Exam 2 - Learning and Cognition

When a student repeatedly behaves in an inappropriate way, probably the teacher's first step should be to _.

Try to discover what is reinforcing the behavior.

The classic experiments on insightful problem solving were done with chimpanzees by

Wolfgang Kohler

According to the one-process theory of avoidance, the avoidance response is reinforced by _______.

a reduction in the number of aversive events

The Premack principle says that reinforcement involves _______.

a relation between behaviors

E.L. thorndike's studies of learning started as an attempt to understand

animal intelligence

The law of effect says that _______.

behavior is a function of its consequences

Stanley wants to determine which of two reinforcement schedules is more attractive to rats. He trains a rat to press a lever for food, and then puts the rat into an experimental chamber containing two levers. Pressing one lever produces reinforcement on an FR 10 schedule; pressing the other lever produces reinforcement on an FI 10" schedule. Lever pressing is on a _________.

concurrent schedule

Studies of choice involve

concurrent schedules.

Secondary reinforcers are also called _______ reinforcers.

conditioned

Studies of delayed reinforcement document the importance of ______.

contiguity

A schedule in which reinforcement is contingent on the behavior of more than one subject is a

cooperative schedule.

Thorndike plotted the results of his puzzle box experiments as graphs. The resulting curves show a _____ with succeeding trials.

decrease in time

When reinforcement is contingent on continuous performance of an activity, a __________. reinforcement schedule is in force.

duration

Studies of learned helplessness use the _____ procedure.

escape training

Negative reinforcement is also called _______.

escape-avoidance training

Often after the initial effect of extinction procedure is an increase in behavior is called

extinction burst

The schedule that is likely to produce a cumulative record with scallops is the _________

fixed interval schedule

John spent his summer picking cantaloupes for a farmer. The farmer paid John a certain amount for every basket of cantaloupes picked. John worked on a ____.

fixed ratio sechedule

The explanation of the PRE that puts greatest emphasis on internal cues is the ___ hypothesis.

frustration

Money is a good example of a _______ reinforcer.

generalized

Williams found that the greater the number of reinforcements before extinction, the _______.

greater the number of responses during extinction

Operant learning is sometimes called ________ learning.

instrumental

An action that improves the effectiveness of a reinforcer is called a ______.

motivating operation

Shirley trains a rat to press a lever and then reinforces lever presses on an FR 10 schedule when a red light is on, and an FI 10" schedule when a green light is on. In this case, lever pressing is on a

multiple schedule.

All of the following are useful tips for shaping behavior except

never back up

The Watson and Rayner experiment with Little Albert may have involved operant as well as Pavlovian learning because the loud noise ______.

occurred as Albert reached for the rat

Negative punishment is also sometimes called _ training

penalty

CRF is synonymous with _______.

positive reinforcement

Probably the best way of increasing the creativity of stories in an English class is to

praise particularly original stories

Schlinger and Blakely found that the reinforcing power of a delayed reinforcer could be increased by ________.

preceding the reinforcer with a stimulus

The opposite of a conditioned reinforcer is a ______.

primary reinforcer

Clark Hull's explanation of reinforcement assumes that reinforcers _____.

reduce a drive

Delaying delivery of a punisher is most likely to

reduce its effectiveness

Resurgence may help account for _______.

regression

Sylvia believes that the reinforcement properties of an event depend on the extent to which it provides access to high probability behavior. Sylvia is most likely an advocate of _______ theory.

relative value

Premack's name is most logically associated with _______.

relative value theory

According to ___________ theory, schoolchildren are eager to go to recess because they have been deprived of the opportunity to exercise.

response deprivation

Farmer gable had a problem... His approach is best described as an example of

response prevention

One explanation for the PRE implies that the effect is really an illusion. This is the

response unit hypothesis

The reappearance of previously effective behavior during extinction is called ____________.

resurgence

The one thing that all reinforcers have in common is that they _______.

strengthen behavior

George trains a pigeon to peck a disk by reinforcing each disk peck. Once the response is learned, George begins to cut back on the reinforcers. At first he reinforces every other response, then every third response, every fifth response, every tenth response, and so on. George is using a procedure called _________.

stretching the ratio

Shaping is the reinforcement of ____________ of a desired behavior

successive approximation

First step in building a behavior chain is to do a ____ analysis

task

The distinctive characteristic of the Sidman avoidance procedure is that _______.

the aversive event is not signaled

Charles Catania identified three characteristics that define reinforcement. These include all of the following except _______.

the consequence of the behavior must be positive

A pigeon is confronted with two disks, one green, the other red. The bird receives food on a VI 20" schedule when it pecks the green disk, and on a VI 10" schedule when it pecks the red one. You predict that the bird will peck

the red disk about twice as often as the green disk.

Douglas Anger proposed that there is a signal in the Sidman avoidance procedure. The signal is ________.

time

In one of Thorndike's puzzle boxes, a door would fall open when a cat stepped on a treadle, thus allowing the cat to reach food outside the box. Eventually the cat would step on the treadle as soon as it was put into the box. Thorndike concluded that ________.

treadle stepping increased because it had a "satisfying effect"

Your text reports the case of a man who apparently made hundreds of harassing phone calls. The man's behavior was most likely on a/an _________

variable interval (VR) schedule

reprimands restraint captivity and electrical shocks can be reinforcers

True

The banana experiment by Robert Epstein and colleagues, which paralleled Kohler's experiments with chimps, demonstrated that insight ___.

Depends on an organism's learning history

Superstitious behavior is behavior that occurs repeatedly despite the fact that it ___.

Does not produce the reinforcers that maintain it

_____is a neurotransmitter that seems to be important in reinforcement.

Dopamine

Using ESB as a reinforcer, Talwar and his colleagues got such effective control over the behavior of rats that journalists called the animals robo-rats.

True

Vomiting is ordinarily an involuntary response, but sometimes it can be modified by operant procedures.

True

The schedule that is not an intermittent schedule is _________

FR1 continuous

When a response is placed on extinction, there is often an increase in emotional behavior.

True

In VI schedules, the reinforcer occurs periodically regardless of what the organism does.

False

Is it true that negative reinforcement and punishment are synonyms?

False

One tip for successful shaping of behavior is to provide large reinforcers.

False

Studies demonstrate that operant learning is as effective with involuntary behavior, such as the salivary reflex, as it is with voluntary behavior.

False

The more effort a behavior requires, the more times the behavior will be performed during extinction.

False

The response unit hypothesis suggests that there really is a partial reinforcement effect.

False

The thinner of two schedules, VR 5 and VR 10, is VR 5.

False

With reinforcement, it is easy for a person to lower his blood pressure

False

A classic work on reinforcement schedules is by _________ .

Ferster and Skinner

The word positive in positive punishment refers to the fact that _.

Something is added.

Unexpected reinforcers produce more dopamine than expected reinforcers

True

The correct term for a stimulus that acts as a punisher is

Aversive

__________ refers to the point at which a behavior stops or its rate falls off sharply.

Break point

The schedule to use if you want to produce the most rapid learning of new behavior is _____

CRF continuous reinforcement

When food is the reinforcer, it is possible to stretch the ratio to the point at which an animal expends more energy than it receives.

True

Research has shown that abnormal behavior is often _.

An inappropriate way of obtaining appropriate reinforcers

One idea for preventing learned helplessness is ___ training.

Immunization

All oft he following enhance the effectiveness of punishment except _.

Increasing reinforcer deprivation level

Robert Eisenberger and his colleagues demonstrated that reinforcement can establish learned ___.

Industriousness

Generally speaking, the more intense a punisher, the _

More it suppresses behavior

________ demonstrated that electrical stimulation of the brain could be reinforcing.

Olds and Milner

The two-process theory of punishment assumes that punishment involves _.

Pavlovian and Operant learning

In her work with dolphins, Karen Pryor gradually realized that what she had to do go get novel behavior from the animals was to ___.

Reinforce novel behavior

The study of reinforcement schedules suggests that the behavior we call stick-to-itiveness is largely the product of ___.

Reinforcement history

_____________ led the way in the study of choice.

Richard Herrnstein

If a rat receives a shock each time it presses a lever, but not otherwide, we can say that _.

Shock is contingent on lever pressing

Skinner describes some of his most important research in _______.

The Behavior of Organisms

Some studies show that offering rewards reduces creativity. Research by Robert Eisenberger and others suggests that this is because in these studies ___.

The rewards were not contingent on creative behavior

According to Skinner, people are rewarded, but behavior is reinforced.

True

Backward chaining begins with the reinforcement of the last behavior in the chain

True

Extinction often increases the variability of behavior.

True

Harlan Lane and Paul Shinkman put a college student's behavior on extinction following VI reinforcement . The student performed the behavior 8,000 times without reinforcement.

True

In operant learning, the word contingency usually refers to the degree of correlation between a behavior and a consequence.

True

In shaping, it is sometimes a good idea to back up-- i.e., to reinforce earlier approximations of the desired behavior.

True

Is it true that negative reinforcement increases the strength of a behavior?

True

Kohler thought that insight was achieved suddenly, but other work suggests that it is achieved gradually.

True

Meerkats train their young using procedures that resemble shaping.

True

One everyday example of a VR schedule is the lottery.

True

Operant learning probably always involves Pavlovian conditioning as well.

True

Reinforcement is often said to increase the frequency of a behavior, but research suggestss that any feature of a behavior (e.g., intensity, duration, form, etc.) can be strengthened if a reinforcer can be made contingent on that feature.

True

The author of your text probably believes that most childhood tantrums are due to unintentional shaping by adults.

True

The more you increase the size of a reinforcer, the less benefit you get from the increase.

True