Learning & Memory

Classical Conditioning

A learning process where a neutral stimulus becomes associated with an unconditioned stimulus to elicit a conditioned response.

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without previous conditioning.

Unconditioned Response (UR)

The unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus.

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

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

Conditioned Response (CR)

The learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus.

Delay Conditioning

When the conditioned stimulus precedes and overlaps the unconditioned stimulus, generally resulting in the STRONGEST conditioned response.

Trace Conditioning

Involves presenting and terminating the conditioned stimulus before presenting the unconditioned stimulus, resulting in a WEAKER conditioned response.

Simultaneous Conditioning

A conditioning procedure where the conditioned stimulus and unconditioned stimulus are both presented at the same time, which is LESS effective.

Blocking

A phenomenon where an established conditioned stimulus prevents the association of a new neutral stimulus with the conditioned response.

Stimulus Generalization

The tendency to respond to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus.

Higher-Order Conditioning

A process in which a previously conditioned stimulus is used to condition a new stimulus.

Counterconditioning

A behavioral therapy technique that replaces an undesirable response to a stimulus with a more desirable response.

Systematic Desensitization

A behavioral therapy technique that gradually exposes a person to anxiety-provoking situations while teaching them relaxation techniques.

Reciprocal Inhibition

A process in which one response is inhibited by the occurrence of another response, often used in behavioral therapy to reduce anxiety.

Covert Sensitization

A behavioral therapy technique that involves pairing unwanted behaviors with unpleasant stimuli to reduce their occurrence.

Interventions based on Classical Extinction

In Vivo Exposure with Response Prevention, Flooding, Implosive Therapy, EMDR

EMDR

Based on the assumption that exposure to a trauma can block a neurophysiological adaptive information-processing mechanism.

Implosive Therapy

based on the assumption that certain events (conditioned stimuli) are consistently avoided to reduce anxiety and that prolonged exposure to those events without the unconditioned stimulus will produce extinction of the anxiety response.

Flooding

A therapeutic technique where an individual is exposed to a feared stimulus at full intensity for an extended period, aiming to help them confront and overcome their fear.

In Vivo Exposure with Response Prevention

A behavioral therapy technique that involves exposing individuals to anxiety-provoking situations while preventing their typical avoidance responses, helping them learn to manage their anxiety.

Law of Effect

Thorndike; the principle that responses followed by satisfying outcomes are more likely to be repeated, while those followed by unpleasant outcomes are less likely to recur.

Operant Conditioning

Skinner; A learning process where behaviors are modified based on their consequences, such as rewards or punishments, influencing the likelihood of those behaviors being repeated.

Positive Reinforcement

The addition of a stimulus FOLLOWING a behavior that makes it more likely for the behavior to occur again.

Negative Reinforcement

The removal of an aversive stimulus following a behavior that increases the likelihood of that behavior being repeated.

Punishment

Decreases the behavior it follows

Reinforcement

increase the behavior it follows

Operant Extinction

The process of eliminating a previously reinforced response by consistently withholding reinforcement.

Extinction (response) burst

A temporary increase in the frequency or intensity of a behavior after reinforcement is removed before it eventually decreases.

Primary (unconditioned) reinforcers

stimuli that are inherently desirable and do no depend on experience to acquire reinforcing value; Ex: food and water

Secondary (conditioned) reinforcers

acquire their value only through repeated association with primary reinforcers

Continuous Schedule

The rate of acquisition of a behavior is fastest when the behavior is reinforced on a _____; when reinforcement is presented after each response.

Fixed Interval

reinforcement is delivered after a fixed period of time regardless of the number of responses made. Tend to produce low rates of responding since the number of responses is unrelated to the delivery of reinforcement.

Variable Interval

The interval of time between delivery of reinforcers is in an unpredictable manner from interval to interval. Produces a steady but relatively low rate of response.

Fixed Ratio

a reinforcer is delivered each time the subject makes a specific number of responses. Produces a relatively high, steady rate of responding.

Variable Ratio

reinforcers are provided after a variable number of responses. Produces the highest rates of responding and is the most resistant to extinction.

Matching Law

The correspondence between responding to two or more alternatives and the frequency of reinforcement for responding

Superstitious Behavior

accidental, noncontingent reinforcement can lead to ________.

Stimulus control

when the occurrence of a behavior is affected by the presence of discriminative stimuli

Stimulus Generalization

occurs when similar stimuli elicit the same response.

Response Generalization

reinforcement of a response not only increases the occurrence of that specific response but also the frequency of similar responses.

Escape Conditioning

Maintained by negative reinforcement; a behavior increases because its performance allows the organism to escape an undesirable (aversive) stimuli.

Avoidance Conditioning

maintained by negative reinforcement; the onset of a negative reinforcement is preceded by a cue that signals that the negative reinforcer is about to be applied. The organism learns if it performs the target behavior in the presence of the cue, it can avoid the negative reinforcer all together.

Thinning

the process of reducing proportion of reinforcements

Satiation

the reinforcer has lost its reinforcing value

Fading

the gradual removal of a prompt

Shaping

providing reinforcement only for behaviors that come closer and closer to the desired one.

Chaining

involves establishing a sequence of responses, a behavior chain; the entire sequence of responses is important; three-term contingency

Premack Principle

a high probability behavior is used to reinforce a low probability behavior

Differential Reinforcement

combines positive reinforcement with extinction and involves reinforcing alternative behaviors while ignoring the target behavior.

Habituation

occurs when a punishment loses its effectiveness

Overcorrection

a form of positive punishment that entails applying a penalty following an undesirable behavior in order to eliminate it.

Response cost

An application of negative punishment and involves removing a specific reinforcer each time the target behavior is performed.

Time-out

involves removing all sources of positive reinforcement for a brief, prescribed period of time following a behavior in order to decrease that behavior.

Social Skills training

used to improve communication, assertiveness, problem-solving, and other socially adaptive skills.

Functional behavioral assessment

conducted to determine the purpose of an undesirable behavior and identify more desirable substitute behaviors that serve the same purpose.

Latent Learning (Tolman)

A type of learning that occurs without reinforcement and is not immediately reflected in behavior.

Insight Learning (Kohler)

reflects an internal cognitive restructuring of the perceptual field (environment) that enhances the organism’s ability to achieve its goals.

Observational Learning (Bandura)

Learning that occurs through observing the behaviors of others rather than through direct experience.

Self-Efficacy

An individual's belief in their ability to succeed in a particular situation or accomplish a task.

Learned Helplessness Model

the tendency to give up any effort to control events in the environment; Depression occurs when a person makes Internal, Stable, and Global attributions for negative events.

Rational-emotive behavior therapy (REBT)

developed by Ellis; conceptualizes emotions and behaviors in terms of a chain of events —- A-B-C.

Cognitive Therapy/ Cognitive behavioral therapy

developed by beck; help clients identify and alter dysfunctional and distorted assumptions.

Cognitive Distortion

Systematic errors in thinking that lead to negative interpretations of events.

Schema

Cognitive structures that help individuals organize and interpret information.

Automatic Thoughts

“surface level cognitions” that “intercede between an event or stimulus and the individual’s emotional and behavioral reactions.

Cognitive triad

Depression involves a negative view of oneself, the world, and the future.

Collaborative Empiricism

involves developing a collaborative therapist-client relationship and gathering evidence to test hypotheses about the client’s beliefs and assumptions.

Self-instructional training (Meichenbaum)

originally used to help impulsive and hyperactive children perform academic and other tasks more successfully by teaching them to interpolate adaptive, self-controlling thoughts between a stimulus situation and their response to that situation.

Stress Inoculation (Meichenbaum)

designed to help people deal with stress by increasing their coping skills; 3 phases: 1. conceptualization phase 2. skills acquisition and rehearsal phase 3. application and follow-through phase.

Self-control therapy (Rehm)

a brief form of therapy that is usually conducted as a group therapy. Based on the assumption that deficits in three aspects of self-control increase a person’s vulnerability to depression….

Self-monitoring, self-evaluation, and self-reinforcement.

Lewinsohn’s Behavioral Model

attributes depression to a low rate of response-contingent reinforcement due to inadequate reinforcing stimuli in the environment and/or the individual’s lack of skills in obtaining reinforcement.

Biofeedback

the target is usually a physiological response that is considered involuntary… based on operant conditioning.

Best approach for migraines

a combination of thermal biofeedback and autogenic training (relaxation)

Sensory memory

provides a brief storage of sensory stimuli, retained for no more than a few seconds.

short-term memory

holds a limited amount of information and will fade within 30 seconds without rehearsal

primary memory

STM consists of ________ and working memory. average capacity of STM is between 5 and 9 (7 +- 2)

Long-term memory

capacity is unlimited, encoding is largely semantic.

Serial position effect

when people are asked to recall a list of items immediately after reading the list, the items in the beginning and end of are recalled much better than those in the middle.

Primacy effect

occurs because words at the beginning of the list have already by rehearsed and are stored in LTM.

Recency effect

occurs because items at the end of the list are still in STM.

Levels-of-processing model

Proposes that differences in memory are due to differences between three levels of processing: structural, phonemic, and semantic

Procedural memory

stores information about how to do things and is used to acquire, retain, and employ perceptual, cognitive, and motor skills and habits.

Declarative Memory

mediates the acquisition of facts and other information (“learning that or what”) and is further subdivided into semantic and episodic memory.

Semantic memory

includes general knowledge that is independent of any context and is responsible for the storage of facts, rules, and concepts

Episodic (autobiographical) memory

consists of information about events that have been personally experienced.

Flashbulb memories

vivid, detailed images of what one was doing at the time a dramatic event occurred.

Prospective memory

responsible for the capacity to remember to do things in the future.

Baddeley’s Multi-component model of working memory

consists of a central executive and three subsystems —- the phonological loop, the visuo-spatial sketchpad, and the episodic buffer.

Trace decay Theory

learning produces a ____, or engram, which is a physiological change in the brain that ____ over time as a result of disuse.

Interference Theory

A theory proposing that forgetting occurs due to the interference of previously or subsequently learned information.

Retroactive Interference

when RECENTLY learned (new) material interferes with the recall of previously learned (old) material.

Proactive Interference

occurs when PRIOR (old) learning interferes with the learning or recall of subsequent (new) material.

State-Dependent Learning

When information is more easily recalled in the same context or state in which it was learned.

Elaborative Rehearsal

A technique for transferring memories from short-term to long-term memory by relating new information to existing knowledge.

Yerkes-Dodson Law

the relationship between arousal and learning assumes the shape of an inverted-U. It is also affected by task difficulty.