Unit 4- Thinking & Learning

AP Psychology

Behavioral perspective

Psychological approach studying behavior as impacted by the environment

Classical conditioning

Associative learning where one previously meaningless object/event becomes associated with a naturally occurring behavior

Neural stimulus

A previously meaningless thing, the thing that will become paired with the unconditioned response.

Ex: the bell

Unconditioned stimulus

Something that naturally produces a behavior, instinctual

Ex: the food

Unconditioned response

Automatic response due to the unconditioned stimulus (innate)

Ex: salivating

Conditioned stimulus

Called acquisition

NS is considered the CS when the NS and UCS are paired.

UCS no longer has to be present

Ex: the bell

Conditioned response

Behavior in response to the now-paired CS

Same as UCR but the new stimulus triggers it

Ex: salivating

Acquisition

The stage where the NS is now paired with the CR after being paired with the UCR many times

In the CS stage

Higher/second order conditioning

Pairing another neural stimulus with the already paired conditioned stimulus.

Ex: Getting bit = afraid of dog AND dog barking sound

Extinction

Process of weakening or eliminating a learned behavior by withholding the UCS

Spontaneous recovery

Resurface of the previously extinguished CR after a period of time

Stimulus discrimination

Distinguishing between learned (similar) stimuli

Ex: if dogs only salivated to the exact bell tone used in the study

Stimulus generalization

Responding to similar stimuli to the CS

Ex: dogs salivating when they heard all bells

Biological preparedness

Our bodies are divas and are more likely to make connections if they affect our survival.

Taste aversion learning (“Garcia Effect”)

We avoid foods we’ve associated with sickness (yeah, shocker)

Operant conditioning

Consequences and rewards, pair after the behavior happened

Law of Effect 

Woah, groundbreaking, earthshaking discovery

Punished behaviors= less frequent, rewarded behaviors= more frequent

Skinner box

Bar/key animal can press to get a reward

To study frequencies

(Crazy! Not animal abuse this time, I’m so proud)

Little Albert Experiment

Aka child abuse!

Watson makes a loud noise every time the baby reached for a rat, so baby associated the rat with a loud noise and starts hating all fuzzy animals (stimulus generalization)

Shaping

Slooooooooowwwwllllyyyyyyy reinforcing succeeding approximations (behaviors getting closer to the one you want)

Instinctive drift 

Learners drifting back to instinctual behavior instead of the learned one (probably because they stopped getting rewards- JIPPED!!)

Primary reinforcers

Naturally satisfies an instinctive need

Secondary reinforcers 

We learned that we need it, and NOW we want it. (Like money and stuff)

Positive reinforcement

Adding something to increase a behavior (giving a treat)

Negative reinforcement

Taking something away to increase a behavior (removing a grounding)

Positive punishment

Adding something to decrease behavior (spray bottle)

Negative punishment

Taking something away to decrease behavior (taking a phone)

Continuous reinforcement

Get a reward every time a specific behavior is presented (if you’re using treats, that kid’s gonna be a little chubby)

Intermittent reinforcement schedules

Give a reward sometimes when a specific behavior is presented (MAN I would hate that…)

Fixed-ratio

Reward after behavior has been done a certain amount of times

Has a high response rate

Variable-ratio

Reward behavior after an unpredictable amount of times

Steady level of behavior

Fixed-interval

Reward after a set amount of time

Low amount of desired behavior until it nears the time of the reward

Variable-interval

Reward after a random amount of time

Steady level of behavior