negative: Increases behavior, stimulus removed
Primary Reinforcer
An innately reinforcing stimulus that satisfies biological needs
Secondary Reinforcer
money, grades, etc
Shaping
Procedure in which reinforces guide behavior toward closer approximations of the desired behavior
Learned Helplessness
The helplessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated events
Continuous Reinforcement
Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs
Partial Reinforcement
Reinforcing a response only part of the time
Results in slower acquisition, greater resistance to extinction
Fixed Ratio
(Exact) Reinforces a response only after a specific number of responses
Variable Ratio
(Random) Reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses
Fixed Interval
(Number of responses) Reinforces a response only after a specific time has been elapsed
Variable Interval
(Time) Reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals
Modeling
The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior
Cognitive Maps
A mental representation of the layout of ones environment
Primary Sex Characteristics
the physical features that determine an individual’s sex and are directly involved in reproduction
Secondary Sex Characteristics
physical traits that are related to sex but are not directly involved in reproduction. They develop during puberty and include breast development, facial hair, and voice changes.
Latent Learning
Learning taken place you are unaware of before an incentive (reward)
