AP Psych Learning Vocabulary

Classical Conditioning Vocab

Learning

• A relatively permanent change in behavior resulting from experience or practice

Behaviorists

• Adhering to the behavioral perspective, theorized that thoughts or cognition, played no role in the study of behavior

Conditioning

• A key psychological process that involves learning new behaviors, changing existing ones, or stopping unwanted ones by forming connections between stimuli and responses 

Stimulus

• Any event or situation that evokes response from an organism

Response

• The actions or behavior that is triggered by the stimulus

Classical conditioning

• A type of learning that links a neutral stimulus (one that causes no special response except to call attention to it) to another stimulus that elicit a natural or involuntary response in a given organism

Associative learning

• A learning mode in which ideas and experiences are mentally linked and thereby reinforce each other

Acquisition

• The formation of a learned association

Unconditioned stimulus (US or UCS)

• Any stimulus that causes an autonomic/automatic/reflexive response to the presentation of food to dogs

Unconditioned Response (UR or UCR)

• Behavior that is a reflex of autonomic response to a stimulus (ex. Blinking, nausea, muscle tension, salivation, blood pressure or heart rate increase, or other involuntary response) 

 Conditioned stimulus (CS)

• Former stimulus that eventually causes a response because it has been partner with the UCS, such as the white coat in the Pavlov study that was associated with the meat 

Conditioned Response (CR)

• Behavior that is considered a reflex or autonomic response to a CS, dogs salivating to the white coat 

Stimulus discrimination

• A response to only the specific stimulus that has been conducted 

Stimulus generalization 

• A response to another stimulus that is similar to the original conditioned stimulus

Extinction

• The conditioned stimulus becoming a neutral stimulus, causing no particular response

Spontaneous recovery

• Reappearance of the stimulus-response suddenly and seemingly without cause

Counterconditioning

• Involves introducing a series of stimuli similar to a person's phobia

Taste aversion

• A unique conditioned response that occurs after a single pairing of an illness or symptoms such as nausea with eating a specific food 

Biological preparedness

• The notion that evolutionary mechanisms have hardwired animals, humans included, to swiftly establish connections between specific stimuli and responses 

Habituation

• The process by which an organism becomes accustomed to a repeated stimulus, resulting in a decreased response over time because learning has taken place

Operant conditioning Vocab 

Law of effect

• States that any behavior followed by pleasant consequences is likely to be repeated, while any behavior followed by unpleasant consequences is likely to be reduced or stopped 

Superstitious behaviors

• Actions that are randomly tied to good results

Learned helplessness

• A mental state in which an organism continues to experience a painful, unpleasant or aversive stimulus

• Organisms become helpless because they have learned that , regardless of their actions, they have no ability to change the outcome

Reinforcement

• A consequence that increases the likelihood of a behavior occurring again

Punishment

• A consequence that decreases the likelihood of a behavior occurring again

Primary reinforcement

• An innately valused reinforcing stimulus such as one that satisfies a biological need (food and sleep)

Secondary reinforcement

• Learned through association (money and good grades)

Positive reinforcement

• A pleasant consequence that increases the likelihood of repeating a behavior, whether intentional or not

Negative reinforcement

• The removal of an unpleasant/aversive stimulus to increase a behavior 

Positive punishment

• Adding an unpleasant or aversive stimulus to reduce a behavior 

Negative punishment

• The removal or a pleasant stimulus to decrease or eliminate a specific behavior

Reinforcement discrimination

• Involves the ability to distinguish between situation in which a behavior will be reinforced and those in which it will not

Reinforcement generalization

• Occurs when a behavior that has been reinforces in one situation elicits similar behaviors in difference, but related, situations

Schedules of reinforcement

• Helps understand what would happen to behaviors that were reinforced only occasionally, 5 schedules

Continuous reinforcement

• Occurs when each and every instance of a desired behavior is reinforced

Partial reinforcement 

• or not reinforcing a response every time, is a more common type of reinforcement

Ratio Schedules

• Reinforcement based on the number of behavior required

Interval schedules

• Reinforcements based on the passage of time 

Variable reinforcement

• Reinforcement after a changing number of the desired actions or varying amounts of time

Fixed reinforcement

• Reinforcement after a predetermined number of desired actions or a predetermined period of time

Fixed-interval schedule

• Provides reinforcement for the first behaviors after a predetermined period of time

Variable-interval reinforcement

• Unpredicted reinforcement

 Fixed-ratio reinforcement schedule

• A behavior is reinforced after a specific number of behaviors

Variable ratio reinforcement schedule

• Behavior is reinforced after a variable number of behaviors

Shaping

• A technique using a series of positive reinforcements to create more complex behavior

Successive approximations

• Steps toward a target goal

Instinctive drift

•  the tendency of some trained animals to revert back to instinctual behaviors

Social, Cognitive, and Neurological Factors in Learning Vocab

Social learning theory

• Explores the idea that we lean not just through direct experience, but also by observing the actions and outcomes of other’s behaviors 

Observational learning

• Watching and mimicking models

Vicarious conditioning

• Learning something by watching someone model behavior 

Social cognitive theory

• Resting on the idea that part of what people know results from observing others

Insight learning

• The term for a sudden realization that “just came to you” of how to solve a problem

Latent learning

• One can learn something but not show the behavior right away

Cognitive map

• Mental representation that allows an organism to acquire, store, and recall information in both a real spatial world and in a metaphorical spatial environment