chapter 5 study guide

Habituation

Learning not to respond to repeated stimuli that tend to be without significance.

Latent learning

A form of learning that is not immediately expressed in overt behavior and occurs without obvious reinforcement.

Insight learning

The solving of problems through perceiving the relationships essential to a solution.

Imprinting

A form of learning where young form an irreversible attachment to a moving object they are first exposed to.

Chaining

The performance of a series of operant responses in a sequence.

Conceptual learning

The highest type of learning involving understanding concepts.

Neurotic behavior

Behavior that can result from increasingly difficult discrimination testing.

Examples of neurotic behavior

Immobility, fear, repetitive behaviors, self-destructive behaviors.

Stress during pregnancy

Can lead to higher levels of stress, anxiety, and depression in offspring.

Behavioral response conditions

Animals respond to a stimulus if it is adequate and the strength of the drive is high enough.

High priority drives

Life preservation and injury avoidance.

Instinct

Another word for innate behavior.

Training process components

Learning, motivation, and socialization are the three components.

Four P's of proper training

Practice, persistence, patience, and praise.

Learned helplessness

Occurs when an animal subjected to an aversive stimulus stops trying to escape due to repeated failures.

Learning

A change in behavior as a result of experience.

Learning curve

A visual representation of learning effectiveness over time.

Selective attention

The ability to focus on relevant stimuli while excluding irrelevant information.

Short term memory

Memory for a brief period; something to remember briefly.

Long term memory

Memory retained for a long period.

Engram

The coded storage of memory in the brain.

Neocortex

The outer layer of the vertebrate brain.

Amygdalae

Small nuclei within the temporal lobe of the vertebrate brain.

Hippocampus

A nucleus within the temporal lobe critical for memory.

Mushroom bodies

Concentrations of neurons in the upper part of the arthropod brain.

Reinforcement

Anything that increases the chance of a behavior happening again.

Consolidation

When short-term memory becomes long-lasting by strengthening brain connections.

Strength of memory

How well or how long something is remembered.

Forgetting

When access to a memory weakens due to lack of reinforcement.

Periodic reinforcement

Rewarding a behavior sometimes to keep it strong.

Memory capacity

How much information an animal can store.

Imprinting

Learning a key feature early in life that becomes permanent.

Critical period

A short time during which imprinting or special learning must occur.

Habituation and sensitization

Habituation: getting used to something harmless; Sensitization: becoming more responsive to an intense stimulus.

Conditioning

Building a learned association between two events.

Classical conditioning

When an animal associates a relevant stimulus with an irrelevant one.

Operant conditioning

Learning to operate an environmental feature to produce a consequence.

Clicker

A small device that makes a sound, paired with a reward.

Shaping

Training that occurs step by step toward a complex behavior.

Positive reinforcement

Adding something pleasant to increase a behavior.

Negative reinforcement

Removing something unpleasant to increase a behavior.

Punishment

Any consequence that decreases a behavior.

Positive punishment

Adding something unpleasant after a behavior to decrease that behavior.

Positive punishment in companion animals

Can stop the behavior temporarily but does not teach the animal what they did wrong.

Trial and error

Trying different solutions until one works.

Taste aversion learning

Learning to avoid a food after it causes sickness.

Cache retrieval

Finding food that was stored earlier.

Scatter-hoarding

Hiding food in many small spots.

Larder hoard

Storing all foods in one place.

Reforaging

Finding cached food using smell or other cues.

Searching

Looking for food using a rule.

Pilferage

Stealing food from another animal's cache.

Observational learning in octopi

Octopuses can watch and mimic another's performance.

Bats learning from trained bats

Bats learn to catch mealworms by observing trained bats.

Birds and milk bottles

Learning how to open milk bottles for cream.

Cache raiding

Learning to remove cream from the tops of milk bottles.

Migration

Learned and social elements can guide migration routes.

Teaching and learning

One animal changes its behavior to help another learn.

Autoplay

A behavior where an animal plays alone.

Social play

A behavior where animals play in pairs or groups.

Raven and coyote interaction

Ravens can use observational learning to exploit caches of coyotes.

Survival value of learning

Learning helps animals adapt to changes, improving survival and reproduction.