Psychology Chapter 5

Front 1

learning

Back 1

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

Front 2

conditioning

Back 2

acquisition of specific patterns of behavior in the presence of well-defined stimuli.

Front 3

classical (or pavlovian) conditiong

Back 3

Type of learning in which a response naturally elicited by one stimulus comes to be elicited by a differvent.

Front 4

unconditional stimulus (US)

Back 4

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

Front 5

unconditional response (UR)

Back 5

Response that takes place in an organism whenever an unconditioned stimulus occurs.

Front 6

conditioned stimulus (CS)

Back 6

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

Front 7

conditioned response (CR)

Back 7

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

Front 8

desensitization therapy

Back 8

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

Front 9

conditioned food (or taste) aversion

Back 9

conditioned avoidance of certain foods even if there is only 1 pairing of conditioned and unconditioned stimuli.

Front 10

operant behavior

Back 10

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

Front 11

operant or instrumental conditioning

Back 11

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

Front 12

reinforcer

Back 12

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

Front 13

punisher

Back 13

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

Front 14

Law of Effect

Back 14

Thorndike's theory that behavior consistently rewarded will be stamped in as learned behavior and behavior that brings about discomfort will be stamped out. (also known as the principle of reinforcement)

Front 15

positive reinforcer

Back 15

any event whose presence increases the likihood that ongoing behavior will recur.

Front 16

negative reinforcer

Back 16

any event whose reduction or termination increases the likelihood that ongoing behavior will recur.

Front 17

punishment

Back 17

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

Front 18

avoidance training

Back 18

learning a desirable behavior to prevent the occurrence of something unpleasant such as punishment.

Front 19

learning helplessness

Back 19

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 20

biofeedback

Back 20

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

Front 21

neurofeedback

Back 21

biofeedback technique that monitors brain waves using an EEG to teach people to gain voluntary control over their brain wave activity.

Front 22

response acquisition

Back 22

the building phase of conditioning during which the likelihood or strength of the desired response increases.

Front 23

intermittent pairing

Back 23

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

Front 24

skinner box

Back 24

box often used in an operant conditioning of animals, which limits the available response and thus increases the likelihood that the desired response will occur.

Front 25

shaping

Back 25

reinforcing successive approximations to a desired behavior.

Front 26

extinction

Back 26

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

Front 27

spontaneous recovery

Back 27

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

Front 28

stimulus generalization

Back 28

transfer of a learned response to different but similar stimuli.

Front 29

stimulus discrimination

Back 29

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

Front 30

response generalization

Back 30

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

Front 31

higher-order conditioning

Back 31

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

Front 32

primary reinforcer

Back 32

reinforcer that is rewarding in itself, such as food, water, and sex.

Front 33

secondary reinforcer

Back 33

reinforcer whose value is acquired through association with other primary or secondary reinforces.

Front 34

contigency

Back 34

reliable 'if then' relationship between 2 events such as a CS and a US.

Front 35

blocking

Back 35

Process whereby prior conditioning prevents conditioning to a second stimulate even when the 2 stimuli are presented simultaneously.

Front 36

schedule of reinforcement

Back 36

Operant conditioning, the rule of determining when and how often reinforcers will be delivered.

Front 37

fixed interval schedule

Back 37

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

Front 38

variable-interval schedule

Back 38

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

Front 39

fixed-ratio schedule

Back 39

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

Front 40

variable-ratio schedule

Back 40

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

Front 41

cognitive learning

Back 41

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

Front 42

latent learning

Back 42

learning that is not immediately relfected in a behavior change.

Front 43

congitive map

Back 43

learning mental image of a spatial environment that may be called on to solve problems when stimuli in the environment change.

Front 44

insight

Back 44

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

Front 45

learning set

Back 45

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

Front 46

social learning theory

Back 46

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

Front 47

observational (vicarious) learning

Back 47

learning by observing other people's behavior.

Front 48

vicarious reinforcement and vicarious punishment

Back 48

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