Psychology- Chapter 5: Learning

Stimulus

An environmental condition that elicits a response.

Model

An organism that engages in a response that is then imitated by another organism.

Contingency

According to _____________ theory, learning occurs because a CS indicates that the UCS is likely to follow.

Learning

According to behaviorists, ___________ is a relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior that occurs because of experience.

Primary reinforcer

An unlearned reinforcer whose effectiveness is based on the biological makeup of the organism and not on learning. For example, food, water, warmth (positive reinforcers), and pain (negative reinforcer) all serve as primary reinforcers.

Unconditioned response (UCR)

An unlearned response to an unconditioned stimulus.

Shaping

A procedure for teaching complex behaviors that at first reinforces approximations of the target behavior.

Conditioned

A response to a conditioned stimulus is termed a ___________ response.

Unconditioned

A response to an unconditioned stimulus is called an __________ response.

Operant conditioning

A simple form of learning in which an organism learns to engage in behavior because it is reinforced.

Reflex

A simple unlearned response to a stimulus.

Discrimination

- In conditioning, the tendency for an organism to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and similar stimuli that do not forecast an unconditional stimulus.

Operant behvaior

· - Behavior that operates on, or manipulates, the environment.

Extinguish

Repeated presentation of a CS (such as a tone) without the UCS (such as meat) will _______________ the CR (salivation).

Observational learning

The acquisition of knowledge and skills through the observation of others (who are called models) rather that by means of direct experience.

Positive punishment

The application of an aversive stimulus to decrease unwanted behavior, such as spanking, scolding, or a parking ticket.

Negative punishment

The removal of a pleasant stimulus, such as removing a student's opportunity to mentally escape from class by taking his or her phone or computer. Time out is a form of negative punishment because it places a misbehaving child in an environment in which she or he cannot experience rewards.

C

Which of the following best illustrates operant conditioning according to Skinner? a. A dog salivates at the sound of a dinner bell b. A cat comes running when it hears the sound of the can opener c. A dolphin is given a fish every time it jumps through a hoop d. the mating behavior of salmon

Successive approximations

Behaviors that are progressively closer to a target behavior. Ex: Being able to drive somewhere without thinking about where you are going.

Secondary reinforcers

A stimulus that gains reinforcement value through association with established reinforcers. (conditioned reinforcer). We seek money because we have learned that it may be exchanged for primary reinforcers.

Mirror neurons

Neurons that fire when an animal observes the behavior of another animal and the behavior stimulates imitative behavior in the first animal.

Variable-ratio schedule

A schedule in which reinforcement is provided after a variable number of correct responses.

Programmed learning

Developed by B. F. Skinner; an educational method that is based on operant conditioning, this method assumes that any complex task can be broken down into a number of small steps. Does not punish errors, correct responses are reinforced with immediate feedback.

Ivan Pavlov

Dosed dogs with meat powder for his research because he knew that salivation in response to meat powder is a reflex. He identified neural receptors in the mouth that triggered response from the salivary glands.

Negative

_____________ reinforcers increase the probability that operants will occur when they are removed.

Programmed

______________ learning breaks down learning tasks into small steps and reinforces correct performance of each step.

Reinforcers

Are used to strengthen responses. Ex: When a teach stops writing good on all of someone's homework assignments the reinforcement ends.

Latent learning

Johnny watches TV violence for an hour or two a day, but he is not violent outside the home. Then one day Billy attacks him on the way home from school, and Johnny imitates the behavior he saw on television to fight Billy off and teach Billy never to attach him again. Although Johnny has not shown violent behavior until he was attacked, we can assume that when watching television, he was engaging in...

Internal response

Faster heartbeat

Extinction, spontaneous recovery

Spotted zebras learn to stop going to a particular water hole after approaching it several times and finding that it is dry. However, after a month or two passes, they may return to the water hole. Learning to stop going to the water hole because it is dry, but then returning to it after time passes, is an example of _____________ followed by _____________ _____________.

Learning

· - (1) according to behaviorists, a relatively permanent change in behavior that results from experience; (2) according to cognitive theorists, the process by which organisms make relatively permanent changes in the way they represent the environment because of experience o Behaviorists suggests that psychologists learn to run after balls because they have been rewarded or reinforced for doing so (dogs) o Cognitive psychologists state these changes influence an organism's behavior but do not fully determine it.

Contingency theory

· - The view that learning occurs when stimuli provide information about the likelihood of the occurrence of other stimuli; Research was conducted by Robert Rescorla.

Flooding

· A behavioral fear-reduction technique based on principles of classical conditioning; fear-evoking stimuli (CS) are presented continuously in the absence of actual harm so that fear responses (CR) are extinguished. o Exposed to something until the fear is extinguished; very unpleasant.

Operant Conditioning

· A type of learning where you avoid the fearful thing to try to reduce the fear. · Learn to do things or not to do things because of the consequences of their behavior.

Extinctions

· The process by which the conditioned stimulus loses the ability to elicit the conditioned response because the conditioned stimulus is no longer associated with the unconditional stimulus. o The process by which the stimuli lose their ability to evoke learned responses because the events that had followed the stimuli no longer occur (extinguished). Not permanently erased, instead, it remains available for the future under the "right" conditions.

Edward L. Thorndike

· Used cats as subjects in experiments on the effects of rewards and punishments on learning.

Taste Aversion

· When you overdose on a certain food that you do not want to eat it again for a while (maybe even a year).

Behavior modifications

Used by teachers to reinforce children when they are behaving appropriately and when possible to extinguish misbehavior by ignoring it.

Applications of operant conditioning

We use it every day to influence other people. Parents may use it to get their children to acquire so-called gender-appropriate behaviors. Operant conditioning plays a role in attitude formation.

Increase

When a behavior is followed by negative reinforcement, the behavior is likely to...

Association

While attempting to identify neural receptors that trigger salivary glands, Ivan Pavlov inadvertently found that responses can be learned through...

Spontaneous

Extinguished responses often show _____________ recovery as a function of the passage of time.

Systematic desensitization

A behavioral fear-reduction technique in which a hierarchy of fear-evoking stimuli is presented while the person remain relaxed.

Conditioned response

A learned response to a conditioned stimulus.

Cognitive maps

A mental representation of the layout of one's environment.

Fixed-interval

In a _____________-____________ schedule, a specific amount of time must elapse since a previous correct response before reinforcement again becomes available.

Generalization

In conditioning, the tendency for a conditional response to be evoked by stimuli that are similar to the stimulus to which the response was conditioned.

Discriminative stimuli

In operant conditioning, a stimulus that indicates that reinforcement is available.

Flooding

In the behavior-therapy method of _____________, a client is continuously exposed to a fear-evoking stimulus until the fear response is extinguished.

Negative reinforcer

Increases the probability that a behavior will occur when the reinforcers are removed.

Positive reinforcer

Increases the probability that a behavior will occur when they are applied. Food and approval are two examples.

Albert

John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner used conditioning to teach a boy who is known as "Little ____________" to fear rats.

CS and CR

Johnny was tormented in the schoolyard every day by a bully with bright red frizzy hair. One day, Johnny's father brought his boss, Mr. Dale, home. The boss had bright, red frizzy hair, and Johnny ran to his room, crying. Mr. Dale's hair functioned as a __________, and Johnny's fear was a ___________.

Latent learning

Learning that is hidden or concealed.

Partial reinforcement

One of several reinforcement schedules in which not every correct response is reinforced.

C

Professor Fournier gives a quiz every Monday. His students would then tend to __________ because they are on a ________ schedule of reinforcement. a. start studying immediately after the quiz, fixed-ratio b. study regularly through the week, fixed-interval c. study on Sunday nights, fixed-interval d. pay attention in class, variable-interval

B.F. Skinner

Proposed that pigeons be trained to guide missiles to their targets.

Biological preparedness

Readiness to acquire a certain kind of conditional response due to the biological makeup of the organism.

Conditioned stimuli

Roberto kept seeing signs on the highway advertising Pizza Hut. He started to salivate at the possibility of having pizza. The signs were:

Variable-ratio

Slot machines tend to keep gamblers playing by using a __________-_______ schedule of reinforcement.

Spontaneous recovery

The recurrence of an extinguished response as a function of the passage of time.

Law of effect

Thorndike's view that pleasant events stamp in responses, and unpleasant events stamp them out.

Evolution of Taste Aversion

Those of us that develop taste aversions quickly are less likely to eat poisonous food, more likely to survive, and more likely to contribute our genes to future generations.

Reinforce

To follow a response with a stimulus that increases the frequency of the response.

conditioned stimulus (CS)

A previously neutral stimulus that elicits a conditioned response because it has been paired repeatedly with a stimulus that already elicited that response.

Fixed-interval schedule

A schedule in which a fixed amount of time must elapse between the previous and subsequent times that reinforcement is available. Car dealers use when they offer incentives for buying up the remainder of the year's line in summer and fall.

Fixed- ratio schedule

A schedule in which reinforcement is provided after a fixed number of correct responses.

Continuous reinforcement

A schedule of reinforcement in which every correct response is reinforced.

Unconditional stimulus (UCS)

A stimulus that elicits a response from an organism prior to conditioning.

Observable response

Eating, scratching

Variable-interval schedule

o A schedule in which a variable amount of time must elapse between the previous and subsequent times that reinforcement is available. We are more likely to study for a scheduled quiz than a pop quiz, but we study a little every day in case we have a pop quiz.

Reinforcement

o Any event that increases the probability that a response will recur.

Response

o Any identifiable behavior

Reflex

o Automatic, nonlearned response

Consequences

o Effects that follow a response

Antecedents

o Events that precede a response

Learning

o Relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience. o Does NOT include temporary changes due to disease, maturation, injury, or drugs since these do NOT qualify as learning.

Ivan Pavlov (classical conditioning)

o Russian physiologist who initially was studying digestion o Used dogs to study salivation when dogs were presented with meat powder · Also known as Pavlovian or Respondent Conditioning

High-Order Conditioning

· A previously neutral stimulus comes to serve as a learned or conditional stimulus after being paired repeatedly with a stimulus that has already become a learned or conditional stimulus. Seeing something that has burned you before brings back the memory and fear.

Classical conditioning

· A simple form of learning in which organisms come to anticipate or associate events with one another. Involve ways in which we learn to associate events with other events. It is involuntary, automatic learning. o We prefer grades of A over F and we stop for red lights and not green because of the approval given in doing so.

ABC

· A=Antecedent · B=Behavior · C=Consequence

Generalization and determination

· Adaptation requires us to respond similarly to stimuli that are equivalent in function and to respond differently to stimuli that are not.

Counterconditioning

· An organism learns to response to a stimulus in a way that is incompatible with a response that was conditioned earlier. For example, relaxation is incompatible with a fear response. o Bringing in something joyful to compare to something fearful is incompatible and it counter conditions it. o Psychologists helped a young boy overcome his fear of rabbits by having him eat cookies while a rabbit was brought closer and closer.

Orienting reflex

· An unlearned response in which an organism attends to a stimulus.

Extinction and spontaneous recovery

· Aspects of conditioning that help us adapt by updating our expectations or revising our thinking about (representations of) the changing environment.

Biofeedback training

· Based on operant conditioning; it has enabled people and lower animals to learn to control autonomic responses to attain reinforcement. Receive reinforcement in the form of information. previous.

Little Albert

· John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner conditioned the boy to fear rats by clanging steel bars behind his head when he played with the animal.

Effects of violence in the media

· Observational learning · Disinhibition- punishment that inhibits or discourages behavior. · Increased emotional arousal · Priming aggressive thoughts and memories · Habituation- repeated stimuli that we become use to · Provision of aggressive scripts- media violence and their roles o The family of violent children often reject their children and use physical punishment on them. This leads to children thinking violent behavior is okay.

Applications of classical conditioning

· Some of the most important applications of classical conditioning involve the conditioning of fear and the counterconditioning or extinction of fear.