Learning, Biology, & the Brain

These flashcards cover key concepts from the lecture about learning, biology, and the brain, including definitions of important terms and phenomena related to the psychology of learning.

Taste Aversion Learning

A phenomenon where a food item becomes a warning stimulus for sickness after causing illness.

Classical Conditioning

A learning process in which a neutral stimulus becomes associated with a meaningful stimulus, producing a learned response.

One-Trial Acquisition (OTA)

A form of learning where a change in behavior occurs after only one association.

Blocking

A phenomenon in learning where prior learning of a stimulus prevents the association of a new stimulus with the same response due to limited associative strength.

Natural Selection

The process by which individuals with favorable traits are more likely to survive and reproduce, leading to the evolution of species.

Behavioral Plasticity

The ability of an organism to change its behavior in response to environmental changes, shaped by natural selection.

Cognitive Abilities

The mental capabilities such as memory, problem-solving, and decision-making that have evolved to address environmental challenges.

Hebbian Learning

A theory stating that an increase in the synaptic strength arises from the repeated and persistent stimulation of one neuron by another.

Stimulus-Response Learning

The ability to automatically respond to a specific stimulus by performing a particular behavior.

Reinforcement Systems

Physiological mechanisms that detect reinforcing stimuli and strengthen the connections between neurons related to those stimuli.

Classical versus Instrumental Conditioning

Classical conditioning involves reinforcement that is independent of the organism's behavior, while instrumental conditioning is based on the organism's actions producing reinforcement.

Ventral and Dorsal Stream

The ventral stream is involved in object recognition, and the dorsal stream is involved in locating objects in space.