Psychology - From Inquiry to Understanding - Chapter 6: Learning

Learning

change in an organism's behavior or thought as a result of experience

Habituatuion

Process of responding less strongly over time to a repeated stimulus

Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)

Stimulus that elicits an automatic response

(UCS removed when conditioned)

Unconditioned response UCR)

Automatic response to a non-neutral stimulus that does not need to be learned

Conditioned response (CR)

Response previously associated with a non-neutral stimulus that is elicited by a neutral stimulus through conditioning

Condition stimulus (CS)

Initially neutral stimulus

Equipotentiality

Assumption that any conditioned stimulus can be associated equally well with any unconditioned stimulus

Acquisition

Learning phase during which a conditioned response is established

Extinction

Gradual reduction and eventual elimination of the conditioned response after the conditioned stimulus is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus ie Food

Spontaneous recovery

Sudden reemergence of an extinct conditioned response after a delay in exposure to the conditioned stimulus

renewal effect

Sudden re-emergence of a conditioned response following extinction when an animal is returned to the environment in which the conditional response was required

Stimulus generalisation

Process by which a conditioned response becomes associated with a stimulus that is similar but not identical to the original conditioned stimulus

Stimulus discrimination

Displaying a less pronounced conditioned response to conditioned stimuli that differ from the original conditioned stimulus

Higher-order conditioning

Developing a conditioned response to a conditioned stimulus by virtue of its association with another conditioned stimulus (adding in another stimulus to achieve the conditioned response)

Latent inhibition

Difficulty in establishing classical conditioning to a conditioned stimulus we've repeatedly experienced alone, that is, without the unconditioned stimulus

Fetishism

Sexual attraction to nonliving things

Pseudoconditioning

An apparent conditioned response that actually turns out to be an unconditioned response to the conditioned stimulus (false conditioned result)

Operant conditioning

Learning controlled by the consequences of the organism's behavior

Law of effect

Principal asserting that if a stimulus followed by behaviour results in a reward, the stimulus is more likely to elicit the behaviour in the future (Conditioning)

Insight

Grasping the nature of a problem

Skinner Box

Small animal chamber constructed by Skinner to allow sustained periods of conditioning to be administered and behaviors to be recorded unsupervised

Reinforcement

Outcome or consequence of a behaviour that strengthens the probability of the behaviour

Positive reinforcement

Positive outcome or consequence of a behaviour that strengthens the probability of the behaviour

Negative reinforcement

Taking something away - Removal of a negative outcome or consequence of a behaviour that strengthens the probability of the behaviour

Punishment

Outcome or consequence of a behaviour that weakens the probability of the behaviour

Discriminative Stimulus (SD)

Stimulus associated with the presence of reinforcement (perform a task for for a reward)

Schedule of reinforcement

Pattern of reinforcing behaviour

Partial reinforcement

Only occasional reinforcement of a behaviour, resulting in slower extinction than if the behaviour had been reinforced continually

Fixed ratio (FR) schedule

Pattern in which we provide reinforcement following a regular number of responses

Variable ratio (VR) shcedule

Pattern in which we provide reinforcement after a specific number of responses on average, with the number varying randomly

Fixed interval (FI) schedule

Pattern in which we provide reinforcement for producing the response at least once following a specified time interval

Variable interval (VI) schedule

Pattern in which we provide reinforcement for producing the response at least once during an average time interval, with the interval varying randomly

Shaping

Conditioning a target behaviour by progressively reinforcing behaviours that come closer and closer to the target

Premack principle

Principle that a less frequently performed behaviour can be increased in frequency by reinforcing it with more frequent behaviour; ie eating ice cream after eating less desirable spinach

Secondary reinforcers

Neutral object that people can trade in for reinforcers themselves (ie Token Economy)

Latent reinforcers

Items or outcomes that are naturally pleasurable ie favourite food

Latent learning

Learning that is not directly observable

Cognitive maps

Mental representations of how a physical space is organised within your memory (helps us to acquire, code, store, recall, and decode through cues

Observation learning

Learning by watching others

Mirror neurons

Neurons in the brain that are activated when one observes another individual engage in an action and when one performs a similar action (Monkey see monkey do)

Preparedness

Evolutionary predisposition to learn some pairings of feared stimuli over others owing to their survival value

Learning Styles

Individuals' preferred or optimal method of acquiring new information

A change in an organisms behaviour or thoughts as a result of experience is called _____________________.

Conditioning

The process of ____________________ occurs when we respond less strongly over time to repeated stimuli

Habituation

Identify the steps of the classical conditioning model used in Pavlov's dogs research

1. Apply a Conditional stimulus (CS) - Metronome, with an unconditional stimulus (UCS) - Food to produce the Unconditioned response (UCR) salivation

2. Remove the UCS - Food and present the metronome to produced the Conditioned Reponse (CR) Salivation without the presentation of food

If the dog continues to salivate at the sound of the metronome when the meat powder is absent, Psychologist call this process ____________________ ____________________

Respondent conditioning

The learning phase during which a conditioned response is established is called ____________________

Acquisition

After numerous presentations of the metronome without meat powder, Pavlov's dogs eventually stopped salivating: this is the process of

Extinction

A sudden re-emergence of an extinguished conditioned response after a delay in exposure to the conditioned stimulus is called ____________________ ____________________

Spontaneous recovery

Being able to enjoy a scary movie is an example of stimulus (generalisation/discrimination).

Descrimination

____________________ ____________________ refers to the fact that when we have experienced a Conditional stimulus (CS) by itself many times, it can be difficult to later condition to another stimulus.

Latent inhibition

The basic idea of latent inhibition is that it is often easier to learn something new than to unlearn something familiar.

Describe the methods used by Watson and Rayner to condition fear in Little Albert, and explain why their work couldn't be replicated today for ethical reasons

1. Pairing a stimulus (CS) -fluffy rat to a the sound of a gong (UCS) to elicit the Conditioned Respone (CR)

2. The UCS was removed and the CS was applied to gain a Controlled Response (CR)

3. Stimulus generalisation (fluffy animal)was achieved with a fluffy rabbit and Santa mask for which continued to produce the CR

Seen as unethical as it caused psychological harm to child would not pass the ethics committee

Acquiring behaviours as a result of the outcome or consequence of these behaviours is called ____________________ ____________________ .

Operant conditioning

Although a basic feature of operant conditioning is ___________________ , classical conditioning relies more on association between stimuli and responses. A second distinction is that much of operant conditioning is based on ___________________ behaviour, while classical conditioning often involves involuntary reflexive behaviour.

Reinforcement/Voluntary

In (operant/classical) conditioning, the reward is contingent (dependent on) on behaviour

Operant

Thorndike's findings provided a crushing blow to the hypothesis that cats invariably learn by ___________________ , that is, by grasping the nature of the problem.

Insight - Cats (not specifically humans) were learning by trial and error through build up of association

A physics professor announces to his class that students who are earning 90% or higher in the class don't have to take the midterm. This is an example of (positive/negative) reinforcement

Negative - because you are taking something away

Reinforcement __________________ the probability of a response, whereas punishment __________________ the probability of a response.

Strengthens/Weakens

According to skinner, one disadvantage of punishment is that it often creates __________________ which interferes with future learning

Anxiety

Casino gambling is a prime example of _____________ ____________ schedule.

Variable ratio

Animal trainers often combine the technique of __________________, when they reinforce behaviours that aren't exactly the target behaviour but that are progressively closer versions of it, with __________________, in which they link a number of interrelated behaviours to form a longer series.

Shaping/Fading

One of the most successful applications of apparent conditioning has been the ___________________ _____________________, which is a system, often set up in psychiatric hospitals, for reinforcing appropriate behaviours and extinguishing inappropriate ones

Token economy

Skinner was an advocate of ____________________ behaviourism, in which observable behaviour, thinking and emotion are all governed by the same laws of learning.

Radical

Early behaviorists (believed/didn't believe) that thought played an important casual role in learning.

Didn't believe

In the past few decades, psychology has increasingly moved away from a simple stimulus-response psychology to a more complex _______ psychology, where the link between S and R isn't automatic

S-O-R

Stimulus-Organism-Response psychology. It deals with how an organism will respond to a stimulus.

When talking to employees about their performance why might managers want to adapt their style depending on the person whom they're talking to?

Managers need to take into account individual reactions when offering performance evaluations due to individuals interpretations of what is being said

According to Tolman, the rats in his study had developed spatial representation of the maze termed ____________________ _______________________

Cognitive maps

In classic research in the 1960's___________________ ___________________ and this colleagues demonstrated that children can learn to act aggressively by watching aggressive role models

Albert Bandura

Social Learning Theory posits that people learn from one another, via observation, imitation, and modeling.

Longitudinal studies that correlate the amount of violent TV watched in childhood with the amount of aggressiveness acts committed in adulthood (have/have not) demonstrated causality

Have

Cells in the prefrontal cortex that become activated by specific motions when an animal performs or observes an action are called

Mirror Neurons

Kohler's work with chimpanzees suggested that at least some smart animals can learn through _________________ rather than trial and error

Insight

Conditioned taste aversions typically require (one trial/many trials) to develop

One - due to events such as food poisoning

Explain how health psychologists can help cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy to minimize conditioned taste aversions to their favourite foods

Use a scapegoat food the patient doesn't like so the disgust with the food is identified with the scapegoat food not the one they actually enjoy

Through his research with rats, Garcia helped to demonstrate the ________________ influences on conditioned taste aversions.

Biological - ie associating nausea with taste

The rats in Garcias study more readily associated nausea with _____________ than with any other sensory stimuli.

Taste

Conditioned taste aversions aren't much fun, but they're often ___________________ in the real world. An example would be an animal that develops a conditioned taste aversion to a poisoned food or drink.

Adaptive

Garcia and others challenged the assumptions of __________________, the belief of man behaviourists that we can pair all CSs equally well with all UCSs.

Equipotentiality

Assumption that any conditioned stimulus can be associated equally well with any unconditioned stimulus

According to Seligman, were evolutionarily predisposed to fear certain stimuli more than others by means of _________________

Preparedness - Body's need to stay alive, look out for danger

In Mineka's and Cooks study, the monkeys (acquired/didnt acquire) fears of non dangerous stimuli, such as flowers

Didn't acquire - Predisposition to fear dangerous animals

Mineka's and Cook's study was clearly a case of learning because the monkey's were (afraid/unafraid) of snakes prior to the experiment.

Unafraid

The problem with early findings on sleep-assisted learning is that almost all of the studies showing positive effects didn't monitor participants ________________ to ensure they were asleep while listening takes place

EEG

Explain the extraordinary claims about how sleep-assisted learning works and identify shortcomings in researchers' attempts to validate those claims.

You use 5% of your brain

Information goes into the subconscious mind which doesn't align with theories of conciousness

methods of accelerating learning, such as ________________ ________________ ________________ ________________

Suggestive accelerated learning technique (SALTT)

- Telling students they will learn more quickly
- Getting students to visualise information they are learning
- Playing classical music during learning
- Breathing techniques

SALTT relies on such techniques as getting students to ___________ information they're learning, and playing ___________ music while they're learning.

Visualise/Clasical

Any scattered positive results for SALTT could be due in part to _________________ effects because one of the components of the program is raising learners' expectations

Placebo

When you give students experimental materials and ask them to figure out the scientific principal on their ow, this is know as __________________ _______________

Discovery learning

Klahr and his colleagues have shown that the old-fashioned method of ___________, in which we simply tell students how to solve problems, is often most efficient and effective.

Direct instruction

Individuals' preferred or optimal method of acquiring new information is referred to as _________________ __________________

Learning styles

Studies have generally shown that tailoring different methods to people's learning styles (does/does not) result in enhanced learning

Does not - They need a blend of learning styles