Psychology of Learning Exam 4 Study Terms & Definitions

What is a concurrent schedule of reinforcement?

Two or more reinforcement schedules that operate simultaneously and independently, each for a different response.

An example of a concurrent schedule is when a person has a choice between two or more schedules of reinforcement.

Watching TV, while talking on the phone and surfing the net. You could be rewarded for any behaviour at any point in time - thus those three reward schedules are overlapping and concurrent.

When given a choice between two variable-ratio schedules of reinforcement, an animal will begin choosing to the schedule with the lowest number of responses needed on average.

For example, On a concurrent VR 50 VR 100 schedule of reinforcement, a pigeon would likely (once it has enough experience) show exclusive preference for the VR 50 alternative.

What is the matching law?

The principle is that the proportion of responses emitted on a particular schedule matches the proportion of reinforcers obtained on that schedule.

If Ryan obtains 80% of his sales from client A and 20% from client B, the matching law predicts that he will choose to spend ___ of his time with client A.

80%

The matching law predicts that 86% of responses should be emitted on the VI 10-sec alternative and 14% on the VI 60-sec alternative. In reality, a pigeon emits 75% on the VI 10-sec alternative and 25% on the VI 60-sec alternative. This appears to be an example of ________.

undermatching

What is a changeover delay?

a delay imposed between an organism's switch between alternative responses and the presentation of reinforcement

What analogy did we use in class of the changeover delay?

An animal has to travel a certain distance from one food patch to another. In general, food patches that are separated by a very great distance will produce overmatching, while food patches that are separated by a very short distance will produce undermatching.

On a concurrent schedule, one alternative attracts a higher proportion of responses than would be predicted by matching, regardless of which has a richer schedule. This demonstrates how ____ can influence preference.

bias

If a deer has a sore hoof, it will likely choose to stay in one field more because the effort needed to move to a second field would be too great. This is an example of ______.

overmatching

According to the matching law, where a pigeon has to press colored keys to receive food, the percentage of responses emitted on a green key should have been 25% under one condition of the experiment and 55% under another condition of the experiment. The respective percentages were instead 35% and 70%. This is an example of _____.

bias

When an organism shifts its behavior toward higher value alternatives without regard to the effect on the overall level of reinforcement. This behavior is happening according to the ___________ theory.

melioration

What are the ways melioration can reduce overall reinforcement?

Responding too much on alternatives that do not require it, overconsumption of and habituation to highly valued reinforcers, and responding too much on alternatives that provide immediate reinforcement.

Traditional explanations of self-control by using the term "willpower" has circular reasoning because

it does not explain anything and is too often merely a description of a particular behavior pattern.

What is impulsiveness?

The trait of acting without reflection and without thought to the consequences of the behavior. An abrupt inclination to act (and the inability to resist acting) on certain behavioral urges.

What is a pattern of delay functions from impulsiveness?

In general, deeply scalloped delay functions are indicative of a tendency toward impulsiveness.

What is delay of gratification?

The ability to resist the temptation for an immediate reward and wait for a later reward

How can you increase self-control?

Depriving and Satiating

Doing Something Else

Self-Reinforcement and Self-Punishment

What is observational learning?

Learning by observing others

Sally and ten friends are studying for their upcoming final exam in Psychology of learning. When sally yawns, this creates a chain reaction of yawning. This is an example of _________.

contagious behavior

Jessica laughs out loud at a joke she read on facebook. One by one, her friends around her start giggling even though they aren't sure why Jessica is laughing. This is an example of _______.

contagious behavior

Contagious behavior is a more-or-less instinctive or reflexive behavior triggered by the occurrence of the same behavior in another individual.

For example, someone yawning. the tendency to imitate a new modeled behavior in the absence of any specific reinforcement for doing so.

Fear responses and orienting responses are also examples of ___________.

contagious behavior

What is stimulus enhancement?

The probability of behavior is changed because an individual's attention is drawn to a particular item or location by behavior of another individual

Animals can also use scent marking at food sites as a means of ___________.

stimulus enhancement

Jim notices a table of free cups and lanyards only when another student enters into the clinic waiting room. This is an example of ______________.

stimulus enhancement

What is a vicarious emotional response?

Whatever emotion a person manifests that is caused by the expression of another person's emotion.

When are we more likely to attend to a model?

If a model's behavior is reinforced, an observer is more likely to attend to the behavior.

We gradually learn new information through the use of _____ and ______. This tells us when behaviors should and shouldn't occur.

acquisition; performance

What is an example of true imitation?

A parrot reciting the words of its owner.

What is generalized imitation?

A tendency to imitate a new modeled behavior with no specific reinforcement for doing so

Describe the Bandura Bobo doll study.

The experiment was executed via a team of researchers who physically and verbally abused an inflatable doll in front of preschool-age children, which led the children to later mimic the behaviour of the adults by attacking the doll in the same fashion.

From the Bobo doll studies conducted by Bandura, it was discovered that

-Males are more likely to exhibit aggressive behaviors.

-If they witnessed violent behavior, they were likelier to imitate it.

-If they did not see aggression modeled, they did not exhibit it.

Rule-governed behavior is often less efficient than behavior that has been directly shaped by natural contingencies.

For example, someone who has been taught to give a shot vs someone who has to give a shot to their mom daily.

A reliable person has most likely been trained to exhibit a strong level of _____________.

say-do correspondence

During a childhood camping trip, Barney was startled by a snake and became terrified of snakes. Over the years, he has been shocked on the hand from his phones charger. Now he feels slightly uncomfortable when handling the charger. This difference in the level of fear that is caused by the two demonstrates ____________________.

preparedness

What is biological preparedness?

The idea that organisms are biologically predisposed to quickly learning associations between stimuli, responses, and reinforcers

If Mary eats turkey while also feeling nauseous because of a developing stomach flu, it is likely that taste aversion will likely occur and what will result?

She will avoid eating turkey in the future.

When you are more likely to associate relatively novel food with sickness than familiar item, this is known as _____________.

latent inhibition

______ also explains why we are more likely to associate a new unusual taste with illness than something familiar.

Latent inhibition

How many trials does it typically take for taste aversion conditioning to occur?

1 trial

According to the concept of species-specific defense reaction, rats easily learn to run or freeze to avoid painful stimulation, simply because running and freezing are ___________ that are natural reactions in dangerous situations.

elicited behaviors

What is instinctive drift?

The tendency of learned, reinforced behavior to gradually return to a more innate behavior.

In instinctive drift, behavior that is being _____ comes to be replaced by a classically conditioned fixed action pattern.

shaped

In the study by Breland and Breland the rooting that occurred to the coin was a ______.

conditioned response

The tendency of an organism to approach a stimulus that signals the presentation of an appetitive event is known as ________.

sign tracking

The fact that pigeons peck a key differently when the reinforcer is food as opposed to water is most readily explained in terms of Pavlov's ______________ theory.

stimulus substitution

____________________ is an excessive pattern of behavior that emerges as a by-product of an intermittent schedule of reinforcement for some other behavior.

Adjunctive behavior (schedule induced behavior)

What is schedule-induced polydipsia?

The high levels of water consumption following food reinforcement on an interval schedule.