Psych Fall Exam Flashcards
Learning
is a process by which behaviour or knowledge changes as a result of experience
Cognitive Learning
activities that students do; reading, listening, taking tests in order to acquire new information
Associative Learning
associate a neutral stimulus + a biologically relevant stimulus = results in a change in the response to the previously neutral stimulus (the sound of a train never effected you but after getting mugged, now hearing the sound of the train always gives you anxiety)
Ivan Pavlov (1849-1936)
A Russian physiologist for work on digestion, but is now famous for conditioning research with dogs
Psychic secretions
Pavlovs assistant called it this : If dogs salivate in anticipation of food, perhaps the salivary response can be learned
What happened when Pavlov would present sound from a metronome
The dogs would associate it with food coming and began to salivate
Classical Conditioning / Pavlovian Conditioning
a form of associative learning in which an organism learns to associate a neutral stimulus (e.g. sound) with a biologically relevant stimulus (e.g. food) which results in a change in the response to the previously neutral stimulus (eg. salivating)
Stimulus
An external event or cue that elicits a perceptual response; this occurs regardless of whether the event is important or not.
Unconditioned stimulus (US)
A stimulus that elicits a reflexive response without learning such as food, water, pain or sexual contact it all elicits responses instinctively (i.e., without any learning being required)
Unconditioned Response (UR)
Is a reflex unlearned reaction to an unconditioned stimulus. Ex; hunger, drooling, expressions of pain, and sexual responses. You don’t learn these its automatic
Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
A once-neutral stimulus that later elicits a conditioned response because it has a history of being paired with an unconditioned stimulus.
Conditioned Response
The learned response that occurs to the conditioned stimulus (ex. salivation, flinching, blinking etc.
The CS must elicit a CR in the ABSENCE of the US (e.g. food) for conditioning to have occurred
Acquisition
The initial phase of learning in which a response is established (e.g., salivating response to a tone)
The Conditional Stimulus helps predict that the __________ will appear
Unconditional stimulus
The conditional response will be acquired more quickly when the conditional stimulus precedes the Unconditional stimulus
Acquisition is stronger if the conditional stimulus and unconditional stimulus are consistently presented _____ in time
Closer together
Extinction
The loss of weakening of the conditional response when a conditional stimulus and unconditional stimulus no longer occur together
e.g., if the tone is no longer a reliable predictor of food, then salivation becomes unnecessary
Spontaneous recovery
The reoccurrence of a previously extinguished conditioned response, typically after some time has passed since extinction
Stimulus generalization
A process in which a response that originally occurs to a specific stimulus also occurs to different, though similar, stimuli
Stimulus discrimination
When an organism learns to respond to one original stimulus but not to new stimuli that may be similar to the original stimulus.
Stimulus discrimination often occurs when similar stimuli are or are not paired with an unconditional stimuli?
Are not
Stages of conditioning
Acquisition, Extinction, Spontaneous recovery
Processes of Conditioning
Stimulus generalization, Stimulus discrimination
Phobia
When a fear of an object or situation becomes irrational and interferes with normal activities.
Are phobias natural (genetics) or learned through experience?
both. Most of the time it learned through experiences but it is possible for phobias to occur naturally
Story of little albert?
Albert was 11 month infant with no fear or animals but then the researchers would make loud noises scaring Albert when animals would appear Quickly he developed a fear of any furry animals (not just the rats they used)
Loud noise (UCS) –> Startled (UCR) –> developed a fear (CR) to rats (CS)
Conditioned emotional responses
Emotional and physiological responses that develop to a specific object or situation
Preparedness
The biological predisposition to rapidly learn a response to a particular class of stimuli
Biological predispositions : Nonthreatening, acquired threat, biological threat
- Nonthreatening (such as a flower) paired with unconditioned stimulus such as being shocked resulted in low conditioned fear.
- Acquired threat (such as a gun) paired with unconditioned stimulus such as being shocked resulted in moderate conditioned fear.
- Biological threat (such as a snake) paired with unconditioned stimulus such as being shocked resulted in high conditioned fear.
What part of the brain is involved in fear conditioning?
The amygdala
Some patient groups have hypersensitive amygdalae, whereas others have blunted responses
Contextual fear conditioning
Learning to fear a location (e.g., cage where a shock occurred)
What part of the brain does contextual fear condition involve?
Hyppocampus
Conditioned Taste aversion
An acquired dislike or disgust of a food or drink because it was paired with illness (decreased reward response in the brain)
Garcia Effect
Taste produces stronger aversive conditioning that sight and sound. A single exposure is often enough. CTA develops even if illness occurs hours later.
Latent inhibition
When frequent experience with a stimulus before it is paired with a US makes it less likely that conditioning will occur after a single episode of illness
Drug paraphernalia and settings serve as a ___ for the high of a drug ___?
Conditional stimulus and conditional response
Conditioned drug tolerance
Physiological responses preparing our body for the drug start to occur prior to the intake of the drug.
In a new setting, these don’t occur… leading to an increase in overdoses.
Sexual Fetishes
An artificial model bird will receive sexual attention from Japanese quail if the model was previously associated with copulation.
- In humans, neutral stimuli (e.g., boots) can
sometimes become associated with sexual
responses (UR). This can lead to fetishes
Advertising techniques are base on _____?
Advertising techniques are base on classical conditioning
UBC study blue vs beige pen while listening to pop music?
University students at UBC looked at slides of either a beige pen or a blue pen.
– Half of the students heard a best-selling pop song, Half heard a selection of traditional music from India.
* 70% of participants selected the pen that was paired with the pop song.
– The music elicited a UCS.
– The pens became a CS.
Evaluation Conditioning
Pairing emotional stimuli (e.g., attractive people) with a target in order to influence people’s perceptions and attitudes toward that target.
Negative Political Advertising include what?
Attack Ads
Attack ads usually involve ____?
involve : black and white grainy images that are frustrating to look at, images that allow you to mock or judge the target, angry narrators or angry faces
Thorndike “puzzle box” experiment with cats
Initially, the cat would scratch or paw at parts of the box. It would accidentally escape and get the reward. Escaping from
the puzzle box reinforced the cat’s actions. It quickly learned the behaviour required to escape.
Law of Effect
“Of several responses made to the same situation, those which are accompanied or closely followed by satisfaction to the animal will, other things being equal, be more firmly connected to the situation, so that, when it (the situation) recurs, they will be more likely to recur.”
Operant conditioning
A type of learning in which behaviour is influenced by consequences. A response (behaviour) and a consequence (e.g., a
reward) are required for learning to take place. The consequence depends upon the action.
Major differences between classical and operant conditioning
Classical: automatic, present regardless of whether a response occurs, reflexive and physiological response
Operant : Voluntary, consequence of behaviour, skeletal muscles
Reinforcement
The process in which an event or reward that follows a response increases the
likelihood of that response occurring again.
Reinforcer
A stimulus that is contingent upon a response, and that increase the probability of that response occurring again
Punishment
The process that decreases the future probability of the response or behaviour
Punisher
A stimulus that is contingent upon a response, and that results in a decrease in behaviour
Operant chamber
A laboratory apparatus containing levers or keys that the animal can manipulate.
The experimenter can control whether behaviours are rewarded or punished.
Reinforcement ______ behaviour, Punishment ____ behaviour
Increases, descreases
Positive _____ a simulus, Negative _____ a stimulus
adding or applying, removing or decreasing a stimulus
Positive reinforcement
The strengthening of behaviour after potential reinforcers such as praise, money, or nourishment follow that behaviour.
Praising good behaviour.
e.g., Studying for an exam –> receiving and A+ no the exam –> studying behaviour increased
Negative reinforcement
The strengthening of a behaviour because it removes or diminishes an aversive stimulus.
Example: parents giving in to a whining child
Avoidance learning
A specific type of negative reinforcement that removes the possibility that a stimulus will occur. Associated with increased activity in the orbitofrontal cortex.
ex: putting in earplugs before entering a social event because you know it will be noisy, you are preventing the stimulus of noise from even happening
Escape Learning
A type of negative reinforcement in which a response removes a stimulus that is already present.
Ex: if you know that closing your door blocks out noise, if a noise (stimuli) occurs you don’t like you’ll know to go close your door
Positive punishment
A process in which a behaviour decreases in
frequency because it was followed by a particular, usually unpleasant, stimulus
Ex: studying for an exam –> getting mocked by your friends –> studying behaviour decreases
Negative Punishment
A process in which a behaviour decreases in
frequency because it was followed by a particular, usually unpleasant, stimulus
Ex: studying for an exam –> has less time to spend with friends –> studying behaviour decreases
Primary reinforcers
Reinforcing stimuli that satisfy basic motivational needs—needs that affect an individual’s ability to survive (and, if possible, reproduce). ex: water, food, sleep, sex, etc
Secondary reinforcers
Stimuli that acquire their reinforcing effects only after we learn that they have value. ex: toys, favourite activities etc.
Reinforcers trigger ______ release in reward centres of the brain
Dopamine
Larger dopamine response during ____ of stimulus reward association
Learning
Descriminative stimulus
A cue or event that indicates that a response, if made, will be reinforced.
When the cue isn’t present, there is no point in responding…no reinforcement will occur.
Ex: A light might let the rat know that its lever pressing will now be rewarded. but if there is no light present there there is no point in pressing the leaver because no reward will occur.
Generalization response
When an operant response takes place to a new discriminative stimulus that is similar to the stimulus present during original learning.
Generalization would me being able to pick up a phone and talk to it and hen also take a walkie talkie and talk over it.
Discrimination response
When an operant response is made to one
discriminative stimulus but not to another, even if they are similar.
Delayed response
Conditioning is stronger when the reinforcement immediately follows the behaviour.
Pigeons produced fewer responses when
reinforcement was delayed.
Application: Addictive drugs.
Shaping
A procedure in which a specific operant response is created by reinforcing successive approximations of
that response
ex: when a baby learns to walk. They are reinforced for crawling, then standing, then taking one step, then taking a few steps, and finally for walking. Reinforcement is typically in the form of lots of praise and attention from the child’s parents.
Chaining
Shaping several behaviours into a sequence. For example, a child learning to wash his/her hands independently may start with learning to turn on the faucet. Once this initial skill is learned, the next step may be getting his/her hands, etc.
Extinction
The weakening of an operant response when reinforcement is no longer available.
Does extinction increase or decrease dopamine responses?
decrease
Response rates also decrease when a reward is devalued (i.e., less appealing.
Continuous reinforcement
When every response made results in reinforcement. This leads to rapid learning
Partial reinforcement (or intermittent reinforcement)
When only a certain number of responses are rewarded or a certain amount of time must pass before reinforcement is available
Ration schedule
reinforcements are based on the amount of responding
Interval schedule
reinforcements are based on the amount of time between reinforcements, not on the number of responses.
Fixed schedule
reinforcement schedule
remains the same over time
Variable schedule
reinforcement schedule varies; it is linked to an average (e.g., 10 seconds or 10 responses).
fixed-ratio schedule
When reinforcement is delivered after a
specific number of responses have been
completed.
FA7 = reinforcement occurs after every 7
responses.
EX: Being paid per product produced or task
completed.
Variable-ratio schedule
When the number of responses required
to receive reinforcement varies according
to an average.
VA7 = reinforcement occurs randomly,
with the average being after every 7
responses.
ex: The frequency of winning on a slot machine
Fixed-interval schedule
When reinforcement occurs following first
response occurring after a set amount of
time passes.
FI 5 min = 1 rocket candy for the first
response after 5 minutes.
Animals develop a sharp sense of time.
ex: students study the most during exam weeks
Variable-interval schedule
When the first response is reinforced
following a variable amount of time.
V1 5 min = reinforcement occurs
randomly, with the average being after 5
minutes.
ex: waiting for a “falling star” while stargazing
Superstitions: Partial reinforcement effect
A phenomenon in which organisms that have been conditioned under partial reinforcement resist extinction
longer than those conditioned under continuous reinforcement.
Punishment : Photo radar vs Ticket from police officer
Photo radar has small effects on speeding
behaviour.The punishment arrives a week after the behaviour.
Tickets from officers are more immediate and effective.
Punishment Severity
Should be proportional to the offense.
ex: A small fine is suitable for parking illegally or littering, but inappropriate for someone who commits assault
