Learning

Question 1

Reflexes

Answer 1

Automatic, involuntary responses to specific stimuli. Reflexes are protective and essential for survival. Involves the primitive parts of the CNS. Examples include pupillary light reflex, startle reflex, withdrawal reflex, scratch reflex.

Question 2

Instincts

Answer 2

innate drives or tendencies that lead to particular patterns of behaviour. Involves the movement of the organism as a whole and higher brain centers. Examples include migration and sexual activity.

Question 3

Learning

Answer 3

A relatively permanent change in behaviour or knowledge that results from experience. There are different types of learning. Learning includes acquiring skills and knowledge through experience or conscious and unconscious processes.

Question 4

Habituation

Answer 4

A type of learning that involves responding to a stimulus and becoming desensitized to it.

Question 5

Sensitization

Answer 5

Repeated exposure to something that leads to increasingly intense psychological affects (phobias, etc.).

Question 6

Classical Conditioning.

Answer 6

Process by which we learn to associate stimuli and consequently to anticipate events. Associating an involuntary response and a stimulus. Discovered by Pavlov during research on dogs. Can have conditioned or unconditioned responses. Involves a neutral stimulus, unconditioned stimulus, and unconditioned response.

Question 7

Operant conditioning

Answer 7

When organisms learn to associate a behaviour and its consequences, using reinforcement or punishment. Voluntary conditioning. Associating a voluntary behaviour with a consequence. (reward and consequence).

Question 8

Extinction

Answer 8

Conditioned response decreases and eventually disappears.

Question 9

Spontaneous recovery

Answer 9

Conditioned response reappears

Question 10

Renewal Effect

Answer 10

response reappears when brought back to original environment.

Question 11

Stimulus generalization

Answer 11

When, after a response has been conditioned, stimuli that are similar to the original produce the same response.

Question 12

Stimulus Discrimination

Answer 12

If two stimuli are sufficiently distinct from one another, one will trigger a conditioned response, but the other doesn’t

Question 13

Conditioned taste aversion

Answer 13

an example of classical conditioning, in which we learn to associate certain foods with being sick after being sick.

Question 14

Law of Effect

Answer 14

The idea that when a behaviour results in a reward, it is more likely to occur, but if it results in punishment, it is less likely to occur. By Thorndike

Question 15

Positive Reinforcement

Answer 15

Something is added to increase the likelihood of a behaviour.

Question 16

Negative Reinforcement

Answer 16

Something is removed to increase the likelihood of a behaviour.

Question 17

Positive Punishment

Answer 17

Something is added to decrease the likelihood of a behaviour

Question 18

Negative Punishment

Answer 18

Something is removed to decrease the likelihood of a behaviour

Question 19

Cons of punishment

Answer 19

Only tells us what NOT to do
Creates anxiety which can interfere with learning
Can encourage subversive behaviour
Modeling aggressive behaviour for children.

Question 20

Instinctive Drift

Answer 20

The tendency for animals to return to innate behaviours following repeated reinforcement.

Question 21

Continuous Reinforcement

Answer 21

Reinforcing a behviour every time it occurs. Results in faster learning but also faster extinction

Question 22

Partial Reinforcement

Answer 22

Only occasionally reinforce a behaviour. Slower extinction and better maintenance. Can be fixed or variable and interval or ratio

Question 23

Fixed Interval

Answer 23

Reinforcement is delivered at predictable time intervals.

Question 24

Variable Interval

Answer 24

Reinforcement is delivered at unpredictable time intervals

Question 25

Fixed ratio

Answer 25

Reinforcement is delivered after a predictable number of responses.

Question 26

Variable ratio

Answer 26

Reinforcement is delivered after an unpredictable number of responses.

Question 27

Superstitious Behaviour

Answer 27

When a behaviour is accidentally reinforced by coincidence. (superstition).

Question 28

Latent Learning

Answer 28

Learning that occurs without immediate reinforcement and becomes apparent only when there is a reason to use it. Includes navigating new places and cooking skills, social etiquette, emergency responses.

Question 29

Observational Learning

Answer 29

Learning by watching the behaviour of another person or model. Involves paying attention and perceiving, remembering behaviour, reproducing the action, and being motivated to carry it out.