Contemporary Views of Classical Conditioning (Chapter 5)

Taste aversion does not require what?

Repeated pairings

Rats are more likely to associate a taste stimulus (how water tastes) with _______________________.

internal stimuli (physical discomfort of illness)

What did conditioned taste aversion challenge?

The notion that virtually any stimulus can become a conditioned stimulus.

The fact that different species form some associations more easily than others also probably reflects ____________________.

the unique sensory capabilities and feeding habits that have evolved as a matter of environmental adaptations

What is taste aversion?

A classically conditioned dislike for and avoidance of a particular food that develops when an organism becomes ill after eating the food.

What is a phobia?

An extreme, irrational fear of a specific object, animal or situation.

What did Seligman propose that humans are biologically prepared to develop?

Fears of objects or situations that may once have posed a threat to human's evolutionary ancestors, an example is snakes, spiders and heights.

One factor that helps explain Garcia's results is biological preparedness. What is biological preparedness?

In learning theory, the idea that an organism is innately predisposed to form associations between certain stimuli and responses.

To Rescorla classical conditioning seems to involve what?

Learning the relationships between the events.

What did Robert Rescorla demonstrate?

That classical conditioning involves more than learning the simple association of two stimuli.

What did John Garcia demonstrate?

That taste aversion could be produced in laboratory rats under controlled conditions.

Taste aversion research emphasizes what?

That the study of learning must consider the unique behavior patterns and capabilities of different species.

What did Martin Seligman notice about phobias?

That they can be quite selective.

The natural behavior patterns and unique characteristics of animals ultimately influence?

What the animal is capable of learning and how easily it can be conditioned to learn a new behavior.

The rats in Rescorla's study were __________________________.

actively processing information since they were assessing the predictive value of stimuli

Traditional behaviorists thought that the general principles of classical conditioning would _____________________.

also be the same regardless of the species or the response being conditioned

Ohman and Mineka suggest that because poisonous snakes, reptiles and insects have been associated with danger throughout the evolution of mammals that there is ______________________.

an evolved fear module in the brain that is highly sensitized to such evolutionary relevant stimuli

If the particular stimulus and response combination is not one that an animal is biologically prepared to associate then the ________________________________.

association may not occur or may occur only with great difficulty

According to the cognitive perspective, mental processes as well as external events are important ____________________.

components in the learning of new behaviors

Rats are more likely to associate a painful stimulus (a shock) with _____________________.

external stimuli (flashing lights or noise)

According to Rescorla, classical conditioning depends on the ______________________________.

information the conditioned stimulus provides about the unconditioned stimulus

Taste aversions can be classically conditioned ________________.

more readily than can more arbitrary associations

The learning of taste aversion is ________________.

relatively common and can persist for years

For learning to occur, the conditioned stimulus must be a ___________________________.

reliable signal that predicts the presentations of the unconditioned stimulus

Pavlov's dogs learned that the bell was a signal that ___________________.

reliably predicted that food would follow

Taste aversion's stimuli response time span was ________________.

several hours

Rats and humans seem to be biologically prepared to associate an illness with a _______________________.

taste rather than with a location, a person or an object

According to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, both _______________________________.

the physical characteristics and the natural behavior patterns of any species have been shaped by evolution to maximize adaptation to the environment

According to traditional behaviorists the general principles of learning applied to ____________________.

virtually all animal species and all learning situations

People don't commonly develop phobias of knives, stoves or cars because _________________.

we are not biologically prepared to do so