Psych - Chapter 2 (M-21,22,23)

Learning Unit

Learning

The process of acquiring through experience new and relatively enduring information or behaviors.

Associative Learning

Learning that certain certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical condition) or a response and its consequence (as in operant conditioning).

Stimulus

Any event or situation that evokes a response in an organism.

Respondent Behavior

Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus.

Operant Behavior

Behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences.

Cognitive Learning

The acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language.

Classical Conditioning

A type of learning in which we link two or more stimuli; as a result, to illustrate Pavlov’s classic experiment, the first stimulus (the tone) comes to elicit behavior (drooling) in anticipation of the second stimulus (food).

Behaviorism

The view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes. It focuses on observable behaviors as the primary subject of psychological research.

Neutral Stimulus (NS)

In classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning.

Unconditioned Response (UR)

In classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as salivation) to an unconditioned stimulus (such as food in the mouth).

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

In classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally — naturally and automatically — triggers an unconditioned response (ex. the food was the unconditioned stimulus because it naturally caused the dogs to salivate).

Conditioned Response (CR)

In classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus.

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

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

Acquisition

In classical conditioning, the initial stage — when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response. (In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response.)

Higher-Order Conditioning

A procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker), conditioned stimulus. For example, an animal that has learned that a light predicts the tone and begin responding to the light alone. (Also called second-order conditioning.)

Extinction

In classical conditioning, the diminishing of a conditioned response — when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus. (In operant conditioning, when a response is no longer reinforced.)

Spontaneous Recovery

The reappearance, after a pause, of a weakened conditioned response.

Generalization

(Also called stimulus generalization) in classical conditioning the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses. (In operant conditioning, when responses learned in one situation occur in another, similar situations.)

Discrimination

In classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and similar stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus. (In operating conditioning, the ability to distinguish responses that are reinforced from similar responses that are not reinforced.)