AP Psychology - Unit 5: Learning and Classical Conditioning
Behaviorism (Behavioral Perspective)
the view that psychology should be an objective science that studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most modern psychologists agree with the first part and not with the second part
Taste Aversion
a behavior that John Garcia found rats to exhibit, involving a food that the rats will not eat because it makes them ill. This behavior persists even if a nauseating drug is given to the rats hours after the food is given to them.
Higher Order Conditioning (Secondary Conditioning)
a procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a new (often weaker) conditioned stimulus.
Learning
a relatively permanent behavioral change due to experience
Biological Preparedness
an innate tendency to learn certain types of associations relatively easily (helps explain taste aversion)
Delayed Conditioning
an acquisition trial of classical conditioning that occurs when the unconditioned stimulus follows immediately after the conditioned stimulus, with a brief overlap of the two. Known to be the most effective conditioning schedule
Simultaneous conditioning
an acquisition trial of classical conditioning that occurs when the unconditioned stimulus is presented at the same time as the conditioned stimulus (this may or may not work, since the animal is generally distracted by the unconditioned stimulus)
Backward conditioning
an acquisition trial of classical conditioning that occurs when the unconditioned stimulus is presented before the conditioned stimulus (conditioning does not work, since the animal is too distracted by the conditioned stimulus to make the association)
Trace Conditioning
an acquisition trial of classical conditioning that occurs when the unconditioned stimulus is presented hours after the conditioned stimulus. Can be effective sometimes (taste aversion)
Habituation
an organism's decreasing response to a stimulus with repeated exposure to it
Little Albert
an unethical conditioning experiment conducted by John Watson on a human infant, in which the fear of furry textures is instilled in the child.
Neutral Stimulus
in classical conditioning, a stimulus that has not been associated with the response
Unconditioned Stimulus
in classical conditioning, a stimulus that triggers a natural and automatic response.
Conditioned Stimulus
in classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a conditioned response.
Conditioned Response
in classical conditioning, the learned response to a previously neutral stimulus
Unconditioned Response
in classical conditioning, the unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus, such as salivation when food is in the mouth.
Associative Learning
learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning)
Continuity Model
one of Pavlov's theories that stated that the unconditioned stimulus had to follow immediately after the conditioned stimulus for the animal to anticipate, and that the learning of the association between pairings is dependent on the number of times that the pairings occur.
Contingency Model
one of Rescorla's theories stated that conditioning is contingent on the animal's cognitive processing of the event as well as pairings between the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus
Acquisition
one of the five major conditioning processes - in classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus bebing triggering the conditioned response; in operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response
Discrimination
one of the five major conditioning processes - in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus.
Extinction
one of the five major conditioning processes - the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus; occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced
Spontaneous Recovery
one of the five major conditioning processes - the reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response.
Generalization
one of the five major conditioning processes - the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses
Observational Learning
one of the main forms of learning - learning new behaviors from others' experiences
Conditioning
one of the main forms of learning - the process of learning associations
Learned Helplessness
the hopelessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.
John Garcia
the person who first found out about trace conditioning and taste aversion in rats
Robert Rescorla
the person who proved that cognition does play a role in conditioning by studying how rats can predict an event based on their past experience with a stimulus
Ivan Pavlov
the person whose early twentieth century experiments explore the phenomena we call classical conditioning
John Watson
the scientist who conducted the Little Albert experiment
Operant Conditioning
we learn to associate a response (our behavior) with its consequence, and thus repeat acts followed by good results and avoid acts followed by bad results.
Classical Conditioning
we learn to associate two stimuli and thus anticipate events (we learn that a flash of lightning signals an impending crack of thunder, so when lightning flashes nearby, we start to brace ourselves for the subsequent thunder)