Chapter 7.3

Instinctive drift and latent learning are examples of what important idea?

The success of operant conditioning is affected not just by environmental cues, but also by biological and cognitive factors

Taste-aversion research has shown that some animals develop aversions to certain tastes but not to sights or sounds. What evolutionary psychology finding does this support?

This finding supports Darwin's principle that natural selection favors traits that aid survival

intrinsic motivation:

a desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake

extrinsic motivation

a desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment

cognitive map

a mental representation of the layout of one's environment

Evidence that cognitive processes play an important role in learning comes in part from studies in which rats running a maze develop (___________)

cognitive maps

Most experts agree that repeated viewing of media violence

dulls viewers' sensitivity to violence

biological constraints

evolved biological tendencies that predispose animals' behavior and learning. Thus, certain behaviors are more easily learned than others.

Rats that explored a maze without any reward were later able to run the maze as well as other rats that had received food rewards for running the maze. The rats that had learned without reinforcement demonstrated (____________)

latent learning

observational learning

learning by observing others

latent learning

learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it

Some scientists believe that the brain has (___________) neurons that enable empathy and imitation.

mirror

Children learn many social behaviors by imitating parents and other models. This type of learning is called (___________)

observational learning

prosocial behavior

positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior

Garcia and Koelling's (_______) studies showed that conditioning can occur even when the unconditioned stimulus (US) does not immediately follow the neutral stimulus (NS).

taste-aversion

modeling

the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior

Parents are most effective in getting their children to imitate them if

their words and actions are consistent

According to Bandura, we learn by watching models because we experience reinforcement or punishment (____________)

vicariously

What is the impact of prosocial modeling and of antisocial modeling?

Children tend to imitate what a model does and says, whether the behavior being modeled is prosocial (positive, constructive, and helpful) or antisocial. If a model's actions and words are inconsistent, children may imitate the hypocrisy they observe.

How do biological constraints affect classical and operant conditioning?

Classical conditioning principles, we now know, are constrained by biological predispositions, so that learning some associations is easier than learning others. Learning is adaptive: Each species learns behaviors that aid its survival. Biological constraints also place limits on operant conditioning. Training that attempts to override biological constraints will probably not endure because animals will revert to predisposed patterns.

mirror neurons

Frontal lobe neurons that fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. The brain's mirroring of another's action may enable imitation, language learning, and empathy.

How did Garcia and Koelling's taste-aversion studies help disprove Gregory Kimble's early claim that "just about any activity of which the organism is capable can be conditioned ... to any stimulus that the organism can perceive"?

Garcia and Koelling demonstrated that rats may learn an aversion to tastes, on which their survival depends, but not to sights or sounds.

How do cognitive processes affect classical and operant conditioning?

In classical conditioning, animals may learn when to expect a US and may be aware of the link between stimuli and responses. In operant conditioning, cognitive mapping and latent learning research demonstrate the importance of cognitive processes in learning. Other research shows that excessive rewards (driving extrinsic motivation) can undermine intrinsic motivation.

How does observational learning differ from associative learning? How may observational learning be enabled by neural mirroring?

In observational learning, as we observe and imitate others we learn to anticipate a behavior's consequences because we experience vicarious reinforcement or vicarious punishment. In associative learning, we merely learn associations between different events. Our brain's frontal lobes have a demonstrated ability to mirror the activity of another's brain. Some psychologists believe mirror neurons enable this process. (Others argue it may be more due to the brain's distributed brain networks.) The same areas fire when we perform certain actions (such as responding to pain or moving our mouth to form words) as when we observe someone else performing those actions.

Jason's parents and older friends all smoke, but they advise him not to. Juan's parents and friends don't smoke, but they say nothing to deter him from doing so. Will Jason or Juan be more likely to start smoking?

Jason may be more likely to smoke, because observational learning studies suggest that children tend to do as others do and say what they say.