Chapter 6 - Learning Flashcards

1
Q

What is learning?

A

Change in an organism’s behaviour or thought as a result of experience

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2
Q

What is habituation?

A

process of responding less strongly over time to repeated stimuli

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3
Q

What is classical conditioning?

A

Pavlovian - form of learning in which animals come to respond to a previously neutral stimulus that had been paired with another stimulus that elicits an automatic response

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4
Q

What is an unconditioned stimulus?

A

A stimulus that elicits an automatic response without prior conditioning (meat)

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5
Q

What is an unconditioned response?

A

Automatic response to a nonneutral stimulus that does not need to be learned (salivation)

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6
Q

What is a conditioned response?

A

Response previously associated with a nonneutral stimulus that is elicited by a neutral stimulus through conditioning (salivation to bell)

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7
Q

What is a conditioned stimulus?

A

An initially neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a response due to association with an unconditioned stimulus (bell to meat)

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8
Q

What 3 stages does classical conditioning occur?

A

acquisition, extinction and spontaneous recovery

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9
Q

What is acquisition?

A

Learning phase during which a conditioned response is established

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10
Q

What is extinction?

A

Gradual reduction/eventual elimination of the CR and the CS is presented repeatedly without the UCS

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11
Q

What is spontaneous recovery?

A

The sudden reemergence of an extinct CR after a delay following an extinction procedure

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12
Q

What is the renewal effect?

A

The sudden reemergence of a CR following extinction when an animal is returned to the environment in which the CR was acquired

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13
Q

What is stimulus generalization?

A

The process by which CS is similar, but not identical, to the original CS, elicits a CR

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14
Q

What is stimulus discrimination?

A

The process by which organisms display a less pronounced CR to CS that differs from the original CS

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15
Q

What is higher-order conditioning?

A

Developing a CR to a CS by virtue of its association with another CS

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16
Q

What is latent inhibition?

A

difficulty in establishing classical conditioning to a CS we’ve repeatedly experienced alone, that is, without the UCS

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17
Q

What is a conditioned compensatory response?

A

A CR that is the opposite of the UCR and serves to compensate for the UCR

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18
Q

What is Fetishism?

A

sexual attraction to non-living things

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19
Q

What is operant conditioning?

A

learning controlled by the consequences of the organism’s behaviour

20
Q

What are the three main differences between classical and operant conditioning?

A

classical conditioning -
1. the organism’s response is elicited
2. the animal’s reward is independent of what it does
3. organism’s response depends primarily on the autonomic nervous system

21
Q

What is the law of effect?

A

Principle asserting that if a stimulus followed by a behaviour results in a reward, the stimulus is more likely to give rise to the behaviour in the future

22
Q

What is insight?

A

grasping the underlying nature of a problem

23
Q

What is a Skinner box?

A

A small animal chamber constructed by Skinner to allow sustained periods of conditioning to be administered and behaviours to be recorded unsupervised

24
Q

What is reinforcement?

A

outcome or consequence of a behaviour that strengthens the probability of the behaviour

25
Q

What is positive reinforcement?

A

The presentation of a stimulus following a behaviour that strengthens the probability of the behaviour

26
Q

What is negative reinforcement?

A

Removal of a stimulus following a behaviour that strengthens the probability of the behaviour

27
Q

What is punishment?

A

An outcome or consequence of a behaviour that weakens the probability of the behaviour

28
Q

What is a discriminative stimulus sd?

A

A stimulus associated with the presence of reinforcement

29
Q

What is schedule of reinforcement?

A

pattern of reinforcing a behaviour

30
Q

What is continuous reinforcement?

A

Reinforcing a behaviour every time it occurs, resulting in faster learning but faster extinction then only occasional reinforcement

31
Q

What is partial reinforcement?

A

only occasional reinforcement of a behaviour, resulting in slower extinction then if the behaviour had been reinforced continually

32
Q

What is a fixed ratio schedule?

A

pattern in which we provide reinforcement following a regular number of responses

33
Q

What is a variable ratio schedule?

A

pattern in which we provide reinforcement after a specific number of responses on average, with the number varying randomly

34
Q

What is a fixed interval schedule?

A

Pattern in which we provide reinforcement for a response at least once following a specified time interval

35
Q

What is a variable interval schedule?

A

Pattern in which we provide reinforcement for producing the response after an average time interval, with the actual interval varying randomly.

36
Q

What is shaping by successive approximations?

A

Conditioning a target behaviour by progressively reinforcing behaviours that come closer and closer to the target

37
Q

What is a secondary reinforcer?

A

Neutral object that becomes associated with a primary reinforcer

38
Q

What is a primary reinforcer?

A

Item or outcome that naturally increases the target behaviour

39
Q

What is two-process theory?

A

We need both classical and operant conditioning to explain the persistence of anxiety disorders

40
Q

What is Latent learning?

A

Learning that’s not directly observable

41
Q

What are cognitive maps?

A

mental representation of how a physical space is organzied

42
Q

What is observational learning?

A

learning by watching others

43
Q

What are mirror neurons?

A

Cell in the prefrontal cortex that becomes activated by specific motions when an animal both performs and observes that action.

44
Q

What is preparedness?

A

evolutionary predisposition to learn some pairings of feared stimuli over others owing to their survival value

45
Q

What is instinctive drift?

A

tendency for animals to return to innate behaviours following repeated reinforcement

46
Q

What are learning styles?

A

An individual’s preferred or optimal method of acquiring new information