Learning & Memory: Exam 2

Front 1

habituation

Back 1

decreasing responses to a frequent innocuous (harmless) stimulus

Front 2

sensitization

Back 2

increasing responses to a noxious or arousing stimulus

Front 3

perceptual learning

Back 3

becoming better at processing/recognizing a frequent stimulus

Front 4

asymptote

Back 4

relatively stable point after substantial learning

Front 5

spontaneous recovery

Back 5

when repeated stimulus stops, behavior gradually returns to normal

Front 6

dis-habituation

Back 6

a novel stimulus can temporarily recover responses to the habituating stimulus

Front 7

stimulus specificity

Back 7

responses only decrease to the habituating stimulus

Front 8

massed vs. spaced habituation

Back 8

taking breaks between sessions makes habituation develop more slowly, but last much longer

Front 9

priming

Back 9

exposure to a stimulus biases future behavior, often without conscious processing of the stimulus

Front 10

learning specificity

Back 10

degree to which learning about one set of stimuli transfers to another group of stimuli

Front 11

synaptic depression

Back 11

reduction in synaptic transmission

repeated touch depletes sensory neuron of transmitter

Front 12

receptive field

Back 12

range of physical stimuli that activate a single neuron

Front 13

cortical plasticity

Back 13

refinement in the receptive fields of neurons due to development or experience

Front 14

constraint-induced movement therapy

Back 14

the "good" limb is restrained, forcing use of the desensitized limb

Front 15

sensory prostheses

Back 15

mechanical devices that interface with neurons to produce sensation

Front 16

appetitive conditioning

Back 16

the unconditioned stimulus is a positive event

Front 17

aversive conditioning

Back 17

new CS > CR reflex helps avoid noxious US

Front 18

blocking

Back 18

2 phase training program in which prior training to one cue (CS1 > US) blocks later learning of a second cue when the 2 are paired together in the second phase of the training (CS1 + CS2 > US)

Front 19

latent inhibition

Back 19

prior exposure to a CS retards later learning of the CS-US association

Front 20

associative bias

Back 20

in nature, tastes go with getting sick and sounds go with getting hurt

Front 21

positive reinforcement

Back 21

leads to positive effects > do it more

Front 22

positive punishment

Back 22

leads to negative effects > do it less

Front 23

negative reinforcement (escape)

Back 23

ends/avoids negative effect > do it more

Front 24

negative punishment (omission)

Back 24

ends/avoids a positive effect > do it less

Front 25

behavioral unit

Back 25

a class of behaviors producing an effect

Front 26

discriminative stimulus

Back 26

stimuli that signal whether a particular response will lead to a particular outcome

Front 27

shaping

Back 27

successive approximations to a desired response are reinforced

Front 28

chaining

Back 28

organisms are gradually trained to execute complicated sequences of discrete responses

(reward for picking up something, then reward for throwing it, creating a series of behaviors)

Front 29

punisher

Back 29

outcome that decreases frequency of a behavior

Front 30

circumvention

Back 30

animal may learn discriminative stimuli that help it avoid punishment

Front 31

fixed ratio schedule

Back 31

reinforcement at specific responses (reward every 5th time)

Front 32

variable ratio schedule

Back 32

reinforcement varies, but there's an average (reward around every 5th time)

Front 33

post-reinforcement pause

Back 33

time out from responding after each reward

Front 34

fixed interval schedule

Back 34

reinforcement at specific times (reward every 5 minutes)

Front 35

variable interval schedule

Back 35

reinforcement around the same time (reward about every 5 minutes)

Front 36

dorsal striatum

Back 36

seems to play a role in linking a stimulus to a response

Front 37

orbitofrontal cortex

Back 37

seems to play a role in linking a response to an outcome

Front 38

basal ganglia

Back 38

set of subcortical features that link sensory and motor cortices

Front 39

electrical brain stimulation

Back 39

brain stimulation may directly activate the brain's "reinforcement" system, eliminating the need for natural reinforcers (food)

Front 40

nucleus accumbens

Back 40

sends dopamine to motor areas in striatum

Front 41

dopamine

Back 41

may be the physiological basis for wanting aspect of reinforcement

Front 42

generalization

Back 42

transferring past experiences to new situations

Front 43

discrimination

Back 43

perception of differences between stimuli

Front 44

generalization gradient

Back 44

graph showing physical changes in stimuli correspond to changes in behavioral responses

Front 45

discrimination training

Back 45

providing 2 different consequences for stimuli initially treated by an animal as similar (1000 Hz tone compared to 950 Hz tone)

Front 46

sensory preconditioning

Back 46

training in which presentation of 2 dissimilar stimuli together as a compound results in a later tendency to generalize what is known about one of these stimuli to the other