Lecture Test 1

Learning Psychology

According to the bio-psychological-social approach, learning theories should be consistent with actual brain structure and function.

T

In Thorndike's research, escape latency was the time that elapsed from when the animal made the escape response to when it ate the fish.

F

In a learning curve the vertical axis shows amount of experience with the learning situation, and the horizontal axis shows some aspect of the learned response.

F

Thorndike shows us how we can study learning without talking about changes in knowledge or information: You arrange for the organism to have a series of experiences, and you measure some change in behavior across experiences.

T

The form of a learning curve provides no insight into the nature of the learning process involved.

F

According to Thorndike, the cat learns that the response enables the animal get out of the box and eat some fish.

F

According to Thorndike, the instrumental response becomes progressively better learned as a result of the strengthening of an S-R connection.

T

According to Thorndike, when the effect occurs, it strengthens a linkage between regions of the brain that process a recently encountered stimulus (sight of latch) and a recently made response (latch operation).

T

According to Thorndike, what produces the response is an expectation of a particular consequence.

F

Learning theories differ in what comes between the stimulus and the response that is responsible for the response to the stimulus.

T

In Pavlovian conditioning, a stimulus comes to elicit a new response.

F

According to Pavlov, the CS (such as tone) produces a response by acting through a different pathway than the US (food in the mouth)

T

According to Pavlov, a new connection is forged when activation of CS and US centers overlap temporally.

T

On each trial of his "latent learning" study, Tolman recorded the time it tool animals to reach the goal box.

F

In the latent learning study, the group that found reward in the goal box from the 11th trial showed a sudden large improvement in performance on the following trial.

T

Tolman concluded that reinforcement was necessary to produce learning.

F

In the latent learning study, the learning by Group 3 was due, not to reinforced practice, but to exposure learning.

T

Organisms that learned spatial relations via exposure learning were more likely to survive, reproduce, and pass on the capability to offspring.

T

On the basis of his latent learning study, Tolman concluded that the role of reinforcers reveal the learning that had taken place.

T

For Tolman, learning involves the development of S-R connections.

F

Simon developed a network model of memory.

T

According to Simon, when a stimulus or situation is presented, the nature of the response that is produced depends on the symbol manipulation model that the stimulus activates.

T

David Rummelhart called his models connectionist models, because the models incorporate some of the most important conceptualizations of Tolman.

F

In a trained artificial neural network, the strengths of connections have been adjusted such that when a particular stimulus is presented the correct response occurs.

T

In an artificial neural network, a stimulus is presented, a response is evoked, feedback is provided regarding whether the response was correct or incorrect, and a progressive strengthening of S-R connections occurs.

T

Neural networks have not led to any important advances.

F

In a neural network, concepts such as golden retrievers and cocker spaniels are represented as distinct and discrete symbols.

F

Contemporary neuroscientists believe that neural nets more accurately describe how the brain represents things, learns, and remembers, than networks of the type Simon described.

T

For Rummelhart, learning is the development of connectionist models.

T

Short-lived changes qualify as instances of learning.

F

We infer learning from changes in knowledge structures and information.

F

Illness, fatigue, and drug receipt can all produce changes in behavior and would be considered instances of learning.

F

In non-associative learning, a change in behavior occurs as a result of the repeated presentation of one relatively isolated stimulus

T

An example of non-associative learning is classical conditioning

F

In associative learning, a change in behavior occurs as a result of the organism associating one stimulus with another stimulus or associating a stimulus with a new response.

T

An example of associative learning is habituation.

F

Habituation and sensitization are non-associative forms of learning.

T

A behavioral definition of a learning process involves identifying relevant stimulus and response events.

T

Conceiving of manipulations that promote an understanding of a learning process becomes straight forward, once the stimulus and response events involved have been identified

T

Habituation is increase in the strength or occurrence of a behavior after repeated exposure to the stimulus that produces the behavior.

F

Sensory adaptation and motor fatigue are forms of habituation.

T

In sensory adaptation, repeated elicitation of the startle response fatigues the muscles that execute the response.

F

Sensory adaptation and response fatigue are peripheral phenomena.

T

Habituation occurs in the central nervous system.

T

In studying a learning process, investigators make the assumption that a large number of methods must be used to identify factors relevant to the process

F

One of the most important things to know about a method of habituation is the animal that is used.

T

Some common methods for studying habituation involve measuring the flexor muscle response to skin stimulation, the vasoconstriction response to tone, the startle response to tone, and the duration of visual fixation to visual stimulation.

T

Habituation does not occur in lower organisms.

F

Habituation occurs in many different response systems, including spinal mediated reflexes, autonomic responses, and central attention responses.

T

Habituation processes are maladaptive, because they induce the organism to ignore or limit the impact of insignificant stimuli.

F

Once we have identified stimulus and response events involved in a learning process, we can vary these events to understand the learning process.

T

Habituation procedures are not useful for revealing the capabilities of nonverbal organisms.

F

Conditions of initial experience are variables that affect the time course of habituation and the form of the habituation learning curve.

T

One important variable that affect acquisition of habituation is the rate of stimulus presentation.

T

In habituation, as the number of S1 presentations increases, the magnitude of the response increases.

F

In habituation, as the intensity of S1 increases, habituation proceeds more quickly.

F

In habituation, as the rate of presentation increases, habituation occurs more quickly

T

Post-exposure phenomena are important habituation-related phenomena that can be observed following habituation to a stimulus.

T

In the case of each post-exposure phenomenon, we habituate a response to a stimulus, perform a manipulation, and then begin to present the stimulus again.

T

In the case of each post-exposure phenomenon, responsiveness to the stimulus remains low following a manipulation.

F

If you were using a habituation method to study a psychological capability, you would not be concerned that postexposure phenomena could confound your results

F

Each of the post-exposure phenomena suggests a tactic for restoring responsiveness, that is, for overcoming inattentiveness and boredom.

T

In spontaneous recovery, the manipulation we perform between trains of S1 presentations is presenting a novel stimulus.

F

Spontaneous recovery suggests that one way to counteract diminished attentiveness is to take a break.

T

In dishabituation, the manipulation we perform between trains of S1 presentations is imposing a delay.

F

A dishabituation manipulation is done at the end of many studies to demonstrate that the reduced responsiveness was not due to sensory adaptation or response fatigue.

T

Dishabituation suggests that one way to counteract diminished attentiveness is to present a novel stimulus.

T

In context dependence, the manipulation we perform between trains of S1 presentations is changing the context.

T

Context dependence suggests that one way to counteract diminished attentiveness is to change settings.

T

The meaning of a formerly insignificant event will not change if it recurs after a delay, if it recurs following a novel event, or if it occurs in a different situation.

F

In habituation, once a response becomes habituated to a particular stimulus, the response to similar stimuli is not affected.

F

During a generalization test, a range of stimuli on the same dimension as the baseline stimulus are presented, and responding to each test stimulus is monitored.

T

Following habituation to a 1000 Hz tone, compared to younger chicks, older chicks showed a smaller response recovery to tones that were similar to 1000 Hz.

F

All of the processes of learning we will talk about in this class are used to investigate other psychological processes, such as brain mechanisms, sensory capabilities, cognitive phenomena, and development.

T

Stimulus generalization suggests that one way to counteract diminished attentiveness is to present a stimulus that is distinguishable from the stimulus to which habituation has occurred, but that is on the same dimension.

T

You could learn little about the mechanisms of learning just by focusing on habituation.

F

In sensitization, experience with an arousing stimulus leads to a strong response to a later stimulus.

T

The procedures involved in the shock-sensitized acoustic startle response and dishabituation are the same.

F

One kind of sensitization procedure involves simply repeatedly presenting a stimulus.

T

Repeated administration of amphetamine produces tolerance.

T

Sensitization is different from habituation because it has both short-lived and longer lasting forms.

F

More presentations of a stimulus are necessary to produce sensitization.

F

An arousing stimulus, such as a shock or a very loud noise, can increase the response to any stimulus that is presented subsequently.

T

When habituation occurs, the diminished responding can generalize to distinctly different stimuli.

F

Both major theories of habituation/sensitization assert that the overt change in behavior is due to two underlying processes.

T

According to dual process theory, depending on the stimulus, either the habituation or the sensitization pathway may be more strongly activated.

T

According to dual process theory, the degree to which habituation and sensitization pathways are activated does not change across repeated presentations of the stimulus.

F

According to dual process theory, the magnitude of the response is due to the summation of habituation and sensitization.

T

Sites of plasticity are places in the nervous system where changes occur that are responsible for a change in performance.

T

Solomon and Corbit believe opponent process theory is applicable only to changes produced by drug administration.

F

According to Solomon and Corbit, an emotional event elicits both an "a" process and a "b" process.

T

According to Solomon and Corbit, after many experiences with an arousing event, the "b" process is elicited more quickly, has a greater intensity, and goes away more slowly.

T

In the habituation of the gill withdrawal response, as siphon touches are repeated, less and less serotonin is released, the motor neuron is activated less and less, and the gill withdrawal response diminishes.

F

In the sensitization of the gill withdrawal response, an interneuron releases glutamate at the synapses between sensory neurons and the motor neuron.

F

In the study involving tactile stimulation of the finger, repeated stimulation of the right index finger increased the sensitivity of the finger and the amount of somatosensory cortex devoted to the finger

T

The research by O'Keefe suggests that changes in place cells may be neural correlates of the development of a cognitive map.

T

An example of applying a sensitization process is using camouflage to hunt.

F

In the study on the development of infant visual acuity, the researchers measured the amount of time infants looked at test gratings of different spatial frequencies

F

In the figure showing the development of infant visual acuity, infant age is along the vertical axis

F

Generally, if you use the right stimulus material, you can figure out many things about animal and infant perception and cognition.

T