Psychology Ch. 6

A Skinner box is a chamber with a highly controlled environment that was used to study

operant conditioning processes with laboratory animals

True or False: In contrast to the modern cognitive psychological understanding of human learning, Pavlov believed that people could only learn through deep, critical thinking.

False

___ ____ is the presentation or addition of a stimulus after a behavior occurs that increases how often that behavior will occur.

Positive Reinforcement

When is stimulus generalization most likely to occur?

When two stimuli are highly similar

Conditioned taste aversion occurs after a single pairing of the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus. This is because learning what foods make you sick

is something humans are biologically prepared for and can be important for survival.

Strengthening a response in operant conditioning means it will occur

more often

Taking medicine to relieve pain is an example of ___ because it increases the behavior of taking medicine.

negative reinforcement

When removal of a stimulus in response to a behavior increases the frequency of that behavior, ___ is said to have occurred.

negative reinforcement

In classical conditioning, a stimulus that does not bring about a response of interest is a ____ stimulus.

neutral

Operant conditioning has occurred when

the consequences of an action influence the likelihood that that behavior will be displayed again

A ___ is any stimulus that increases the probability that a preceding behavior will occur again.

reinforcer

Caucasian females and African-American males are more apt to use a ___ style of learning than caucasian males.

relational

In the ___ learning style, information is learned best when it is presented as being part of a larger.

relational

One reason an ex-smoker can feel a strong urge to smoke when sitting in their favorite chair where they used to smoke can be explained by

spontaneous recovery

Pavlov's dogs would salivate at the ring of a bell but not at the chime of a clock. What concept is this an example of?

stimulus discrimination

If a behavior is reinforced in the presence of a specific stimulus but not in its absence, we would say

that stimulus control training is being used

The idea that consequences of a behavior can increase or decrease the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated is referred to as

the law of effect

The stimulus that automatically gives rise to a response is called the ___ stimulus.

unconditioned

The pattern of intermittent reinforcement in which responses are reinforced after time periods of different duration have passed is called a

variable interval (VI) schedule

The pattern of intermittent reinforcement in which the number of responses needed for reinforcement changes is called a

variable ration (VR) schedule

In the ____ learning style, information is learned best when the fundamentals are understood before the bigger picture is presented.

analytical

Even severe psychological disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), can be explained by ___ conditioning.

classical

An initially neutral stimulus that comes to elicit a response because of its pairing with a stimulus that causes that response is called the

conditioned stimulus

Taste aversion and other easily learned behaviors typically help an organism to survive. This suggests that biological constraints

have positive evolutionary consequences

Why does considering reinforcers as nothing but rewards oversimplify things?

Reinforcers can be positive or negative, rewards are only positive.

What is the definition of stimulus discrimination?

The ability to distinguish between two stimuli

Positive punishment is:

addition of a stimulus to decrease a behavior

When a previously conditioned response decreases and eventually disappears, ___ has occurred.

extinction

Behavior modification has been proven useful in helping people with severe mental retardation

feed themselves

Which of the following are primary reinforcers? (praise, money, food, sex)

food, sex

Both ___ increase the frequency of a behavior.

positive and negative reinforcement

Behavior modification includes

recording preliminary data

The sudden reappearance of an extinguished response is called ____ recovery.

spontaneous

___ learning theory focuses on the thought processes that underlie learning.

Cognitive

Who developed the principles of classical conditioning?

Ivan Pavlov

____ is a relatively permanent change in behavior brought about by experience.

Learning

___ neurons are at least partially responsible for the modeling behavior exhibited in observational learning.

Mirror

A process that allows us to teach a complex behavior through rewarding behaviors that are gradually closer to the desired behavior.

Shaping

Classical Conditioning

The form of associative learning in which a neutral stimulus is associated with a stimulus to which the subject has an automatic, inborn response

What is the definition of reinforcement?

The process by which a stimulus increases probability that behavior will be repeated.

The word ___ emphasizes the point that an organism operates on its environment to produce desirable results.

operant

____ conditioning has occurred when the consequences of an action influence the likelihood that the behavior will be displayed again.

operant