AP Psychology unit 6

what is the law of effect?

rewarded behavior is likely to recur

§ How is the basic idea used in both classical and operant?

Classical: organisms learn associations between events they don't control. Operant: organisms learn associations between their behavior and resulting events

® What is an experiement showing how we learn to delay gratification?

◊ Four year olds were offered a small candy right then and there or a big candy tomorrow. Most of them chose the big one. This shows maturity.

® What are examples of primary reinforcers?

◊ Getting food when hungry or having a painful headache go away. they are unlearned.

® What are rewards most likely to do in a workplace?

◊ Increase productivity if the desired performance has been well-defined and is achievable. Reward specific, achievable behaviors. Also reward immediately after something is done.

® What is latent learning?

◊ Learning that becomes apparent only when there is some incentive to demonstrate it. Ex: children may learn from watching a parent demonstrate it but will only demonstrate the learning much later, when needed

○ What is respondent behavior?

§ Actions that are automatic responses to a stimulus (such as salivating in response to meat powder and later in response to a tone.

○ What is operant behavior?

§ Behavior that operates on the environment to produce rewarding or punishing stimuli.

What happens in higher-order conditioning? What is an example of this?

A new neutral stimulus can become a new conditioned stimulus. Ex: if a tone regularly signals food and produces salivation, then a light that becomes associated with the tone may also begin to trigger salivation

what is shaping?

A procedure in which reinforcers, such as food, gradually guide an animal's actions toward a desired behavior.

What is learning?

A relatively permanent behavior change due to experience

What did Skinner design to teach animals human-like behaviors?

An operant chamber. It was a box with a bar or key that an animal presses or pecks to release a reward of food or water, and a device that records these responses.

what is a punisher?

Any consequence that decreases the frequency of a preceding behavior. Swift and sure punishers can powerfully restrain unwanted behavior.

How can parents disrupt the cycle of bad behavior being reinforced by both the parent (yelling at the child and then the child obeys) and the child (whining and then the parent caving in)?

By noticing the child doing something right and affirming them for it. when they misbehave, explain to them what they did wrong and put them in time-out.

How does conditioning help an animal survive and reproduce?

By responding to cues that help it gain food, avoid dangers, locate mates, and produce off-spring.

□ What is an example showing how TV is a powerful source of observational learning?

Children may learn things such as bullying is an effective way to control others.

How are classical conditioning and operant conditioning different?

Classical conditioning forms associations between stimuli. It also involves respondent behavior. In operant conditioning, organisms associated their own actions with consequence. Actions followed by reinforcers increase; those followed by punishers decrease.

○ What is an example of animals experiencing habituation?

Disturbed by a squirt of water, the sea slug protectively withdraws its gills. If the squirt continues, the withdrawl response diminishes.

® What is believed that helps people improve in sports?

First reinforcing small successes and then gradually increasing the challenge.

® How can the accidental timing of rewards produce superstitious behaviors in sports?

If a baseball player gets a hit after tapping the plate with the bat, he or she may be more likely to do it again.

□ How can we know what nonverbal organisms percieve?

If we can shape them to respond to one stimulus and not to another, then we know they can percieve the difference.

® Why do intrinsically motivated people work and play?

In search of enjoyment, interest, self-expression, or challenge.

§ What does Pavlov's experiement with the dogs teach us?

Many other responses to many other stimuli can be classically conditioned in many other organisms. Classical conditioning is one way that virtually all organisms learn to adapt to their environment. he also showed us how a process like learning can be studied objectively.

○ What is our adaptability?

Our capacity to learn new behaviors that help us cope with changing circumstances.

□ What is an example showing learned helplessness?

People who are repeatedly faced with traumatic events over which they have no control, come to feel helpless, hopeless, and depressed. This passive resignation is learned helplessness.

How has generalization of anxiety reactions been demonstrated?

Shown an angry face on a computer screen, abused children's brain waves are dramatically stronger and longer-lasting than unabused children.

□ What is an ecologically relevant stimulus?

Something similar to stimuli associated with sexual activity in the natural environment. conditioned stimuli have a natural association with the unconditioned stimuli they predict.

□ What does positive reinforcement do?

Strengthens a response by presenting a typically pleasurable stimulus after a response.

® What did Skinner think would help to achieve individualize instruction, pertaining to each student's level in the classroom?

Students should be told immediately whether what they did was wrong or right and when right, the next step to be taken. Thus, a computer would pace math drills to the student's rate of learning, quizzing the student to find gaps in understanding, and give feedback.

What have PET scans of different brain areas in humans reveal about mirror neurons?

That we also have a mirror neuron system that supports empathy and imitations. As we observe another's action, our brain generates an inner stimulation, enabling us to experience the other's experience within ourselves. Mirror neurons help give rise to children's empathy and to their ability to infer another's mental state, an ability known as theory of mind

How did Pavlov and his associated understand the acquisition?

They had to see how much time should elapse between presenting the neutral stimulus (the light, the tone, the touch) ans the unconditioned stimulus.

□ How do many business organizations use observational learning in training employees?

They use behavior modeling to train communications, sales, and customer service skills. Trainees gain skills faster when they not only are told the needed skills but also are able to observe the skills being modeled effectively by experienced workers.

□ What conditions on TV provide support for the violence-viewing effect?

Things such as murders that go unpunished or violence involving an attractive perpetrator or violence that causes no "visible" pain or harm.

○ How do we learn through observational learning?

This enables us to learn without direct experience. Also called social learning, because we learn by observing and imitating others.

□ What are some examples of how pro-social (positive, helpful) models can have pro-social effects?

To encourage children to read, read to them and surround them with books and people who read. People who exemplify nonviolent, helpful behavior can prompt similar behaviors in others.

○ What do we do in operant conditioning?

We learn to associate a response (our behavior) and its consequence an thus to repeat acts followed by good results and avoid acts followed by bad results.

□ When doesn't conditioning happen?

When the conditioned stimulus follows the unconditioned stimulus. Classical conditioning is biologically adaptive because it helps humans and other animals prepare for good or bad events. To Pavlov's dogs, the tone (CS) signaled an important biological event, the arrival of food (US). If the good or bad event has already occurred, the CS would not likely signal anything significant.

□ Give an example of how generalization can be adaptive.

When toddlers taught to fear moving cars also become afraid of moving trucks and motorcycles.

What does Albert Bandura think that determines whether we will imitate a model?

he believes that part of the answer is reinforcements and punishments- those received by the model as well as by the imitator. By watching, we learn to anticipate a behavior's consequences in situations like those we are observing.

□ How did Alan Wagner show that an animal can learn the predictability of an event?

if a shock always is preceded by a tone, and then may also be preceded by a light that accompanies the tone, a rat will react with fear to the tone but not to the light. It is as if the animal learns an expectancy, an awareness of how likely it is that the US will occur.

what is conditioning?

the process of learned associations

○ How is the significance of an animal's learning displayed?

§ By the challenges of captive bred animals face when reintroduced into the wild. Successful adaptions require nature (the needed genetic predispositions) and nurture (a history of appropriate learning.

○ What are the main three types of learning?

§ Classic conditioning § Operant conditioning § Observational learning

○ How does a seal exhibit associative learning?

§ It associates slapping and barking with a herring treat.

○ What do learned associations affect?

§ Our habitual behaviors. As we repeat behaviors in a given context (the sleeping posture we associate with bed), the behaviors become associated with the contexts. Our next experience of the context then automatically triggers the habitual response. This can make it hard to quit smoking; when back in the smoking context, the urge to smoke can be powerful.

○ What do we learn by? What is an example of this?

§ We learn by association. Our minds naturally connect events that occur in sequence. This also works with sounds. § Ex: suppose you smell freshly baked bread, eat some, and find it satisfying. The next time you see and smell fresh bread, that experience will lead you to expect that eating it will once again be satisfying.

○ What do we do in observational learning?

§ We learn from others' experiences. § Ex: if one sees another solve a puzzle and gain a food reward, the observer may perform the trick more quickly.

○ What do we do in classical conditioning?

§ We learn to associate two stimuli and thus to anticipate events. Ex: when you see lightning and then anticipate thunder to follow it

what is modeling?

§ When we learn by all kinds of specific behaviors by observing and imitating models

□ What is a discriminative stimulus? Give an example.

® A stimulus that signals that a response will be reinforced. ® Ex: a green traffic light.

What is an example of how positive and negative reinforcement can coincide?

® A worried student who goofs off and gets a bad grade, studies harder for the next test. This increased effort may be negatively reinforced by reduced anxiety and positively reinforced by a better grade.

what did many early behaviorists realize about an animal's capacity for conditioning related to its biology?

® An animal's capacity for conditioning is constrained by its biology. Each species' predispositions prepare it to learn the associations that enhance its survival.

□ What is an example of how cognitive processes may be at work in operant learning?

® Animals on a fixed interval reinforcement schedule respond more and more frequently as he time approaches when a response will produce a reinforcer. The animals behave as if they expected repeating the response would soon produce the reward.

□ What is a reinforcer?

® Any event that strengthens (increases the frequency of) a preceding response. Ex: praise or attention

□ What are the social-cultural infleuces on learning?

® Culturally learned preferences Motivation, affected by the presence of others.

□ What are the biological influences on learning?

® Genetic predispositions ® Unconditioned responses Adaptive responses

What is an example showing how organisms are predisposed to learn associations that help them adapt?

® If you become violently ill four hours after eating contaminated seafood, you will probably develop an aversion to the taste of seafood but not to the sigh of the associated restaurant, its plates, the people you were with, or the music you heard there.

What does the method of successive approximations do?

® If you wanted to condition a hungry rat to press a bar, you would first watch its behavior so that you can build on its existing behaviors. You then might give the rat a food reward every time it approaches the bar. Once the rat is approaching the bar regularly, you would require it to move closer before rewarding it. finally, you would require it to touch the bar before you gave it the food.

□ What two factors does the violence-viewing effect seem to stem from?

® Imitation- as children watch something, their mirror neurons stimulate the behavior, and after this inner rehearsal, they become more likely to act it out. ® Prolonged exposure to violence also desensitizes viewers- they become more used to it when later viewing a fight, whether on TV or in real-life.

□ How can nausea seem to be a good thing?

® It alerts the body to a threat (such as toxic food).

□ How did Pavlov's work provide a basis for John Watson's idea?

® John Watson's idea was that human emotions and behaviors, though biologically influenced, are mainly a bundle of conditioned responses. He did an experiment in which he took an 11 month old who feared loud noises, but not white rats. When he presented a white rat to the baby, he also struck a hammer on a metal bar behind the baby's head. After seven repeats of seeing the rat and hearing the noise, the baby burst into tears at the mere sight of the rat. Albert also showed generalization by being afraid of a dog, a rabbit, etc.

□ What is an example of how models say one thing and do another?

® Many parents seem to operate according to the principle: "do as I say, not as I do." experiments suggest that children learn to do both.

□ What are biological constraints?

® Our readiness to learn adaptive associations such as taste aversions.

□ What is an example showing that classical conditioning treatments that ignore cognition have limited success?

® People receiving therapy for alcohol dependency may be given alcohol spiked with a nauseating drug. The awareness that the nausea is induced by a drug and not the alcohol, often weakens the association between drinking alcohol and feeling sick.

□ What are the psychological influences on learning?

® Previous experiences ® Predictability of associations ® Generalization ® Discrimination

□ What are the four drawbacks of physically punishing children?

® Punished behavior is suppressed, not forgotten. ® Punishment teaches discrimination=does the child simply learn that it's not okay to swear around the house, but it's okay to swear elsewhere? ® Punishment can teach fear=the child may associate fear not only with the undesirable behavior but also with the person who delivered the punishment or the place it occurred. ® Physical punishment may increase aggressiveness by modeling aggression as a way to cope with problems.

□ What is continuous reinforcement?

® Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs.

what happens with partial (intermittent) reinforcement?

® Responses are sometimes reinforced, sometimes not. Although initial learning is slower, intermittent reinforcement produces greater resistance to extinction than is found with continuous reinforcement.

□ What does negative reinforcement do?

® Strengthens a response by reducing or removing something undesirable or unpleasant, as when an organism escapes a punishing situation. Negative reinforcement is not punishment; it removes a punishing event. ® Ex: drug users who stop taking a drug then experience withdrawl which could lead them to go back to the drug.

□ What is extinction? How do Pavlov's dogs display it?

® The diminished responding that occurs when the CS (tone) no longer signals the impending US (food). He discovered that when he sounded the tone again and again without presenting the food, the dogs salivated less and less.

What is discrimination? Give an example. How did Pavlov's dogs display this?

® The learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus (which predicts the US) ans other irrelevant stimuli. ® Confronted by a guard dog, your heart may race; confronted by a guide dog, it probably will not. ® Pavlov's dogs learned to respond to the sound of a particular tone and not to other tones.

□ What is spontaneous recovery? How do Pavlov's dogs display it?

® The reappearance of a weakened CR after a pause. ® If he allowed several hours to elapse before sounding the tone again, the salivation to the tone would reappear spontaneously.

□ What is generalization? How did Pavlov's dogs display generalization?

® The tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the CS. A dog conditioned to the sound of one tone also responded somewhat to the sound of a different tone that had never been paired with food.

What do variable-ratio schedules do?

® They provide reinforcers after an unpredictable number of responses. ® Ex: slot machines where you get nothing for something, but it is so hard to extinguish the wanting to play. The variable-ratio schedule produces high rates of responding because reinforcers increase as the number of responses increases.

□ What do fixed-ratio schedules do?

® They reinforce behavior after a set number of responses. ® Ex: coffee shops rewarding us with a free drink after 10 purchased.

□ What do fixed-interval schedules do?

® They reinforce the first response after a fixed time period. ® Ex: people checking more frequently for the mail as the delivery time approaches.

□ What is an example of how an animal's natural predispositions constrain its capacity for operant conditioning?

® Using food as a reinforcer for shaping hamsters to do uncommon behaviors such as face-washing, that aren't normally associated with food or hunger, could be difficult. If teaching them to dig for something, food would work since that is how they search for food.

What shows that extinction occurs rapidly in continuous reinforcement?

® When reinforcement stops, the behavior soon stops. Such as putting money into a candy machine and it breaking down twice.

What do anti-social effects help us understand?

® Why abusive parents might have aggressive children.

What did B.F. Skinner develop, using the law of effect as a starting point?

□ A behavioral technology that revealed principles of behavior control. These principles enabled him to do things such as teaching pigeons to play Ping-Pong.

What are the similarities between classical and operant conditioning?

□ Both are forms of associative learning and both involve acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination. Cognitive processes and biological predispositions influence both.

§ How is extinction used in both classical and operant?

□ Classical: CR decreases when CS is repeatedly presented alone. □ Operant: responding decreases when reinforcement stops.

§ How is acquisition used in both classical and operant?

□ Classical: associating events; CS announces US. Operant: associating response with a consequence (reinforcer or punisher).

§ How is the response used in both classical and operant?

□ Classical: involuntary, automatic □ Operant: voluntary, operates on environment.

§ How are biological predispositions used in both classical and operant?

□ Classical: natural predispositions constrain what stimuli and responses can easily be associated. □ Operant: organisms best learn behaviors similar to their natural behaviors; unnatural behaviors instinctively drift back toward natural ones.

§ How are cognitive processes used in both classical and operant?

□ Classical: organisms develop expectation that CS signals the arrival of US. □ Operant: organisms develop expectation that a response will be reinforced or punished; they also exhibit latent learning, without reinforcement.

§ How is discrimination used in both classical and operant?

□ Classical: the learned ability to distinguish between a CS and other stimuli that do not signal a US. □ Operant: organisms learn that certain responses, but not others, will be reinforced.

§ How is spontaneous recovery used in both classical and operant?

□ Classical: the reappearance, after a rest period, of an extinguished CR. Operant: the reappearance, after a rest period, of an extinguished response.

§ How is generalization used in both classical and operant?

□ Classical: the tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the CS. □ Operant: organisms' responses to similar stimuli are also reinforced.

§ What other things did Pavlov discover?

□ The five major conditioning processes: acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination.

§ What do mirror neurons do?

□ Their activity provides a neural basis for imitation and observational learning. □ Ex: when a monkey grasps, holds, or tears something, these neurons fire. And they also fire when the monkey observes another doing the same activity.

§ What are the differences between classical and operant conditioning?

□ Through classical, an organism associates different stimuli that it does not control and responds automatically (respondent behaviors). Through operant, an organisms associates its operant behaviors (those that act on its environment to produce rewarding or punishing stimuli) with their consequences.

§ What was Pavlov's experiment?

□ To eliminate other possible influences, they isolated the dog in a small room, secured by a harness, and attached a device to divert its saliva to a measuring instrument. From the next room, they presented food, first by sliding in a food bowl, later by blowing meat powder into the dog's mouth. They then paired neutral events (something the dog could see or hear but didn't associate with food) with food in the dog's mouth. Just before placing the food in the dog's mouth to produce salivation, Pavlov sounded a tone. After several parings of tone and food, the dog began to salivate to the tone alone.

§ How do mirror neurons make emotions contagious?

□ We feel what other people feel by mental stimulation. We yawn after someone else yawns, we laugh when others laugh. When watching a person kiss, our own lips might pucker.

® What is a cognitive map?

◊ A mental representation of the layout of one's environment. ◊ Ex: after exploring a maze, rats act as if they have a learned a cognitive map of it by moving faster through it in order to get the reward at the end.

what are conditioned reinforcers?

◊ Also called secondary reinforcers. They get their power through learned association with primary reinforcers. Ex: if a rat in Skinner's box learns that a light signals that food is coming, it will work to turn on the light. The light has become a conditioned reinforcer associated with food

® What steps do psychologists suggest to take to reinforce our own desired behaviors and extinguish the undesired ones?

◊ State your goal in measurable terms and announce it. ◊ Monitor how often you engage in your desired behavior. ◊ Reinforce the desired behavior- give yourself a reward. ◊ Reduce the rewards gradually- as your new behaviors become more habitual, give yourself a mental pat on the back instead of a cookie.

® What is extrinsic motivation?

◊ The desire to behave in certain ways to receive external rewards or avoid threatened punishment.

® What is intrinsic motivation? What can weaken this?

◊ The desire to perform a behavior effectively and for its own sake. ◊ Excessive rewards can weaken this. Ex: children offered a reward for playing with an interesting toy later play with the toy less because it is as if they are thinking "if I have to be bribed, it must not be worth it for my own sake."

® What are examples showing that humans respond to delayed reinforcers?

◊ The paycheck at the end of the week, good grades at the end of the term, and the trophy at the end of the season.

® What is an example showing how small but immediate consequences are sometimes more alluring than big but delayed consequences?

◊ Watching late-night TV and then being groggy the next day.

® What is an example of how some learning occurs after little or no systematic interaction with our environment?

◊ We may puzzle over a problem, and suddenly, the pieces fall together as we percieve the solution in a sudden flash of insight.