Learning Flashcards
(92 cards)
What is behaviour in the context of learning psychology?
The observable actions of an organism in response to stimuli in its environment.
What are reflexive behaviours?
Innate, automatic responses to specific stimuli, such as eye-blinking or sucking in newborns.
What are instinctual behaviours?
Innate patterns like imprinting or migration that are species-specific and not learned.
What is learning?
A relatively permanent change in behaviour or knowledge due to experience.
What is habituation?
A decrease in the strength of a response after repeated exposure to the same stimulus.
How did young turkeys demonstrate habituation?
They stopped responding to the more common goose shape and only reacted to the rarer hawk shape.
Who was Ivan Pavlov?
A Russian physiologist known for discovering classical conditioning through digestive system research.
What is a neutral stimulus (NS)?
A stimulus that initially produces no specific response other than focusing attention.
What is an unconditioned stimulus (US)?
A stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response.
What is an unconditioned response (UR)?
An unlearned, naturally occurring reaction to the unconditioned stimulus.
What is a conditioned stimulus (CS)?
A previously neutral stimulus that, after association with a US, triggers a conditioned response.
What is a conditioned response (CR)?
A learned response to a previously neutral stimulus that has become a CS.
What example demonstrates classical conditioning in the lab?
Pairing a puff of air (US) with a click (NS) until the click alone (CS) causes an eye-blink (CR).
What is a conditioned emotional response?
A learned emotional reaction to a previously neutral stimulus associated with an emotional event.
What study demonstrated conditioned fear in children?
The “Little Albert” study by Watson & Rayner, where a baby learned to fear a white rat.
What is spontaneous recovery?
The reappearance of an extinguished conditioned response after a rest period.
What is extinction in classical conditioning?
The gradual weakening and disappearance of a CR when the CS is presented without the US.
What is stimulus generalisation?
When a CR occurs to stimuli similar to the original CS.
What is stimulus discrimination?
When a CR is only elicited by the original CS and not by similar stimuli.
What is systematic desensitisation?
A therapy combining extinction, stimulus generalisation, and counterconditioning to treat phobias.
What is blocking?
When learning does not occur because a reliable predictor of the US already exists (e.g., light + noise + shock).
What is higher-order conditioning?
Using a previously conditioned stimulus as a US to condition a new stimulus.
What is sensory preconditioning?
When two stimuli are paired together before one is associated with a US, leading the other to elicit the CR.
What is the contingency principle?
Conditioning is stronger when the CS reliably predicts the US and is not presented without it.