Psychology Chapter 6

counterconditioning

a procedure that conditions new responses to stimuli that trigger unwanted behaviors - Watson and Raynor did NOT do this for Little Albert

diffusion chain

a process in which individuals learn a behavior by observing a model and then serve as models from whom other individuals can learn

cumulative cultural evolution

cultures evolve to build complex practices and areas of knowledge that gradually improve over centuries and millennia - culture extends to eating preferences, language, group dynamics. it informs a group's habits, behaviors, perspectives, and rituals - the cultural climate you grew up in played a part in shaping what you have learned and what you will continue to learn

1. attention

first step to imitating actions and is influenced by many factors - ex: person admires and respects her model or instructor, she is likely to be more attentive - attentional capacity of the learner will greatly influence the capacity to learn

what we learn during classical conditions is influence by the presence of other previous associations

it is easier to make an association between a CS and an US if they have not previously been related in any way - familiar events already have predictions associated with them, making new learning about the more difficult

Behavior

learning cannot influence behavior unless the behavior occurs

savings

learning stored away in your brain bank - the residual plasticity hypothesis, which proposes that even after extinction, neural networks of learning persist, which can lead to savings if conditioning is reintroduced

latent learning

learning that occurs without either incentive (such as food reward) or any clear motivation to learn - tolman argued that our brains will naturally, without external reinforcement, form a map of our surroundings -Rats exploring complex mazes demonstrate evidence of learning without reinforcement. (b) When food was provided on day 11, these rats showed they were learning as much, if not more, about the maze as rats who were reinforced with food from day 1.

Discrimination

learning to respond to a particular stimulus but not to similar stimuli, thus preventing overgeneralizations - allows you to stop and look when you hear a specific car horn, like the specific one you heard before an accident

humans have specifically evolved a body type that enables us to manipulate the environment perhaps better than any other species

moderate strength, combined with just enough agility, a large brain, and an opposable thumb, enables us to interact effectively with our surroundings and learn how to use elements of it to our advantage - without the ability to manipulate objects in our environment, we could only ponder what might be

assess learning and habituation by...

monitoring eye movements and measure where and for how long subjects look at something - first look results in longer looking time. looking time decreases when events are repeated (looking behavior habituates)

mirror neurons

neurons that are active both when performing an action and when the same actions are observed in others - brain regions with mirror neurons respond both when we act and when we observe the same action - mirror neuron response may help us understand someone else's actions - accidentally discovered by a group of scientists who were recording the electrical activity of neurons in the premotor cortex of macaque monkeys while the animals were reaching for and eating food. same neurons that fired when observing human putting ice cream in his mouth, also fired when monkey place it in their mouth - brain regions were active when executing an action and mirrored the same actions during observation of action in others - mirror neurons capture not only the action but also the intention behind the action - infants' imitation may be the basis for understanding the intentions of others. motor neurons should support our ability not only to observe and learn from others but the relate in deeper, empathetic ways (seeing someone else in pain)

exercise and neurogenesis

one of the recently discovered benefits of physical exercise is its influence on our brains. Exercise has been shown to increase blood flow and create new neurons int the hippocampus in both mice and humans - exercise boosts neurogenesis in the hippocampus in "runners compared with sedentary control mice. The

neuroplasticity

our brain's ability to reinvent and rewire itself - remains a subject for scientific debate - William James highlighted extraordinary plasticity of the brain, proposing that the foundation for learning lies in the cultivation of the brain's neurons - Edward Thorndike (puzzle box fame) investigated the idea of transfer of learning: practicing and learning one activity, not only will help you learn the facts for this class but also will transfer to other tasks or real-world situations learning is specific to what is practiced and does not generalize very dar afield

not all stimuli can evoke a similar aversion

radiation paired with a red light (CS), the rats never learned to associate the red light and the nausea (UR) whereas they made the association between nausea and the sweet water after only a single pairing

Using treats, Jeremy is trying to teach his dog to roll over. So far, however, his dog has only learned to flop onto its back and wait for treats. While the target behavior has not been trained yet, Jeremy sees this as progress toward his ultimate goal. What approach to training is Jeremy relying on?

shaping - Shaping is all about successive approximation: getting closer to the target behavior gradually. Jeremy's dog has learned to flop, so all it needs to do now is to learn to also flip back over to complete the target behavior of "roll over."

post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD)

- People who develop posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) after experiencing war, rape, or violence may be stricken with anxiety for years after the event, and previously neutral environmental stimuli associated with the traumatic experience serve as triggers for their fears - for individuals suffering from PTSD, the world may be filled with fear triggers bc of the overgeneralization of fear-conditioned learning

neurons learn to predict a future reward

- activity in neurons that release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is released after a rewarding event, sheds light on the role of predictions in learning - dopamine was first secreted in re

classical conditioning in the advertising

- advertising industry takes full advantage of the powerful ways in which emotion and classical conditioning can alter behavior - viewers build an association between the new brand (CS) and good feelings (CR) making it likely that the target audience will choose this brand the next time they make a purchase - cigarette companies: pair cigarettes (CS) with beautiful, successful women or muscular cowboys (US to evoke feelings of attractiveness and strength (CR) - government against cigarettes: gruesome pictures to discourage people from smoking

training with games

- helps someone get better at those games but does not boost much else - brain games do not seem to improve broad cognitive abilities or have meaning in day-to-day living - some evidence has found that the right kind of practice can have broad and lasting benefits: evidence from rehabilitation of function demonstrates that long-term game playing in people who have lost some cognitive function, such as the elderly, can have lasting changes in the brain and behavior

observational learning in the real world

- most employers in manual trades such as carpenters, electricians, hair stylists, instruct through observational learning - internships in medicine and surgery also rely on practical exposure to reinforce theoretical knowledge

Pavlov found that relearning an association after extinction will be more rapid than in the original conditioning stage

- some residual trace of the association is saved in memory to support later relearning. - made possible by "savings" which is like learning stored away in your brain bank

operant conditioning in animals

- when an animal does a behavior that is similar to the desired behavior, the trainer clicks and immediately follows the click by giving a reward. this establishes the secondary reinforcer to the primary reward enforcer. eventually, trainer gives at random intervals, and the animal is still reinforced by the click

B.F Skinner

1904-1990; Field: behavioral; Contributions: created techniques to manipulate the consequences of an organism's behavior in order to observe the effects of subsequent behavior; Studies: Skinner box - Skinner designed a box that enabled him to examine classical and operant conditioning in human and nonhuman animals: (a) a bird, (b) a rat, and (c) a baby. - operant chamber - allowed for free operant responses: animals could respond at any time, as many times as needed, and without intervention bc there is not clear end point or goal, such as escape - researchers could measure how long it took an animal to respond but also changed in the # of responses over time - boxes allowed animals to exhibit the reinforced behavior many times to earn many food or water rewards while in the box

contiguity and contingency

1. closeness in time - not enough 2. predictiveness - is even more important - your brain has decided that classical conditioning between events that precisely co-occur in time is not worthwhile bc it has limited ability to help you predict the future, to adjust your behavior to what is coming, and to adapt successfully to the environment

2 basic forms of learning

1. nonassociative learning 2. associative learning

Cognitive Revolution

A shift in psychology, beginning in the 1950s, from the behaviorist approach to an approach in which the main thrust was to explain behavior in terms of the mind. One of the outcomes of the cognitive revolution was the introduction of the information-processing approach to studying the mind.

Tomasz has grown up using computers and smartphones, while his grandfather Jacek never even learned to type, much less handle modern electronics. Which of the following statements is most likely to be true?

Although their genes are very similar, their brains will display distinct wiring patterns - The brain regions associated with typing and texting will probably be noticeably different in Tomasz. Despite their shared genes, experience has shaped their brains to be different.

cognitive maps

An internal representation of the spatial relationships between objects in an animal's surroundings. - the term cognitive suggests that what the rats learned was not a reinforced series of behaviors but rather an internal mental representation of the world - tolman believed that operant learning did exist, but that it resulted in what he called "strip-maps" - maps that were simple but narrow and inflexible. However, cognitive maps represent a complex spatial layout - the big picture - tolman argued that cognitive maps were the sign of a healthy mind and a critical ingredient of well-being: focus less on the destination and more on the experience of the journey

the ABCs of operant conditioning

Antecendents Behavior Consequences

Bandura's Bobo Doll Experiment

In this experiment children watched a model attack a doll and then the children were put in a room with toys including the same doll and children it was found that the kids who watched the model were much more likely to imitate the actions. - vicarious reinforcement: saw adult being rewarded for the way he played with the doll; children modeled reinforced behaviors - vicarious punishment: children who saw the adult being punished avoided the punished behaviors when playing with the doll - children learned the consequences through observation - parents have an immense impact on their children bc of observational learning

classical conditioning can each well beyond simple associations to change behavior and influence how we think and feel

Little Albert: afraid of fluffy white things: demonstrates that fear, a much more complex behavioral response than a reflex like salivating, could also be conditioned. - negative associations can be so powerful that they are learned extremely rapidly and are easily generalized, even after a single experience - PTSD

Diamond-Water Paradox

The observation that things with the greatest value in use sometimes have little value in exchange and things with little value in use sometimes have the greatest value in exchange.

preparedness

The species-specific biological predisposition to learn some associations more quickly than other associations - ex of human preparedness: tendency to learn specific phobias - an irrational fear for a specific group of stimuli (guns, war, bombs, so on) - most common phobias are spiders, snakes, and heights - strong predispositions for real-life threats that a species has faced during its evolution, and members of that species are more apt to learn to fear those threats. Our evolutionary part prepares us to learn certain associations more rapidly

genome

a 23-chapter (one for each chromosome) instruction book on how our ancestors have adapted to changes in their environments. It includes such important instructions as how to build an eye, a heart, and a brain. As such, the many million years of trial-and-error "learning" to build our basic biological systems are coded in the living memory of our genome genes provide the basic machinery for this learing to take place. - visual cortex comes into the world not programmed with what to see, but ready to learn to see

blocking

a classical conditioning phenomenon whereby a prior association with a conditioned stimulus prevents learning of an association with another stimulus bc the second one adds no further predictive value - conditioning does not occur randomly, but rather associations are made only to events that are valuable and informative - blocking is adaptive - blocking is often compromised or absent in individuals who experience hallucinations (schizophrenia) bc the disorder disrupts a person's ability to attend to environmental stimuli in a predictive manner; they are bombarded with excess info, making learned connections difficult esp. since they are not always connected to reality

conditioned taste aversion

a classically conditioned response where individuals are more likely to associate nausea with food than with other environmental stimuli - this survival mechanism often follower a wicked bout of food poisoning - bc there were no previous associations, the aversion can be particularly strong in cases where you eat something foreign or exotic and become sick - conditioned taste aversions and more natural pairings are instant and powerful: humans & many other animals have a preparedness to learn about food sources specifically through the chemical sense of taste and smell - getting sick after eating a novel food will result in conditioned taste aversions based more on visual appearance than on flavor - farmers can use conditioned taste aversions to help their livestock avoid certain poisonous plants

punishment

a consequence that decreases the likely hood that a behavior will be repeated

reinforcement

a consequence that increases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated

primary reinforcers

a consequence that is innately pleasurable and/or satisfies some biological need - food, drink when thirsty, warmth when cold, sex - all linked to behaviors necessary to pass on our previous genes - satisfy an innate biological need

observational learning

a form of learning in which a person observes and imitates a behavior from a model - eliminates some of the painstaking trial-and-error process and increases the rate of learning (and decreases the risks) associated with operant or classical methods - involved being able to execute the desired behavior

nonassociative learning

a form of learning that involves a change in the magnitude of an elicited response with repetition of the eliciting stimulus - involves inc. or dec. response to a repeated stimulus. - learning even in the simplest of organisms (invertebrates like the sea slug) - habituation and sensitization represent 2 opposing poles of nonassociative learning

associative learning

a form of learning that involves making connections between stimuli and behavioral responses

habituation

a form of nonassociative learning by which an organism becomes less responsive to a repeated stimulus - the brain decreases it attention to stimuli in our environment that turn out to be harmless or unimportant ("cry wolf") - brain becomes less responsive with repeated exposure, allowing us to direct our resources to more important stimuli in our environment - might be attributed to a decreased response due to muscle fatigue. may reflect a decreased ability to detect the stimulus due to adaptation of the sensory receptors - reflect learning in the connection between how sensory inputs result in motor outputs

sensitization

a form of nonassociative learning by which an organism becomes more sensitive, or responsive, to a repeated stimulus - leads to an increased response with repetition of the stimulus, making us more sensitive to it

superstitious conditioning

a form of noncontingent reinforcement, in which individuals learn a behavior that has no actual relationship with reinforcement - developed after coincidental reinforcement began and increased during the intervals between reinforcement - this type of superstitious behavior arises bc our prediction-machine brains, in trying to extract meaningful patterns out of noise, will sometimes invent a pattern when none actually exists - behaviors do not necessarily reflect true associations with the result of one's actions. instead, learning depends on the associations made in the mind of the beholder

secondary reinforcers

a learned pleasure that acquires value through experience because of its association with primary reinforcers - tokens, money - we have learned to associate these secondary reinforcers with primary reinforcers, and in doing so we greatly expand what we will work to obtain - secondary reinforcers have some characteristics that can render them even more powerful forces on behavior than primary reinforcers - for many of us there is no limit to how much money we desire to attain and how much we are willing to work for it

operant conditioning

a mechanism by which our behavior acts as an instrument or tool to change the environment and, as a result, voluntary behaviors are modified. - involves voluntary actions or behaviors, which serve as levers to control or operate on the environment to produce desired outcomes - over time, with continued practice, these behaviors become more automatic and second-nature to us. - voluntary behaviors are generally modifies as a result of their consequences. We learn that the behavior must be performed to get or avoid something. - by allowing associations to voluntary (operant) and involuntary (classical) behaviors, our brain can both control and be controlled by the environment, thus covering all its bases

classical conditioning

a passive form of learning by which an association is made between a reflex-eliciting stimulus (e.g. a shock) and other stimuli (e.g. a sound) - causes the appearance of a behavior - a person learns to extend the ability for a stimulus (food) to elicit a reflexive response (hunger) to other associated stimuli, such as the appearance of a favorite restaurant. - originated to teach organisms how to best prepare for what was upcoming in the environment

Fear conditioning has been found to depend on the amygdala

a region next to the hippocampus in the depths of the medial temporal lobes, which plays an important role not only in fear associations but also in other forms of emotional learning - amygdala serves as a key brain region through which emotional CS-US associations are made - amygdala is perfectly positioned for fear conditioning, as it also directly communicates with the brainstem, which influences bodily reflexes - the amygdala not only mediates conditioned aversive and escape responses but is also involved in conditioned reward, as occurred in Pavlov's dogs

fixed-interval schedule

a reinforcement schedule based on a fixed amount of time before a reward is given - there is a steep drop-off in responding immediately after receiving the reward and then, very closely to the five-minute mark, responding increases - response rate yields a very distinct scallop-shaped pattern when graphed

variable-interval schedule

a reinforcement schedule based on an amount of time between rewards that varies around a constant average - leads to slow and consistent responses bc the time to the next reinforcer is relatively unpredictable - ex: check email inbox, fishing, surfing

continuous reinforcement schedule

a reinforcement schedule in which a behavior is rewarded every time it is performed - ex: chocolate every time you finish reading a study unit - *effective bc it leads to rapid acquisition of a behavior, but that behavior will also be subject to rapid extinction - very rare in the real world (vending machines) - you expect a reward, if you don't get it behavior easily goes extinct

partial reinforcement schedules

a reinforcement schedule in which a behavior is rewarded only some of the time - very effective motivators - can be determined by one of two variables: behavior or time 1. ratio schedules: schedules determined by behavior 2. interval schedules: schedules determined by time - both ratio and interval schedules have fixed and variable forms: when you use a fixed schedule, precisely every nth response is reinforced (ratio), or reinforcement occurs after a set amount of time (interval) - with variable schedule, reinforcement occurs more randomly, such that only approximately every nth response is reinforced (ratio), or reinforcement occurs after an approximate amount of time (interval) - variable schedules are more resistant to extinction than fixed schedules bc of the unpredictability of the reward

fixed-ratio schedule

a reinforcement schedule in which a specific number of behaviors are required before a reward is given - piecework pay at a factory where a worker receives $1 for every 10 pieces made - behavior tends to decrease briefly immediately after a reward is received and then accelerate as repetitions get closer to the threshold for receiving the reward

variable-ratio schedule

a reinforcement schedule in which an average number of behaviors are required before a reward is given - very effective schedule for eliciting consistently high levels of behavior - casinos: lack of predictability, response rates (pulling the slot machine arm) are consistent and very strongly reinforced, keeping people stuck to their slot machine seat - high-frequency behavior: high and steady rate of responding is surprisingly resistant to extinction - golf is another example

conditioned response (CR)

a response that occurs in the presence of the conditioned stimulus after an association between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus is learned - represents a learned adaptive response, used from coping with the environment - salivation after seeing Pavlov

contingent reinforcement

a specific response is reinforced because it yields some desired change to the environment

conditioned stimulus (CS)

a stimulus that has no prior positive or negative association but comes to elicit a response after begin associated with the unconditioned stimulus - Pavlov entering the room (previously neutral but now a stimulus for salivation) - bell in next experiment

unconditioned stimulus (US)

a stimulus that produces a reflexive response without prior learning - food in Pavlov study

5 fundamental processes underlying learning

acquisition, generalization, discrimination, extinction, and spontaneous recovery

Which of the following brain regions is considered essential for classical conditioning of emotional responses?

amygdala - This portion of the limbic system is responsible for generating a wide range of emotional responses, including fear.

operant conditioning

an active form of learning by which an association is made between a stimulus (e.g. a shock) and a voluntary response (e. g. a press of a button) - makes associations between a behavior and its consequences, and makes a behavior change as a result

extinction

an active learning process in which there is a weakening of the conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus - does not imply complete unlearning or totally forgetting the importance of the bell, or CS - the brain learning to not respond

instinctive drift

an animal's reversion to evolutionarily derived instinctive behaviors instead of demonstrating newly learned responses - ex: when wanted pigs to deposit large coins in piggy bank, pigs would drop the nickels on the ground and shove them with their snouts - behaviors overruled the very effective reinforcement training bc the animals were engaging in instinctive behaviors such as rooting (pigs) and food washing (raccoons)

learning

an enduring change in behavior resulting from prior experience - adaptation to one's environment that is often expressed in the form of increased skill, ability, or understanding due to experience. - allows us to adapt the environment to our desires and needs

positive form of operant conditioning

behavior leads t a stimulus being presented (given) - adds

negative form of operant conditioning

behavior leads to a stimulus being removed - subtracts

It is commonly observed that "practice makes perfect." According to Thorndike's "law of effect," how does trial-and-error learning result in behaviors that achieve our objectives?

behaviors that yield good outcomes become more likely, while those that yield bad outcomes become less likely - In Thorndike's usage, successful behaviors are "strengthened," meaning that they are more likely to appear in similar scenarios in the future, while behaviors that lead to bad outcomes are "weakened."

The use of "scapegoat" foods in chemotherapy treatment is a way of reducing the odds of nausea being associated with foods that patients enjoy. Which conditioning phenomenon best describes how this technique works?

blocking - By tricking the body into associating the nausea with the scapegoat flavor, other flavors no longer contribute much "predictive value" to the equation. In effect, this conditioned taste aversion blocks nausea from being associated with other foods.

Köhler felt that his work with chimpanzees studying insight learning was proof that not all forms of problem solving could be explained by operant conditioning. Which of the following observations is critical to this conclusion?

chimpanzees often solved complex problems on the first try - If successful behaviors need to be shaped by feedback, then the early stages of solving a problem should always consist of trial and error.

time that elapses between the performance of a behavior and receipt of the consequence can have powerful effects on our behavior

delayed reinforcement can take the form of a paycheck, holidays, or retirement, whereas delayed punishment might include being grounded, put in detention, or given time in prison. - immediate reinforcing consequences often overpower delayed punishment. We eat candy even though it can cause cavities. Smoking is still prevalent even though it causes cancer - underplaying the importance or extent of delayed consequences, or delay discounting, guides people toward poor or impulsive choices making them more susceptive to substance abuse

When Raoul first moved to Manhattan, the sound of traffic outside his window made it hard for him to sleep. After three months, Raoul had become used to the traffic and slept without difficulty. However, after spending a weekend in the country, where the nights are quiet, Raoul returns to find that the traffic is disrupting his sleep again. What is the term that describes the renewal of Raoul's sleep disruption?

dishabituation - After Raoul habituated to the noise of traffic, a brief stay in a quiet place restored Raoul's sensitivity to it. Because this is a return to his original baseline, it is considered dishabituation.

Marie has reached retirement age and is worried her mind might not be as sharp as it used to be. Given the current scientific consensus, which of the following is most likely to help maintain her cognitive faculties for years to come?

exercise - Exercise that results in elevated cardiovascular activity is among the most reliable preventative measures that people can undertake to keep their brains healthy into old age.

4. reinforcement

final stage to imitating actions; will increase the likelihood that a person will repeat a new behavior or skill

Alice writes a daily column that you enjoy. Because of her editor's strict oversight, each post goes online at exactly 7 AM every day. If you had to describe the column as following a schedule of reinforcement (with the columns themselves being the reinforcers and your checking the column's website being the behavior that is being reinforced), which would fit best?

fixed interval - The first time you visit the website after 7 AM, the column will be available. Then there will be no new column until the next day. As such, a fixed 24-hour interval governs the availability of the columns.

insight learning

form of learning that occurs without trial and error and thus without clear reinforcement - behavioral changes suggest that we have come to an understanding of the solution - Kohler with chimpanzees who appeared to have formed a mental representation, an internal concept of the solution before attempting to reach the bananas proving them with an "aha!" moment that allowed a novel association to occur. After understanding the state of the bananas in relation to themselves, they then inferred what tools were needed to procure the food

Sebastian and Tim both love to cook, and their dog Waldo is happy to eat any tidbits the chefs might be willing to spare. Sebastian is a sucker for puppy dog eyes and often drops bits of food for Waldo. Tim never gives Waldo food while cooking because he does not want to encourage begging. Despite this difference in behavior, Waldo patiently waits in the kitchen whenever anyone is cooking. What is this an example of?

generalization - Even though Tim has never given Waldo a snack while cooking, Waldo has nevertheless generalized the behavior he learned from getting fed by Sebastian.

dual inheritance (gene-culture coevolutionary theory)

human cultural evolution was likely a dominant force driving our species' genetic evolution over the last few hundred thousand years

Edward Thorndike

in America studying operant conditioning with cats - In Edward Thorndike's studies of trial-and-error learning, a cat had to learn how to escape a puzzle box for a food reward. pulling the string in the box opened the door and then the cat was rewarded with freedom and some tasty fish. - each time the cat was placed back in the box, less time was needed for the cat to pull the string until it did so immediately - only way cats acquired this skill was by learning it through trial and error. when thorndike tried to assist learning by taking the cat's paw, no learning occurred. - only thorugh each cat's own actions did the amount og time to escape the box begin to improve

prediction error

signals that the brain has to revise its predictions about how the world works. If this pattern continues, then the predication has to change in order to eliminate the error, and this adjustment becomes the basis for extinction - our brains are prediction machines, using past experiences to see into the future and test whether our predication are right or wrong

Edward Tolman

started to argue that learning could occur without outward behavioral evidence that it was taking place; researched rats' use of "cognitive maps"

Ivan Pavlov

stumbled across conditioned reflexes when he was completing work on physiology of digestion in dogs. - apparatus measured dogs' salivation, when dogs were given food they would salivate. However, after many repetitions of this measurement, he noticed the dogs salivating in response to many stimuli such as the sight of the food dish, Pavlov himself, or sound of someone approaching to deliver food. - realized that the dogs were beginning to associate relevant sights and sounds with the food, and he recognized that this was a form of learning - conditioned reflexes did not orginiate from the salivary glands themselves, but were being learned by the brain through classical conditioning

dual-process theory of nonassociative learning

suggests that habituation and sensitization are always at work. they are distinct opposing processes, whichever of the 2 has a stronger response wins. depends on the state of arousal - when you are more aroused, sensitization is more potent than habituation - when you are more relaxed, habituation dominates

classical conditioning can also explain how our brains respond to chronic drug use

the brain of a chronic drug user can learn to anticipate the receipt of drugs by adjusting neurotransmitter levels to reduce the impact of the drug - chronic drug users progressively become less responsive to doses of opioids such as heroin, and the brain learns to predict the drug's effect on arrival through the bloodstream - through classical conditioning, chronic drug users form associations with environmental stimuli present when the drugs are administered. Users will take drugs in the same location. The constant envrionmental stimulus serves as a CS. the brain uses this to generate a conditioned response in anticipation of the drug, thereby lessonging its impact. - if the chronic user takes the drug in an unfamiliar environment, the contextual CS is no longer present and the brain does not preemptively adjust its neurotransmitter levels in anticipation of the drugs. - an overdose is much more likely and stronger when the CS is not present because a previously tolerable dose can have a much stronger, and potentially fatal, physiological effect

At her university's fall activities fair, Delaney walks down aisles of booths advertising all the options for on-campus clubs and activities. Each club is using a unique strategy to draw people to its booth. Which of the following groups is using a secondary reinforcer to reward those who visit?

the campus writing center, which has posted a banner reading, "Want to get better grades?" - Good grades do not satisfy an innate biological need; rather, we have learned to value them through experience. Therefore, they can be considered a secondary reinforcer.

instead of criminalizing those addicted to drug use (punishing)....

the clinic approaches addiction through a medical model and rewards responsible usage (reinforcement

comparative neuroanatomy

the comparison of brain structures across species - also has to take into consideration the bodies to which brains are connected - body sizes and features have a substantial role in brain development and evolution

neurogenesis

the formation of new neurons - known to begin during prenatal development - without the birth of neurons, our genes would not be able to build a brain - creations of new neurons is still debated - shown to continue past early development in : hippocampus and and area lining the brain's ventricles, where neural stem cells originate - even if we grant that adult brains can grow new neurons, there remains skepticism about whether these baby neurons grow up to be fully functioning adult cells of the nervous system that affect behavior - some evidence suggests the hippocampal adult neurogenesis is important for certain forms of learning and memory, and a decreased rate of hippocampal neurogenesis can lead to development of Alzheimer's disease

3. motor reproduction

third step to imitating actions; helps reinforce a skill as the learner physically imitates the model's actions - although you see people drive your whole life, it is not until you drive that the skill becomes solidified in your own behavior

According to the "Premack principle," one behavior may be reinforced using another, more frequent behavior. When using it with animals (who cannot describe their own preferences), which of the following assumptions is necessary for the principle to be effective?

the frequent behavior that is used as a reinforcer is something that the animal is motivated to engage in - A frequent behavior may not always be enjoyable. An animal that spends a lot of time coughing, for example, may not "enjoy" coughing, but might instead have a lung condition. To use a behavior as a reinforcer, it is important that it not be forced or reflexive.

the learning of cognitive maps must ultimately be supported by changes in the brain

the hippocampal formation is essential not only for learning but also for a spatial representation of the environment, closely linking these 2 functions in the brain - grey matter expands in frequently used brain regions - studies measuring the amount of grey matter in different regions of the brain find that city taxi drivers boast larger hippocampal size the longer they have been driving a taxi - while bigger brains are not necessarily better, this correlational finding suggests that years of practice can lead to brain growth a. London taxi drivers have more gray matter in the hippocampus (shown in yellow) compared with bus drivers. b. more experience driving a taxi is associated with greater volume in the posterior hippocampus, a region associated with spatial memory

Premack Principle

the idea that activities individuals frequently engage in can be used to reinforce activities that they are less inclined to do - Grandma's rule: you can't eat your dessert (preferred behavior) until you eat your vegetables (less-preferred behavior) - you can't go out with your friends (preferred behavior) until you finish reading this chapter (less-preferred behavior) - it is a frequent behavior that serves to reinforce another less-frequent one; not just the potential pleasure of a behavior that can be used to reward a less-pleasureable behavior - aka: it is not just the joy of the exercise that would reinforce your studying but the fact that it is a frequent behavior

law of effect

the idea that behavior is a function of its consequences - actions that are followed by positive outcomes are strengthened, and behaviors that are followed by negative outcomes are weakened - good outcomes = "satisfiers" - bad outcomes = "annoyers" Thorndike posited that we will work, and thus expend energy, to get satisfiers and to escape from annoyers. Thorndike posited that a satisfier or annoyer would work (that is, produce a behavior) only if it was motivating to the learner

aquisition

the initial learning of association between the unconditioned and conditioned stimuli during classical conditioning - phase where the pairing of the US and the neutral stimulus is introduced. At the beginning of this phase there is no response to the neutral stimulus, but after many pairings, learning increases rapidly as the now CS evokes the CR more reliably, until it reaches a maximum level when the association is fully learned. - learning of conditioned responses is thus not immediate but increases rapidly with repeated exposures

Suppose you are an experimenter, setting up mazes and rewarding rats who make it from one end to the other. You have two mazes, both of which have an identical arrangement of walls. In the first maze, the walls are left blank and featureless. In the second maze, certain walls have unique stickers on them, acting as landmarks. According to Tolman's theories, how should rats' performances in these mazes compare?

the maze with landmarks will be learned more quickly bc the stickers can help with navigation - According to Tolman, rats form "cognitive maps" that represent the layout of the maze. The landmarks should help the rats because they make it clear where in the "big picture" the rat is currently located.

positive punishment

the presentation of a negative stimulus, leading to a decrease in the frequency of a behavior - getting a ticket for speeding

positive reinforcement

the presentation of a positive stimulus, leading to an increase in the frequency of a behavior - giving children stickers for hard work - hug and appreciation for bring mom flowers

shaping

the process by which random behaviors are gradually changed into a desired target behavior by what is called reinforcement of successive approximations - shaping starts simply, with a behavior that is vaguely similar to the target behavior, and then builds in complexity until the target behavior is achieved - rat in skinner box, dispense food as rat got closer until it pulled lever - still used with other animals. used in commercials and movies, parents use to get toddler to use the toilet, clinicians use to get spider phobics to touch a tarantula

imitation

the purposeful copying of a goal-directed behavior - within the first days/weeks of meeting other humans, infants imitate facial actions such as mouth openeing and tongue protrusions - observational learnign through imitation might be our first teacher, and through it we continue to learn important lessons for the rest of our lives - observational learning of motor skills may depend on mental simulation of the actions - a silent act of imitation by the motor cortex

spontaneous recovery

the reappearance of an extinct behavior after a delay - dogs salivate the next day when Pavlov rang the bell - If after many subsequent delay periods no US was ever presented, extinction would prevail and spontaneous recovery would no longer occur, although the association may not have been fully forgotten.

dishabituation

the recovery of a response that has undergone habituation, typically as a result of the presentation of a novel stimulus - Dishabituation occurs when a response that was weakened by habituation is restored to its initial strength, so that the person responds to the old stimulus as if it were new again - different than sensory adaptation - your brain reorients to the initially startling car alarm to ensure that it has not become important after the cell phone rings.

negative reinforcement

the removal of a negative stimulus, leading to an increase in the frequency of a behavior - drink to relieve thirst, eat to relieve hunger, take pain medication to relieve a headache - negative reinforcement is NOT punishment, because it increases the likelihood of a behavior

negative punishment

the removal of a positive stimulus, leading to a decrease in the frequency of a behavior - losing your license for too many speeding tickets

unconditioned response (UR)

the response that is automatically generated by the unconditioned stimulus - always the same as conditioned response - saliva in Pavlov study

Many animals besides humans benefit from observational learning, especially when young animals learn by observing the behaviors of their parents and other adults. What is the major evolutionary advantage of being able to learn in this way?

the risk associated with learning complex and dangerous behaviors can be minimized - By observing an adult demonstrate the basic patterns associated with a complex behavior, a young animal can greatly reduce the range of behaviors it needs to explore to master a skill. Offspring that avoid the kinds of errors that would result in injury or death are therefore much more likely to survive.

2. Retention

the second stage of imitating actions; the encoding of information for future memory retrieval is often assisted by verbal descriptions or images - taking notes: act as reminder to practice certain aspects of a new technique in between lessons

Amisha is reading on the sun deck of a cruise ship. Music is playing nearby, and she can smell the chlorine of the nearby swimming pool. After a while, she becomes seasick from the movement of the ship, resulting in serious nausea. Which of the following stimuli is likely to make her feel queasy at a later time?

the smell of the pool - Humans and many other mammals are biologically prepared to strongly associate both taste and smell with nausea because these senses are closely connected with food.

human bipedalism

the somatosensory cortical area devoted to the hands is much larger than the area devoted to the feet. This results in us standing and walking on two feet, which frees up the hands for various specialized tasks.

Consequences

the stimuli after the behavior that either increase the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated or decrease the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated. - antecedents for our behavior, enable us to predict the consequences of that behavior

antecedents

the stimuli that precede the behavior and signal the consequence - when a traffic light is green, stepping on it is good. when red, stepping on it is bad. the color of the light is the antecedent (A) stimulus that indicates the likely consequences of your behavior - whether it will produce good or bad effects

overgeneralization

the tendency to interpret a single negative event as a never-ending pattern of defeat and failure - when generalization goes too far - stopped to look for cars everything you heard any sound

generalization

the tendency to respond to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus, so that learning is not tied too narrowly to a specific stimulus - the greater the similarity between the 2 stimuli, the more likely they are to be generalized - can be adaptive in our everyday life: walking or driving, you respond when you hear a car horn, even if you haven't hear that specific one before

cultural transmission

the transfer of information from one generation to another that is maintained not by genetics, but by teaching and learning - passed on by subsequent generation

horizontal transmission

the transmission of skills between peers - pick the right friends, they have an impact on you

vertical transmission

the transmission of skills from parent to offspring - ex: when children learn a language from their parents

social learning theory (by albert bandura)

theory stating that learning is a cognitive process derived from social observation, rather than direct reinforcement of motor actions - children learn behavior through social learning which involved main processes: attention, retention, motor reproduction, and reinforcement

children can learn better with reinforcement than with punishment

this has important implication for education - Compared with adults, children showed (a) greater learning during positive (success) relative to negative (failure) performance feedback and (b) greater activity in executive function and cognitive control regions.

people who are more creative exhibit more instinct learning or "aha!" moments

this is because they exhibit distinct brain activity compared with individuals who approach problems methodically - insight learning, like latent learning, may be associated with seeing the big picture rather than focusing on the details

researchers have also tried to harness the power of classical conditioning - specifically, conditioned taste aversion - to help cancer patients

to prevent widespread conditioned taste aversions, patients ate a "scapegoat" food with a unique flavor, such as root beer ice, before every treatment. Patients who successfully linked the scapegoat food to the nausea experienced 30% reduction of aversion toward other foods

Marion recently saw a horror movie in which the killer disposes of bodies by feeding them to pigs. Marion found the scene so upsetting that she had to leave the theater. Now, when she sees a pig, she feels intense anxiety, bordering on panic. According to classical conditioning, what is the appropriate term for the distress that caused Marion to walk out of the movie?

unconditioned response - At the time of viewing the film, Marion viewed a scene (the US) that made her feel intense emotional distress (the UR). Now, pigs in general (the CS) cause her to feel anxiety (the CR).

When blocking was first described, it was very surprising to learning theorists. What feature of blocking made it so unexpected?

under certain circumstances, 100% of a cue's presentations can be followed by an event without an association forming between the cue and the event - Even though one cue is "perfectly predictive" of the event (whether it be food or an electric shock), it will not be learned if an existing association with another cue already perfectly predicts the event.

Kittens learn to hunt with the help of their mothers, who engage in various behaviors to give their offspring the chance to learn how to fend for themselves. This includes bringing them injured prey animals to practice on. What is this sort of learning an example of?

vertical transmission - Transmission is "vertical" when it goes from parent to offspring. The special bond kittens have with their mothers is driven by maternal instinct, which is seen in many species.

Vicarious reinforcement and punishment provide observers with valuable sources of information. Keeping in mind the framework of social learning theory, which of the following scenarios successfully exploits this principle?

when one child misbehaves in class, the teacher tells the whole class what he/she did wrong and what the consequences will be - Under operant conditioning, a child will only learn not to misbehave by experiencing punishment themselves. Social learning lets a child learn what not to do by observing the punishments experienced by others.

noncontingent reinforcement

where a reward was delivered to pigeons on a fixed-interval schedule no matter what behavior they were doing at the time