Gsw Psy 1101 - Understanding Psychology - Ch. 5

Front 1

Learning

Back 1

The process by which experience or practice results in a relatively permanent change in behavior or potential behavior.

Front 2

Classical (or Pavlovian) Conditioning

Back 2

The type of learning in which a response naturally excited by one stimulus comes to be elicited by a different, formerly neutral, stimulus.

Hint 2

Discovered by Ivan Pavlov

Front 3

Unconditioned Stimulus (US)

Back 3

A stimulus that invariably causes an organism to respond in a specific way.

Hint 3

Food in the dog's mouth

Front 4

Unconditioned Response (UR)

Back 4

A response that takes place in an organism whenever an unconditioned stimulus occurs.

Hint 4

Salivating to the food

Front 5

Conditioned Stimulus (CS)

Back 5

An originally neutral stimulus that is paired with an unconditioned stimulus and eventually produces the desired response in an organism when presented alone.

Hint 5

Ringing a bell before giving the dog food

Front 6

Conditioned Response (CR)

Back 6

After conditioning, the response an organism produces when a conditioned stimulus is presented.

Hint 6

Salivating to the bell, before food is even seen

Front 7

Intermittent Pairing

Back 7

Pairing the conditioned stimulus and the unconditioned stimulus on only a portion of the learning trials.

Front 8

Desensitization Therapy

Back 8

A conditioning technique designed to gradually reduce anxiety about a particular object or situation.

Hint 8

Joseph Wolpe: If people could be taught to relax in fearful or anxious situations, their anxiety should disappear.

Front 9

Preparedness

Back 9

A biological readiness to learn certain associations because of their survival advantages.

Hint 9

Psychologist Martin Seligman: Fear of heights, snakes, and the dark have been "wired into" our species as a survival advantage.

Front 10

Conditioned Taste Aversion

Back 10

Conditioned avoidance of certain foods even if there is only one pairing of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli.

Hint 10

A learned association between the taste of a certain food and a feeling of nausea and revulsion. Acquired very quickly in humans.

Front 11

Phobias

Back 11

Intense, irrational fears of particular things or situations, such as spiders or flying

Hint 11

Some people learn phobias through classical conditioning. Example, Little Albert and his fear of rats.

Front 12

Virtual Reality Stimulation

Back 12

Desensitizing therapy. A person with a fear of flying may learn to relax while in a flight simulator rather than actually aboard an airplane.

Front 13

Operant (or Instrumental) Conditioning

Back 13

The type of learning in which behaviors are emitted (in the presence of specific stimuli) to earn rewards or avoid punishments.

Front 14

Operant Behaviors

Back 14

Behaviors designed to operate on the environment in a way that will gain something desired or avoid something unpleasant.

Front 15

Reinforcers

Back 15

Stimuli that follows a behavior and increases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated.

Front 16

Punishers

Back 16

Stimuli that follows a behavior and decreases the likelihood that the behavior will be repeated.

Front 17

Law of Effect (Principle of Reinforcement)

Back 17

Thorndike's theory that behavior consistently rewarded will be "stamped in" as learned behavior, and behavior that brings about discomfort will be "stamped out."

Front 18

Skinner box

Back 18

A box often used in operant conditioning of animals; it limits the available responses and thus increases the likelihood that the desired response will occur.

Front 19

Shaping

Back 19

Reinforcing successive approximations to a desired behavior.

Front 20

Positive Reinforcers

Back 20

Events whose presence increases the likelihood that ongoing behavior will recur.

Front 21

Negative Reinforcers

Back 21

Events whose reduction or termination increases the likelihood that ongoing behavior will occur.

Front 22

Punishment

Back 22

Any event whose presence decreases the likelihood that ongoing behavior will recur.

Front 23

Avoidance Training

Back 23

Learning a desirable behavior to prevent the occurance of something unpleasant, such as punishment.

Front 24

Learned Helplessness

Back 24

Failure to take steps to avoid or escape from an unpleasant or aversive stimulus that occurs as a result of previous exposure to unavoidable painful stimuli.

Front 25

Biofeedback

Back 25

A techniques that uses monitoring devices to provide precise information about internal physiological processes, such as heart rate or blood pressure, to teach people to gain voluntary control over these functions.

Front 26

Neurofeedback

Back 26

A biofeedback technique that monitors brain waves with the use of an EEG to teach people to gain voluntary control over their brain wave activity.

Front 27

Contingency

Back 27

A reliable "if-then" relationship between two events, such as a CS and a US.

Front 28

Blocking

Back 28

A process whereby prior conditioning prevents conditioning to a second stimulus even when the two stimuli are presented simultaneously.

Front 29

Schedule of Reinforcement

Back 29

In operant conditioning, the rule for determining when and how often reinforcers will be delivered.

Front 30

Fixed-Interval Schedule

Back 30

A reinforcement schedule in which the correct response is reinforced after a fixed length of time since the last reinforcement.

Front 31

Variable-Interval Schedule

Back 31

A reinforcement schedule in which the correct response is reinforced after varying lengths of time following the last reinforcements.

Front 32

Fixed-Ratio Schedule

Back 32

A reinforcement schedule in which the correct response is reinforced after a fixed number of correct responses.

Front 33

Variable-Ratio Schedule

Back 33

A reinforcement schedule in which a varying number of correct responses must occur before reinforcement is presented.

Front 34

Extinction

Back 34

A decrease in the strength or frequency, or stopping, of a learned response because of failure to continue pairing the US and CS (classical conditioning) or withholding of reinforcement (operant conditioning).

Front 35

Spontaneous Recovery

Back 35

The reappearance of an extinguished response after the passage of time, without training.

Front 36

Stimulus Control

Back 36

Control of conditioned responses by cues or stimuli in the environment.

Front 37

Stimulus Generalization

Back 37

The transfer of a learned response to different but similar stimuli.

Front 38

Stimulus Discrimination

Back 38

Learning to respond to only one stimulus and to inhibit the response to all other stimuli.

Front 39

Response Generalization

Back 39

Giving a response that is somewhat different from the response originally learned to that stimulus.

Front 40

Higher Order Conditioning

Back 40

Conditioning based on previous learning; the conditioned stimulus serves as an unconditioned stimulus for further training.

Front 41

Primary Reinforcers

Back 41

Reinforcers that are rewarding in themselves, such as food, water, or sex.

Front 42

Secondary Reinforcers

Back 42

Reinforcers whose value is acquired through associations with other primary or secondary reinforcers.

Front 43

Cognitive Learning

Back 43

Learning that depends on mental processes that are not directly observable.

Front 44

Latent Learning

Back 44

Learning that is not immediately reflected in a behavior change.

Front 45

Cognitive Map

Back 45

A learned mental image of a patial environment that may be called on to solve problems when stimuli in the environment change.

Front 46

Insight

Back 46

Learning that occurs rapidly as a result of understanding all the elements of a problem.

Front 47

Learning Set

Back 47

The ability to become increasingly more effective in solving problems as more problems are solved.

Front 48

Observational (or Vicarious) Learning

Back 48

Learning by observing other people's behavior.

Front 49

Social Learning Theorists

Back 49

Psychologists whose view of learning emphasizes the ability to learn by observing a model or receiving instructions, without firsthand experience by the learner.

Front 50

Vicarious Reinforcement (or Punishment)

Back 50

Reinforcement or punishment experienced by models that affects the willingness of others to perform the behaviors they learned by observing those models.