AP psych terms

Learning

A relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience.

Associative learning

Learning that involves making connections between two events.

Stimulus

Any event or situation that evokes a response.

Respondent behavior

Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus.

Operant behavior

Behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences.

Cognitive learning

Learning that involves mental processes and may occur without direct experience.

Ivan Pavlov

Russian physiologist known for his research in classical conditioning.

Classical conditioning

A type of learning in which one learns to link two or more stimuli and anticipate events.

John B. Watson

Psychologist who established the psychological school of behaviorism.

Behaviorism

The view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes.

Neutral stimulus (NS)

A stimulus that does not initially trigger a response.

Unconditioned stimulus (US)

A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response.

Unconditioned response (UR)

The unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus.

Conditioned stimulus (CS)

An originally neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a conditioned response.

Conditioned response (CR)

The learned response to a previously neutral stimulus.

Acquisition

The initial stage of learning when a response is first established.

Higher-order conditioning

A procedure in which theCS in one conditioning experience is paired with a new NS, creating a second (often weaker) CS.

Extinction

The diminishing of a conditioned response when a US does not follow a CS.

Spontaneous recovery

The reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response.

Generalization

The tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the CS to elicit similar responses.

Discrimination

The learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli.

Preparedness

The species-specific biological predisposition to learn in certain ways but not others.

John Garcia

Psychologist known for his work on taste aversion and biological constraints on conditioning.

Operant conditioning

A type of learning where behavior is controlled by consequences.

B.F. Skinner

Psychologist known for his work in operant conditioning.

Edward Thorndike

Psychologist known for the Law of Effect, which explains how behaviors are influenced by consequences.

Law of effect

The principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences are more likely to occur.

Operant chamber

A box for training animals in operant conditioning.

Reinforcement

Any event that strengthens or increases the frequency of a preceding response.

Shaping

Gradually guiding behavior toward closer approximations of the desired behavior.

Discriminative stimulus

A stimulus that elicits a response after association with reinforcement.

Positive reinforcement

Adding a desirable stimulus to increase a behavior.

Negative reinforcement

Removing an aversive stimulus to increase a behavior.

Primary reinforcer

An innately reinforcing stimulus.

Conditioned reinforcer

A stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through association with a primary reinforcer.

Reinforcement schedule

A rule stating how and when a desired response will be reinforced.

Continuous reinforcement schedule

Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs.

Partial (intermittent) reinforcement schedule

Reinforcing a response only part of the time.

Fixed-ratio schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses.

Variable-ratio schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response after an unpredictable number of responses.

Fixed-interval schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified time has elapsed.

Variable-interval schedule

A reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable time intervals.

Punishment

An event that decreases the behavior that it follows.

Instinctive drift

The tendency of learned behavior to gradually revert to biologically predisposed patterns.

Robert Rescorla

Psychologist known for his work on the cognitive aspects of classical conditioning.

Edward Tolman

Psychologist who developed the theory of cognitive maps.

Cognitive map

A mental representation of the layout of one's environment.

Latent learning

Learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it.

Insight learning

The sudden realization of a problem's solution.

Observational learning

Learning by observing others.

Modeling

The process of observing and imitating a specific behavior.

Albert Bandura

Psychologist noted for his work on social learning and the Bobo doll experiment.

Mirror neurons

Neurons that fire both when an action is performed and when the same action is observed.

Prosocial behavior

Positive, constructive, helpful behavior.

Antisocial behavior

Negative, destructive, harmful behavior.