Psych Fall Exam Flashcards
(212 cards)
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