Learning- Psych XI

Learning

any relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential produced by experience

Habituation

an organism's decreasing response to a stimulus with repeated exposure to it

Operants

those behaviours or responses, which are emitted by animals and human beings voluntarily and are under their control.

classical conditioning

a learning process that occurs when two stimuli are repeatedly paired; a response that is at first elicited by the second stimulus is eventually elicited by the first stimulus alone.

Ivan Pavlov

discovered classical conditioning; trained dogs to salivate at the ringing of a bell

Skinner Box

Named for its developer, a box that contains a responding mechanism and a device capable of delivering a consequence to an animal in the box whenever it makes the desired response

conditioned stimulus

it elicits a conditioned response even without the presence of an unconditioned stimulus, once a person learns through classical conditioning.

appetitive stimulus

elicits approach responses of satisfaction and pleasure.

aversive stimulus

elicits avoidance and escape responses.

Reinforcer

any stimulus or event, which increases the probability of the occurrence of a desired response in operant conditioning

reinforcement schedule

it is the arrangement of the delivery of the reinforcement during conditioning trials.

continuous reinforcement

reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs

partial reinforcement

reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement

Extinction (operant conditioning)

disappearance of a learned response due to removal of reinforcement from the situation.

Generalisation

the phenomenon of responding similarly to similar stimuli

Discrimination

a response that is elicited due to difference. it is complimentary of discrimination

observational learning

learning by observing others; also called social learning

cognitive learning

the approach of learning that focuses on processes rather than concentrating on S

Insight Learning (Kohler)

the process by which the solution to a problem suddenly becomes clear.

Latent Learning (Tolman)

when a new behaviour is learned but not demonstrated until reinforcement is provided for displaying it.

cognitive map

a mental representation of the layout of one's environment

Verbal learning

The study of the acquisition and retention of lists by humans in an effort to describe the basic laws of learning

Total time principle

a fixed amount of time is necessary to learn a fixed amount of material, regardless of the number of trials into which that time is divided.

category clustering

recalling words from the same category together, even though they were not presented together

Skill

the ability to perform some complex task smoothly and efficiently.

skill contains

a chain of perceptual motor responses or as a sequence of S

Fitts

gave the most influential account pf phases of skill acquisition

cognitive phase

learner has to understand the instructions and how the task is performed as well as memorise it

associative phase

different sensory inputs/stimuli are linked with appropriate responses in this phase

autonomous phase

the attential demands and interference created by external factors decreases.