Week 4 Readings Flashcards
What are knowledge emotions?
A family of emotions associated with learning, reflecting, and exploring.
These emotions come about when unexpected and unfamiliar events happen in the environment. Broadly speaking, they motivate people to explore unfamiliar things, which builds knowledge and expertise over the long run.
What are the functionalist theories of emotion?
Theories of emotion that emphasize the adaptive role of an emotion in handling common problems throughout evolutionary history.
Where do emotions come from?
a) how we think about what is happening
b) what is happening
emotion theories contend that emotions come from how we think about what is happening in the world, not what is literally happening.
After all, if things in the world directly caused emotions, everyone would always have the same emotion in response to something.
What are appraisal theories?
Evaluations that relate what is happening in the environment to people’s values, goals, and beliefs.
Appraisal theories of emotion contend that emotions are caused by patterns of appraisals, such as whether an event furthers or hinders a goal and whether an event can be coped with.
Is this relevant to me? Does it further or hinder my goals? Can I deal with it or do something about it? Did someone do it on purpose? Different emotions come from different answers to these appraisal questions.
How many appraisals does surprise have and what are they?
Surprise has only one appraisal: A single “expectedness check” seems to be involved
Interest is an ____________ form of learning.
Interest is an intrinsically motivated form of learning.
What does intrinsically motivated form of learning mean?
Learning that is “for its own sake”—such as learning motivated by curiosity and wonder—instead of learning to gain rewards or social approval.
unlike surprise, interest involves an additional appraisal of ______ potential
unlike surprise, interest involves an additional appraisal of coping potential
What is coping potential?
In appraisal theories, coping potential refers to people’s evaluations of their ability to manage what is happening. When coping potential is high, people feel capable of handling the challenge at hand
Individual differences in interest are captured by ___________
Individual differences in interest are captured by trait curiosity
What is trait curiosity?
Stable individual-differences in how easily and how often people become curious.
It is a facet of openness to experience (One of the five major factors of personality, this trait is associated with higher curiosity, creativity, emotional breadth, and open-mindedness. People high in openness to experience are more likely to experience interest and awe.)
What is impasse-driven learning?
An approach to instruction that motivates active learning by having learners work through perplexing barriers.
What two appraisals does awe come from?
The two appraisals leading to awe are:
1) Appraising something as vast or beyond the normal scope of experience, creating a huge inconsistency with existing knowledge, and
2) Engaging in accommodation, which involves changing one’s beliefs to fit the new experience.
What is a mild, everyday form of awe?
Chills
Knowledge emotions
A family of emotions associated with learning, reflecting, and exploring. These emotions come about when unexpected and unfamiliar events happen in the environment. Broadly speaking, they motivate people to explore unfamiliar things, which builds knowledge and expertise over the long run.
What is classical conditioning?
What stimuli can be used in classical conditioning?
A learning process where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus, eventually triggering a similar response.
A wide range of signals like tones, lights, tastes, and settings.
What was Ivan Pavlov’s famous experiment?
Pavlov rang a bell before giving a dog food, and after repeated pairings, the dog began salivating at the sound of the bell alone.
What does Pavlovian conditioning demonstrate?
It shows how animals (and humans) can learn to associate neutral signals with important events, changing their behavior.
What is an unconditioned stimulus (US)?
A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without any learning, like food making a dog salivate.
What is an unconditioned response (UR)?
A natural, instinctual reaction to an unconditioned stimulus, like salivating when presented with food.
What is a conditioned stimulus (CS)?
A previously neutral signal that gains importance after being paired with an unconditioned stimulus, such as a bell in Pavlov’s experiment.
What is a conditioned response (CR)?
A learned response to a conditioned stimulus, like salivating in response to the sound of a bell.
How does a conditioned response (CR) differ from an unconditioned response (UR)?
The conditioned response is similar to the unconditioned response but occurs after learning and is triggered by the conditioned stimulus.
In Pavlov’s experiment, what role does the bell play?
The bell is the conditioned stimulus (CS) that, after being paired with food (US), causes the dog to salivate (CR).
Give an example of a conditioned response (CR) in everyday life.
Feeling hungry when seeing a fast food logo, even though no food is present.
What is operant conditioning?
A type of learning where a behavior is associated with the occurrence of a significant event, like a rat pressing a lever to receive food.
aka instrument conditioning
Who first studied operant conditioning?
Edward Thorndike, and later extended by B.F. Skinner.
What is an operant behavior?
A voluntary action that operates on the environment, such as a rat pressing a lever to obtain food.
What is a “Skinner box”?
A laboratory apparatus used to study operant conditioning, where a rat presses a lever to receive food.
How is operant conditioning different from classical conditioning?
Operant conditioning associates a behavior with a consequence, whereas classical conditioning associates a stimulus with a response.
How does reinforcement work in operant conditioning with the rat example?
In operant conditioning, once the rat realizes that pressing the lever results in receiving food, the behavior becomes reinforced. The food acts as a reinforcer, strengthening the rat’s behavior of pressing the lever to receive the reward, similar to how a shortcut in a video game reinforces repeating the same path for a better outcome.
What is an operant behavior in operant conditioning?
Operant behavior is a voluntary action that “operates” on the environment. It is an action the animal itself makes, like a rat pressing a lever to receive food, which produces a significant consequence.
What does Thorndike’s law of effect state in operant conditioning?
Thorndike’s law of effect states that behaviors followed by positive (satisfying) effects are more likely to be repeated, while behaviors followed by negative (painful/annoying) consequences are less likely to be repeated.
Positive effects are called reinforcers, and negative effects are referred to as punishers.
What is the key difference between operant and classical conditioning regarding behavior?
Operant conditioning studies how consequences influence voluntary behavior, such as a rat choosing to press a lever. Classical conditioning, by contrast, involves involuntary behavior, such as a dog drooling when it hears a bell.
What is the difference in how responses are triggered in classical versus operant conditioning?
In classical conditioning, the response (e.g., salivation) is elicited by a stimulus that comes before it.
In operant conditioning, the animal behaves as if it has learned to associate a behavior with a significant event.
In operant conditioning, the behavior (e.g., lever pressing) is not triggered by any particular stimulus but is emitted, highlighting that operant behaviors are voluntary in nature.
What is taste aversion conditioning, and why is it clinically relevant?
Taste aversion conditioning occurs when a flavor becomes associated with illness, leading to its avoidance. For example, someone who gets sick after drinking tequila may develop a strong dislike for its taste and smell. This is clinically relevant in cases like chemotherapy, where patients often develop aversions to foods or places associated with their treatment-induced nausea.
How does classical conditioning relate to anxiety disorders in humans?
Classical conditioning can create fear and anxiety when neutral cues are paired with traumatic events.
For example, if a tone is played before a mild shock to a rat’s feet, the tone will later elicit fear. In humans, similar conditioning occurs with cues like closed spaces, which become associated with panic attacks, contributing to anxiety disorders such as phobias and panic disorders.
Here, rather than a physical response (like drooling), the CS triggers an emotion.
How can classical conditioning influence responses to drugs?
Classical conditioning can cause drug-associated cues (e.g., smells, environments) to elicit conditioned compensatory responses.
For example, if someone regularly takes morphine, a cue signaling the drug’s imminent arrival may make the person more sensitive to pain. This happens because the body anticipates the drug’s effect, preparing by increasing pain sensitivity, which can reduce the drug’s overall impact (Siegel, 1989).
What are the implications of conditioned compensatory responses for drug users?
Conditioned compensatory responses can lead to increased drug tolerance in familiar environments, making users more vulnerable to overdose when taking drugs in new settings without those cues.
This can result from the body not anticipating the drug’s effects, as the familiar cues that typically elicit compensatory responses are absent.
Additionally, conditioned compensatory responses (which include heightened pain sensitivity and decreased body temperature, among others) discomfort caused by these responses may motivate continued drug use to alleviate them, highlighting the role of classical conditioning in drug addiction and dependence.
How do classical cues affect a rat that has learned to press a lever for drugs?
If cues signal that the drug is coming soon, like the sound of a lever squeaking, the rat will press the lever more persistently than if those cues weren’t present.
What is the final effect of classical cues on operant behavior?
Classical cues can motivate ongoing operant behavior, making the subject work harder for a reward when those cues signal that the reward is coming soon.
How do food-associated cues influence behavior in operant conditioning?
In the presence of food-associated cues (e.g., smells), a rat or even a human will work harder to obtain food.
What effect do negative cues, like fear signals, have on behavior in operant conditioning?
In the presence of negative cues, such as signals of fear, organisms like rats or humans will work harder to avoid situations that might lead to trauma.
How do classical conditioned stimuli (CS) contribute to behavior?
Classical CSs can motivate organisms to work harder for rewards or to avoid negative outcomes, influencing significant behavioral phenomena.
How does the blocking effect illustrate the importance of surprise in classical conditioning?
The blocking effect shows that a US needs to be surprising for an association to be learned, and if a stimulus already predicts the US, the introduction of a new stimulus alongside it won’t result in new learning.
In the blocking effect, why doesn’t the animal learn the association between stimulus B and the US?
The animal doesn’t learn the association between stimulus B and the US because stimulus A already predicts the US, making the US unsurprising when it occurs with stimulus B.
What is the “blocking” effect in classical conditioning?
The blocking effect occurs when an animal first learns to associate one stimulus (CS A) with a US, and then fails to learn an association between a second stimulus (CS B) and the US when both are presented together, because the earlier conditioning of CS A “blocks” the learning of CS B.
What is prediction error?
When the outcome of a conditioning trial is different from that which is predicted by the conditioned stimuli that are present on the trial (i.e., when the US is surprising).
Prediction error is necessary to create Pavlovian conditioning (and associative learning generally). As learning occurs over repeated conditioning trials, the conditioned stimulus increasingly predicts the unconditioned stimulus, and prediction error declines. Conditioning works to correct or reduce prediction error.
Define a conditioned compensatory response.
In classical conditioning, a conditioned response that opposes, rather than is the same as, the unconditioned response.
It functions to reduce the strength of the unconditioned response. Often seen in conditioning when drugs are used as unconditioned stimuli.
What is required for learning to occur through classical conditioning?
There must be a “surprise” or a difference between what the animal expects (based on cues) and what actually happens during the conditioning trial. This difference is called “prediction error.”
What is a “prediction error” in classical conditioning?
A prediction error is the chance that a conditioned stimulus won’t lead to the expected outcome, which is necessary for learning to occur.
Why is prediction error important for classical conditioning?
Prediction error is important because learning happens when the outcome is different from what is expected based on the conditioned stimuli.
What does the phenomenon of blocking in classical conditioning demonstrate about the learning process?
Blocking shows that the learning process prioritizes the most valid predictors of significant events and tends to ignore less useful cues.
For example, if you learn that star-shaped stickers indicate discounted items in a supermarket, you won’t need to learn about another cue (like bright orange star-shaped price tags in a different supermarket) if the first cue already provides sufficient information (they’re already star-shaped so the orange colour has no effect).
What factors contribute to the strength of classical conditioning?
Classical conditioning is strongest when the conditioned stimulus (CS) and unconditioned stimulus (US) are intense or salient, relatively new, and when the organism hasn’t been frequently exposed to them.
What is preparedness in classical conditioning?
Preparedness refers to an organism’s biological inclination to associate specific CS and US based on evolutionary factors.
Because of preparedness, you are more likely to associate the taste of tequila, and not the circumstances surrounding drinking it, with getting sick. Similarly, humans are more likely to associate images of spiders and snakes than flowers and mushrooms with aversive outcomes like shocks.
Why are flavors more likely to be associated with illness rather than visual cues like color?
Rats and humans are naturally inclined to associate illness with flavor because foods are most commonly experienced by taste, making it easier to avoid harmful foods in the future.
What is extinction in classical conditioning, and how is it applied in therapeutic settings?
Extinction occurs when a conditioned stimulus (CS) is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus (US), leading to the conditioned response (CR) being eliminated. For example, if Pavlov rings the bell without providing food, the dog will eventually stop drooling. In therapy, this principle is used to help individuals overcome fears (e.g., showing a person with a fear of spiders pictures of spiders without any negative consequence), allowing the CS to no longer predict the CR (fear).
What is extinction?
Decrease in the strength of a learned behavior that occurs when the conditioned stimulus is presented without the unconditioned stimulus (in classical conditioning) or when the behavior is no longer reinforced (in instrumental conditioning). The term describes both the procedure (the US or reinforcer is no longer presented) as well as the result of the procedure (the learned response declines).
Behaviors that have been reduced in strength through extinction are said to be “extinguished.”
