PSY100 - Midterm Exam Review

PSY100 Midterm Exam Review

What is the History + Methods of Psychology?

Structuralism

Wilhelm Wundet

• Founded experimental psychology and created thought meter

• Voluntarism: an approach that emphasizes the role of will and choice in determine thoughts, perceptions and behaviors

Edward Tichner

• Structuralism: an approach in where the mind is broken into small sections

  • Sensations, images and feelings

Functionalism

William James

• He coined the term of stream of consciousness, ideas people experience when awake

• Functionalism: an approach that saw behavior as purposeful and contributing to survival

Behaviourism

• Behaviourism: an approach that studies the measurement of observable behaviors

John B. Watson

• Tied psychology to the study of observable behaviors (brain images / reaction times)

Edward Thorndike

• Law of effect: behavior with more pleasant outcomes are more likely to reoccur

B.F Skinner

• Extension of thorndike’s idea in experimentation of how frequent behaviours performed with the Skinner box (reward/punishment)

Humanism

Carl Rogers & Abraham Maslow

• Humanism: An approach that saw people as inherently good and motivated to learn and improve.

Gestalt Psychology

Max Werthemier

• Gestalt Psychology: an approach that saw experience as being different form the sum of its elements

  • Promixit, similarity, continuity, closure and simplicity

Chapter 2 - Research Methods

Objectivity vs Subjectivity

• Objectivity: conclusions are based on facts without influence of emotion of biases

• Subjectivity: conclusions reflect personal pov

What is the role of Theory?

• Theory: a set of facts and relationships that can explain and predict phenomena

• Scientific theories typically explain the relationship between two or more variables

Scientific Theories Must Consist of?

• Testable, Falsifiable, Parsimonious

• Hypothesis: a proposed explanation for situation, usually, taking the form “if A happens then B will result”

What are Examples of Psychological Theories?

• Intergroup Contact Theory (Pettigrew): positive intergroup contact can reduce prejudice toward the out group

• Social Comparison Theory (Festinger): people evaluate their own ability by comparison

• Social Learning Theory (Bandura): people can learn by observation

What is a Variable and its Types?

• Variable: a characteristic or condition that changes or has different values for different individuals

  • Independent variable: manipulated in order to see its impact on the dependent variable

  • Dependent variable: measured in order to see how it is affected by the independent variable

What are the definitions of Variables?

• Conceptual definitions: textbook definition

• Operational definitions: definitions of theoretical constructs that are stated in term of concrete, observable procedures

  • Constructs: Internal attributes or characteristics that cannot be directly observed but are useful for describing and explaining behavior

Populations vs Samples

• Population: the group that you want to be able to generalise your findings to

• Sample: the group of individuals from this population who are apart of your study

What are the types of Research Methods + Claims?

Descriptive Methods

Descriptive methods: often concerned with a single variable of interest

• May lead to claims regarding the frequency of some behaviour (ex. surveys/case studies)

What are the Types of Observations?

• Naturalistic observation: PASSIVE observation. Observes do not change or alter ongoing behaviour (at least not intentionally)

• Participant observation: ACTIVE observation. The researcher is actively involved in the situation

• Laboratory Observation: SYSTEMATIC observation. In a lab (vs in the real world)

Potential Problems of Descriptive Methods

• Reactivity → demand characteristics

• Observer/experimenter bias

• Self-report bias → social desirable bias and better than average effect

Correlational Methods

Correlational Methods: associations between two or more variables

• May lead to claims regarding the association between two variables

• Involve examining how variables are related without manipulation

• Single group of participants

• Does not allow us to make causal claims

• They show us relationship between variables

  • No relationship (0)

  • Negative relationship (+)

  • Positive relationship (-)

  • Correlation coefficient: shows the strength and the direction of the relationship between two variables (ranges from -1.00 to +1.00)

• CORRELATION ≠ CAUSATION

• Correlation studies do NOT tell us whether one variable causes CHANGES in another variable

  • Directionality problem: Not being able to identify which variable causes and which variable effects

  • Third variable problem: a variable that is responsible for a correlation observed between two other variables of interest

Experimental Methods

Experimental Methods: examine cause and effect relations between two or more variables

• May lead to claims regarding the causal relationship between two variables

• Involves manipulating an independent variable in order to determine its impact on a dependant variable

• Tightly controlled

Why is Control Important?

• Random assignment: each participant has an equal chance of being assigned to any condition in the study

  • Necessary because it ensures different groups are equal on avg

• Random sample: each member of the population you are interested in has an equal chance of being chosen to participate

• Confound: anything that may unintentionally vary along with the independent variable

  • Confound limit our ability to make causal claims

What are the Two Kinds of Groups?

• Control group: a group that experiences all experimental procedures, with the exception of exposure to the independent variable.

• Experimental group: a group of participants who are exposed to the independent variable

What are the Types of Experiments?

• Quasi-Experiments: Experimental design where random assignment is no possible

  • Ex. researcher takes advantage of pre-existing groups

• Field Experiments: experiments that occur in real world settings rather than laboratory

  • Participants usually unaware

• Double-Blind Experiment: participants unaware of what condition they others are in

How Do We Study the Effects of Time?

• Cross-sectional study: an experimental design for assessing age-related changes in which data are obtained simultaneously from people of differing ages.

• Longitudinal study: an experimental design for assessing age-related changes in which data are obtained from the same individuals at intervals over a long period of time.

• Mixed longitudinal design: a method for assessing age-related changes that combines cross-sectional and longitudinal approaches by observing a cross- section of participants over a shorter period than is used typically in longitudinal studies.

Descriptive vs Inferential Statistics

• Descriptive statistics: organized data into meaningful patterns and summaries

  • central tendency: mean, median, and mode

  • Normal distribution/curve: symmetrical probability function

  • frequency distribution - high to low and how many of each

  • Standard deviation: measure of how tightly cluster around the mean and group of scores

• Inferential Statistics: extends conclusions from a sample to a population

  • Makes inferences on data

  • Statistical significance: standard for deciding whether an observed result is due to chance

Replication vs Reproducibility

• Reproducibility: a study can be duplicated in method or analysis

• Replicability: a study about phenomenon produces similar results from a previous case of the same thing

Validity vs Reliability

• Reliability: the consistency of measure, including

  • Interrater Reliability: using multiple raters that will give results

  • Test Retest: given one test at time 1, after a period of time being treated at time 2

• Validity: quality of a measure that leads to correct conclusions

  • Construct Validity

    • Operationalization: defining contrasts in ways that allow them to be measured

• External Validity

  • Generalizability

• Internal Validity

  • Causality

Chapter 4 - The Biological Mind

• Biological Psychology: the scientific study of the reciprocal connections between the structure and the activity of the nervous system, behavior and mental processes

Why are Twin Studies Important?

• Help researchers study impact of genetic vs environment influences, with the effect of epigenetics

• Epigenetics: changes in the gene expression that are due to non-genetic behaviour

Hereditary & Heritability

• Hereditary: genetic transmission of characteristics from parents to offspring

• Heritability: estimate of genetic proportion of variation in some specific trait (Within a particular population → NOT an individual)

• Estimate of Heritability: % of variation that is explained by genetic differences

What is the Nervous System and How does it work?

Nervous system: body's electrochemical communication circuitry

• Central Nervous System (CNS): Brain & Spinal Cord

• Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)

  • Somatic Nervous System

  • Autonomic Nervous System

    • Sympathetic Nervous System

    • Parasympathetic Nervous System

What are Neurons?

• Neurons: basic unit of the nervous system

• Operates through electrical impulses

• Communicate with other neurons through chemical signals

The three types of Neurons

• Sensory neurons (afferent neurons): Send information from sensory system, processes input from environment and senses

• Motion neurons (efferent neurons): send signals from the CNS to the skeletal muscles

• Interneurons

What are the Key Elements of Neurons?

• Cell body: large central mass that contains nucleus

• Dendrites: branch like structures responsible for revving information

• Axons: carry information to other neurons

• Gila: support functions such as formation of blood and myelin

  • Myelin sheath: insulating material that covers SOME axons

    • Makes neural signaling fast

    • Until mature it doesn’t work effectively

• Terminal Button: sends signals to other neurons using neurotransmitters

• Nodes of ranvier: spaces between myelin

How does Neural Communication Work?

• Action potential: neural impulse that passes the axon and causes the release of chemicals from the terminal buttons

When do Neurons Fire?

• Resting potential: polarized state (more negative inside the cell, approx -70mV)

• Excitatory Signals: increases the likelihood that the neuron will fir (depolarized)

• Inhibitory Signal: decreases the likelihood that the neuron will fire

  • they do that by affecting the polarization of the cell

When do Neurons Generate an Action Potential?

• Neurons fire (generate action potential) if the excitatory input reaches as certain threshold (eg. -55mV)

• All or None principle: a neuron fires with the same magnitude each time (either fires or doesnt)

Explain Resting State / Resting Potential

• Resting State: Neurons are polarized at rest

  • Inde the cell is more negative than the outside

  • More sodium (Na) outside and more potassium inside (K)

Explain Depolarization

• Depolarization: neurons reaching excitatory threshold, making it depolarize. Na+ channels open and the charge across the membrane reverses

  • Becomes more positive INSIDE the cell due to influx of Na+

Expplain Peak Action Potential / Hyperpolarization

• Hyperpolarization: At the peak of the action potential, Na+ channels will close and K+ channels will open, allowing K+ to leave the cell

  • cell cannot not fire (refractory period)

Saltatory Conduction

• Myelinated axon: saltory spread - much faster

• Unmyelinated axon:: slow spread (much slower)

What are Neurotransmitters?

• Presynaptic Membrane: membrane of the neuron that is sending the signal

• Postsynaptic: membrane: of the neuron that is receiving the signal

• Synapse: point of communication for two neurons, gap between axon and dendrites

• Neurotransmitters: chemical substances that carry signals from one neuron to another, stored in vesicles in terminal buttons

  • Arrival of an action potential releases these vesicles from their protein anchors, migrating to the cell membrane

  • Neurotransmitters released across the synaptic gap come into contact with the special channels on the receiving neuron know as receptors

    • Receptors: channel in membrane of a neuron that interacts with neurotransmitters releases by other neurons

What are the Types?

• Glutamate: primary excitatory neurotransmitter (GO)

• GABA: primary inhibitory neurotransmitter (Stop)

• Serotonin: mood, impulsiveness, hunger and sleep

• Dopamine: reward/motivation, voluntary movement

• Acetylcholine: movement, memory, cognition, sleep

• Epinephrine & Norepinephrine: Arousal, stress response (fight or flight)

How do Drugs Work?

• Agonists: drugs that enhance the actions of endogenous neurotransmitters by binding receptors and producing a response mimics the effects

  • increasing release of neurotransmitters

• Blocking reuptake of neurotransmitters

  • Reuptake: neurotransmitters are recycled back into the neuron by transporters and stored for later use

    • Ex. morphine (mimics endorphins) cocaine (prevents reuptake of dopamine)

• Antagonist: drugs that inhibit the actions of endogenous neurotransmitters by blocking release of neurotransmitters, Destroying neurotransmitters in synapse or mimicking a neurotransmitter (blocking neurotransmitter binding)

  • Ex. beta blockers (block epinephrine) & Botulinum toxin (blocks acetylcholine)

What is Neuroplasticity?

• Neuroplasticity: the brain is plastic and able to be changed or regorganized; as a result of experience, drugs or injury (ex. stroke)

What are the components of our brain?

• Brainstem: controls life sustaining functions of the autonomic nervous system, including breathing, digestion, heartbeat

  • Reticular formation → alertness & sleep

• Cerebellum: essential for coordinated movement and balance

• Hypothalamus: brains master regulatory structure (tiny but powerful)

• Connects the nervous system to the endocrine system

  • Four Fs - feeding, fighting, fornicating, fleeing

  • In correlation with the homeostasis

• Thalamus (relay station): handles all incoming sensory information except smell

  • Ex. craniopagus twins that are connected with a thalamic bridge (heads r together)

• Hippocampus: formation of storage of long-term memory

• Amygdala: processes fear and our ability to associate thing switch emotional responses

  • Located In front of hippocampus

• Basal Ganglia: regulation of voluntary movement

What is the Cerebral Cortex?

• Cerebral Cortex: outer layer of the brain and each cerebral hemisphere has four lobes

  • Occipital Lobes: vision, primary visual cortex

  • Temporal Lobes: Hearing, primary auditory cortex

  • Parietal Lobes: touch, primary sensory cortex

  • Frontal Lobes: planning/movement, primary motor cortex, prefrontal cortex

• Corpus Callosum: connects the hemisphere and allows information to flow between them (bridges across axons)

What’s Difference Between Motor & Association Cortex

• Motor Cortex: voluntary control over movement

• Association cortex: areas of the cortex that don't deal with movement/sensory

What is the Peripheral Nervous System + Functions?

• PNS: transmits info to the CNS and responds to messages from the CNS to perform certain behaviours or make bodily adjustments

  • Divided into two primary components

  • Somatic Nervous System: concerned with the external environment (muscle/skin/joints) and voluntary motor control, reflexes

    • Consists of primarily of motor neurons → EFFERENT PATHWAY

  • Autonomic Nervous System: concerned with the internal environment (glands, internal organs) and INVOLUNTARY bodily functions

    • Sympathetic Nervous System: prepares body for the action of flight or fight

    • Parasympathetic Nervous System: Returns body into its normal state (“rest/digest” & “feed/breed”)

What is the Endocrine System + Functions?

• Endocrine System: works with the nervous system to regulate psychological activity

  • Uses hormones

  • Hormones: chemical substances released into the bloodstream by endocrine glands until they reach targeted tissues

    • Communication is slower

    • Effects and widespread and long lasting

How does the Nervous System and Endocrine work together?

• Hypothalamus connects the systems - pituitary gland (master gland)

• Neural activation causes hypothalamus to have pituitary gland release hormones to bloodstream

Chapter 5 - Sensation and Perception

Sensation vs Perception

• Sensation: the detection of the external stimuli (ex. Light, pressure, etc), responses to those stimuli and the transmission of these responses to the brain

• Perception: the processing, organization, and interpretation of sensory signals in the brain which results in an internal representation of the stimuli and your conscious experience of it

How does Sensation Occur?

• Transduction: process by which sensory receptors pass impulses to connecting neurons when they receive stimulation (e.g from pressure on the skin in case of the touch)

What are the Sensory Thresholds?

• Absolute Threshold: the smallest amount of stimulus that can be detected

• Difference Threshold: the smallest detectable difference between two stimuli

How do we measure Perception?

• Psychophysics: the study of relationships between the physical qualities of stimuli and the subjective responses they produce

• Developed by gustav fechner

• Sensory Adaptation: the tendency to pay less attention to non changing source of stimulation

How do we Taste and Smell?

Orbitofrontal cortex (OFC): receives info from the smell, taste and visual systems - flavor perception

Taste

• Gustation: sense of taste

• basic qualities: sweet, salty, sour, bitter and umami (savory)

Smell

• Olfaction: sense of smell

How do we Touch?

• Mechanoreceptors: respond to mechanical distortion or pressure

  • Most sensitive ones are in the cochlea

  • Response for sound transduction

Primary Somatosensory Cortex

Primary Somatosensory Cortex: connected pasts of the body tend to be represented beside each other

• Contralateral organization: Right side of brain controls left side of body, vise versa

Nociceptors

• Pain receptors

• Activated by damaging stimuli → being pierced, burned, etc

• Myelinated (a delta) fibers → sharp, immediate pain (protection)

• lightly/ non-myelinated (C’) fibers → dull, steady pain (recuperation)

• Gate Control Theory of Pain: For Pain to be experienced pain receptors must be activated and the neural gate in the spinal cord must allow signals through to the brain

  • If the gate is open → pain is experienced, vise versa

How do we Hear?

• Audition: the sense of hearing

  • The human ear is divided into the outer, middle, and inner ear.

• Cochlea: the structure in the inner ear that contains auditory receptors

• Sound waves travel through the cochlea from the oval window, around the apex, and back to the round window

• Waves from Tiny hairs cause sound

How do we See?

• Vision: the sense that allows us to process reflected light

Parts of the Eye

• Cornea: clear surface in front of the eye that begins the process of directing light to the retina (process of bending light of an image from the back of the eye)

• Pupil: a opening formed by iris

• Iris: brightly colored circular muscle surrounding the pupil of the eye

• Lens: clear structure behind the pupil that bends light towards the retina

• Retina: layers of visual processing cells in the back of the eye (thin but complex network of neurons specialized for processing light)

• Fovea: an area of the retina that is specialized for highly detailed vision (fine vision)

Transduction

• Photoreceptors: convert the energy from light particles (photons) into a chemical reaction that produces an electrical signal

  • Rods: photoreceptor cells that respond to low levels of light and result black and white perception - around edges

  • Cones: retinal cells that respond to high levels of light and result in color perception - around fovea

    • S cones → short wavelengths → blues

    • M cones → medium wavelengths → green

    • L cones → long wavelengths → reds

How does Visual Transmission work?

• Rods and cones → bipolar, amacrine, horizontal cells, ganglion cells/optic nerve → thalamus (LGN) → primary visual cortex (V1)→ (goes into either ventral or dorsal steam)

• Optic Nerve: the nerve exiting the retina of the eye

• Optic Tract: nerve pathways travelling from the optic chiasm to the thalamus, hypothalamus and midbrain

  • After primary visual cortex, goes into two streams

    • Dorsal “where” stream: specialized for spatial perception, determining where an object is and spatial relation to other objects

    • Ventral “what” stream: specialized for perception and recognition of objects such as determining color and shape

What are the Theories of Vision?

• Trichromatic Theory: perception of color is determined by the ratio of activity among these three types of receptors and different wavelengths (primary colours)

  • Explains color deficiency

• Opponent-Process Theory: a theory of color vision that suggests if one color in the pair is stimulated the other is inhibited

  • Three opposing pairs:

    • Red / green

    • Yellow / blue

    • White / black

Gestalt Principles of Perceptual Organization

• Figure-ground relationship: whatever is not the figure (the focus of visual field) is automatically assigned as background (aka negative space)

• Illusory Contours: perceiving contours even when they don't exist (but something in the stimulus suggests they ought to be present

• Proximity: the closer two figure are the more likely we are to group them together and see them as being part of the same object

• Similarity: we tend to group figures according to how closely they resemble each other

• Continuation: we tend to interpret intersecting lines as continuous rather than as changing direction radically

• Closure: we tend to complete figures that have gaps

Bottom-Up vs Top-Down Processes

• Bottom-Up processing: information is sent from lower level processing areas to higher level processing areas

• Top-Down processing: information from higher level areas can also influence lower, earlier levels in the processing hierarchy

How does Depth Perception Work?

• Retinal Disparity: different between the images projected onto each eye

• Monocular depth cues: include occlusion, relative size, familiar size, linear perspective, texture gradient and position relative to horizon

• Muller lyer: optical illusion manipulating perception of a lime length based on depth and distance

• Ponzo illusion: converging and line depth → further lines seem longer

What is Motor Perception?

Motion Sensitive Neurons: fatigue of certain motion sensitive neurons leads to motion after effects (waterfall illusion)

Chapter 11 - Lifespan Development

• Developmental Psychology: focus on the physiological and cognitive and social changes that occur in individuals across the lifespan

What is Present at Birth?

• Our five senses

• Reflexes: grasping, rooting, sucking

How do we assess changes across time?

• Longitudinal designs: data from the same group of participants is collected at intervals across a long period of time

• Cross-sectional designs: Data is obtained simultaneously from participants of different ages in order to make age related comparisons

Attachment Theory

• Attachment Theory: strong emotional connection that persists over time and across circumstances

• Adaptive → encourages proximity between child/mother

• Oxytocin

What is the Example of this with Harry Harlow with Monkeys?

• Mom as milk vs mom as comfort

• Results contradicted what the behaviorist perspective had widespread societal implications

What is the Example of this with Mary Ainsworth and Strange SItuation Test?

• Using a two-way mirror as the mom leaves then returns

What are the Types of attachment?

• Secure Attachment : Approx 65% of children, upset weh caregiver leaves but comforted when they return

• Insecure-resistant (anxious ambivalent): clings to caregiver, gets upsets, both wants and resists comfort

• Insecure-avoidant (anxious-avoidant): little distress when caregiver leaves but avoids them when they return

• Disorganized attachment: added later, inconsistent and odd behaviors

What are the Types of Parenting?

• Authoritative Parenting: High behavioral regulation; indulgent (firm but reasonable)

• Authoritarian Parenting: Low behavior regulation; uninvolved (strict)

What's Jean Piaget’s view on Cognitive Development?

• Jean Piaget’s Theory: cognitive abilities develop through regular stages at they mature through assimilation or accommodation

  • Assimilation: incorporation of new learning into an existing schema without the need to revise the schema

  • Accommodation: incorporation of new learning into an existing schema that now requires a revision

  • Equilibration: an active self regulatory process by which child progresses through stages in development (both assimilation and accommodation)

What are the Stages?

• Sensorimotor Stage (0-2 years)

  • information only through the senses

  • actions that can be performed on certain objects

  • Object permanence: things continue to exist even when you can't no longer sense them

• Preoperational Stage (2-6 years)

  • Begins to think symbolically but not logically

    • Ex. piaget believed children at the age lacked an understanding of law of conservation and egocentrism

  • Conservation: ability to understand how appearance of an object doesn’t change its quantity

• Concrete Operational Stage (6-11 years)

  • Developmental of logic thinking but reasoning is limited to concrete objects

• Formal Operational Stage (12+ years)

  • Able to think and reason abstractly, problem solving

What's Vygotsky’s view on Cognitive Development?

• Vygosky’s theory: viewed development as taking place within the social cultural environment in terms of zone of proximity helped to learn tasks with the help of others

Key concepts

• Scaffolding: teacher/parent being responsive to the needs of the child and guidance

• Zone Proximal Development: things the learner can do on their own → things learner can go with help → things the learner cannot do

What’s Erik Eriksons’s Stages of Psychosocial Model

• Birth to 18 Months → trust vs mistrust (good view of world)

• 18 months to 3 Years → autonomy verus shame and doubt (exploring)

• 3-6 years → initiative vs guilt (acting in the world)

• 6-12 yrs → industry vs inferiority (confidence)

• Adolescence → identity vs role confusion (who am i)

• Young adulthood → intimacy vs isolation (making relationships)

• Midlife → generativity vs stagnation (value in life)

• Late adulthood →integrity vs despair (fully experienced)

Chapter 8 - Learning

What is Learning?

• Learning: a changing in behavior resulting from experience

  • Associative learning: occurs when the formation of connections among stimuli and behaviors

    • Classical conditioning: forming associations between two stimuli that occur sequentially in a time

    • Operant conditioning: forming associations between behaviors and their consequences

  • Nonassociative learning: involves change in magnitude of responses to a single stimulus rather than the formation of connects between two stimuli

• There are TWO types

  • Habituation: decreases our reaction to repeated experienced already have been seen as unchanging/harmless

  • Sensitization: increases our reaction to a range of stimuli following the exposure to one stimuli

• Observational learning: occurs when one organism watches the action other another

Implicit vs Explicit Learning

• Implicit learning: learning in the absence of the conscious awareness

• Explicit learning: learning involved conscious awareness

What is Classical Conditioning?

• Classical Conditioning: a type of learning which a neutral stimulus comes to elicit a reflexive response because it has become associated with a stimulus that already produces that response

• Ex. little albert

• Unconditioned stimulus (US): stimulus that is unconditionally triggers a response

• Unconditioned Response (UR): unlearned response that occurs in relation to the US

• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): neutral stimulus after being associated with the US triggers a CR

• Conditioned Response (CR): an automatic response established by training

Key Terms

• Acquisition: developing of a CR / learned response

• Extinction: reduction of a learned response

• Spontaneous Recovery: during extinction the reappearance of the CR after periods of rest

• Inhibition: a feature of classical conditioning in which the CS predicts the occurrence of the UCS

  • Rat learns that is not going to be shocked when the sound occurs = no fear

  • Latent inhibition: slowly learning occurs what the CS is familiarly compared to when the CS is unfamiliar

What is High-Ordering Conditioning?

• High-order conditioning: learned in which the stimuli associated with the CS also elicits the CRs

  • Ex if a child has learned to fear dogs because of previous bite, anything that signals dog may produce fear too (ex dog house)

• Not all CS-CR pairings are the same

  • Some associations are easier to learn than others

    • Taste aversion

      • Ex. preventing lions from preying on cattle (therefore preventing farmers from killing the lions)

    • Biological preparedness: organisms innately form associations between some stimuli and response

    • Rescordla-Wagner model: a cognitive model of classical conditioning which states that the strength of the CS-US association is determined by the extent to which the US is unexpected of surprising

What is Hebb’s Rule?

Hebb’s Rule: Different neurons that fire together repeatedly tend to be associated and wire with each other (neuroplasticity)

What is Stimulus Generalization and Discrimination?

• Stimulus generalization: occurs when the stimuli that are similar but not identical to conditioned stimulus products the conditioned response

• Stimulus discrimination: a differentiation between two similar stimuli when only one of them is consistently associated with the unconditioned stimulus

What is Operant Conditioning?

• Operant conditioning: learning process in which the consequences of an action determine the likelihood that it will be performed in the future

  • Thorndike’s Law of Effect: any behavior that is leads to a satisfying state of affairs is more likely occur again any behavior that leads to an annoying state of affairs is less likely to recur

    • Skinner box

• Reinforcer: a stimulus that occurs after a response and increases the likelihood that the response will be repeated

• Primary (survival/natural) vs secondary reinforcers (value over time)

• Shaping: involves reinforcing behaviors that are increasingly similar to the desired behavior

• Reinforcing successive approximations eventually produces the desired behavior by teaching the animal to discriminate which behavior is being reinforced

Types of Consequences

• Positive reinforcement: INCREASES the probability of an behavior being repeated by the administration of a (positive, rewarding) stimulus)

  • Ex. Autistic kids taught english with candy serving

• Negative reinforcement: INCREASES the probability of a behavior being repeated by the removal or avoidance of a (negative, aversive) stimulus

  • Ex. Hungry rat in skinner box learns pressing a bare delays electric shock it would be negative, instead if they were receiving food

• Positive punishment: DECREASES the probability of a behavior being repeated by the administration of a (negative, punishing) stimulus)

  • ex. Rat will stop pressing bar if electric shock happens

• Negative punishment:DECREASES the probability of a behavior being repeated by the removal of a (positive, pleasurable) stimulus

  • Ex. If food is available without the rat having to press the bar, rat will stop pressing the bar

What are Schedules of Reinforcement?

• Continuous Reinforcement: reinforcing a behavior everytime it occurs

• Partial reinforcement: reinforcement of a desired behavior on some occasions but not others

  • Types of partial reinforcement:

    • fixed → consistent and predictable

    • Variable → reinforcement is a variable and unpredictable (occurs after a vary # of behaviors or time)

      • OR

    • Ratio → based on number of times the behavior occurs

    • Interval → based on the passage of time

The Premack Principle

• The Premack Principle: idea that high probability behaviors can be used to reinforce lower probability behaviors

  • Token economy: application of operant conditioning in which tokens that can be exchanged for other reinforcers used to increase the frequency of desirable behaviors

    • Money in the form of money is useless, but the use of money to buy items is a form of token economy

Later Developments of Operant Conditioning

• Latent learning: Edward Tolman argued that reinforcement had more impact on performance than learning

• Biological constraints: animals have a difficult time learning behaviors that are incompatible with innate, adaptive behaviors

Who is Albert Bandura and Social Learning Theory?

• Social Learning Theory: general view that learning is largely due to modeling, imitation and other social interactions (recall vygotsky)

Bobo Doll Experiment

• having adults use some forces of aggression and being rewarded, children had a turn to play and did the same. Children who were shown the adult being reprimanded were less aggressive

  • In one study children say adults being reward for the aggression