Chapter 8



Learning

Learning: A relatively permanent change in behavior due to experience.

-3 Main Types of learning:

1) Classical Conditioning (Pavlov): Unconscious Association or associative learning

2) Operant Conditioning (Skinner): Conscious Consequences (also associative learning)

3) Modeling (Bandura): Conscious and unconscious copying

Classical Conditioning

• Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): A stimulus that naturally triggers a response

• Unconditioned Response (UCR): A response that is naturally triggered by a stimulus.

• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): An originally irrelevant stimulus that when associated with a US comes to trigger a response

• Conditioned Response (CR): A learned response to a previously neutral but now conditioned stimulus

• Neutral Stimulus (NS): A stimulus which does not trigger a response

• Acquisition: The pairing of a neutral stimulus and unconditioned stimulus to begin the triggering of a conditioned response

• Extinction: The diminishing of a conditioned response; the cs no longer creates the cr

• Spontaneous Recovery: The reappearance of a weakened CR after a pause; the cs once again creates the cr

• Generalization: the tendency for a similar stimulus to elicit a similar response

• Discrimination: the ability to distinguish between a cs and a similar stimuli that do not signal a ucs

• Higher Order Conditioning: A procedure in which the cs in one conditioning experience is paired with a new ns creating a second cs.

• Little Albert

• Trace, Delayed & Backward Conditioning

Operant Conditioning

• While classical conditioning involves what is called “respondent behavior,” operant conditioning involves what is called operant behavior based on rewards and punishments.

• Thorndike’s Law of Effect: Behavior followed by favorable consequences becomes more likely and followed by unfavorable consequences becomes less likely

• Operant Chamber: (Skinner Box)-Box contains a bar or key that allows animal to obtain food or water by pressing it

• Shaping: Reinforcing behaviors that guide behavior closer and closer towards the goal; aka “successive approximations

• Reinforcement is increasing a behavior

• Punishment is decreasing or stopping a behavior

• Positive Reinforcement is increasing a behavior by giving something

• Negative Reinforcement is increasing a behavior by taking something away

• Positive Punishment is decreasing a behavior by giving something

• Negative Punishment is decreasing a behavior by taking something away

• Escape Conditioning: The removal of an aversive stimulus in order to increase behavior

• Avoidance Conditioning: The classical conditioning of an individual once escape conditioning has been accomplished

• Primary Reinforcer: An innately reinforcing stimulus such as one that satisfies a biological need

• Secondary (Conditioned) Reinforcer: A stimulus that gains its power through its association with a primary reinforcer such as tokens or coupons

• Fixed (Continuous): Patterned; Variable: Intermittent (random); Ratio: Trials; Interval: Time;

• Fixed Ratio: Set pattern of trials

• Fixed Interval: Set pattern of time frame

• Variable Ratio: Intermittent pattern of trials

• Variable Interval: Intermittent pattern of time frame

• Punished behavior is suppressed, not forgotten

• Punishment teaches discrimination

• Punishment can teach fear

• Physical punishment may increase aggression

• Cognitive Map: A mental representation of a maze

• Latent Learning: Learning that becomes apparent only when there is an incentive to demonstrate it

• Intrinsic Motivation: The desire to perform a behavior for its own sake

• Extrinsic Motivation: The desire to perform a behavior for a reward or avoidance of punishment

• Observational Learning (Bandura) is learning by observing and imitating others.

• Mirror Neurons: Frontal Lobe neurons that fire when observing or imitating another

• Bandura’s Bobo Doll Experiment: Children who first observed an adult beat up a bobo doll were more likely to do so than those who did not first observe the aggression

• Prosocial Behavior: Positive, helpful, constructive behavior derived from altruism.

• Learned Helplessness: Animals and people who experience no control over repeated bad events and then become helpless.

• -Seligman experimented with mice by feeding them cheese for successes and shocking them for failures.

Memory

• Human Memory System: 3 parts:

• -Encoding: The processing of information into memory

• -Storage: The retention of encoded information

• -Retrieval: The process of getting information out of memory

• 1) Sensory Memory: The immediate, brief recording of subconscious information

• 2) Short-term memory: Memory that holds a few items briefly

• 3) Long-term memory: Permanent and limitless storehouse of information

• 4) Working memory: A newer understanding of short term memory focusing on auditory and visual information

• Automatic Processing: Unconscious encoding of information

• Effortful Processing: Encoding that requires attention and concentration

• -Rehearsal: The conscious repetition of information

• -Ebbinghaus retention curve: the more we practice nonsense syllables on day 1, the fewer repetitions were required on day 2 to relearn it

• Spacing Effect: Memorizing by separating and distributing the studying;

• Serial Position Effect: Recalling the first and last items of a list.

• Levels of Processing:

• Visual Encoding, Acoustic Encoding, Semantic Encoding

• Imagery: Mental pictures to aid effortful processing

• Mnemonics: Memory aids that use organizational devices

• Chunking: Organizing items into familiar, manageable units

• Iconic Memory: A momentary sensory memory of visual stimuli

• Echoic Memory: A momentary sensory memory of auditory stimuli

• Long-term potentiation: an increase in synaptic firing believed to be a neural basis for memory

• Flashbulb Memory: A clear memory of an emotionally significant moment-event.

• Implicit Memory (non-declarative): retention of how to do things (cerebellum)

• Explicit Memory (declarative): memory of facts and experiences (hippocampus)

• Recall: Retrieval of basic information such as fill in the blank

• Recognition: The identification of items previously learned

• Relearning: A measure of memory that assesses the amount of time saved when learning material for a second time

• Priming: The activation of particular associations in memory

• déjà vu: the eerie sense that “I’ve experienced this before.”

• Mood Congruent Memory: The tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with one’s current good or bad mood

• Decay-The simple forgetting of material

• Repression-The subconscious pushing down of painful material

• Encoding Failure: The inability to remember what we have not encoded

• Proactive Interference: The disruptive effect of prior learning on the recall of new information (old blocks new)

• Retroactive Interference: The disruptive effect of new learning on the recall of old information (new blocks old)

• Memory Construction: When people had seen the film of a car accident, they recalled a more serious accident when asked leading questions.

• Misinformation Effect: incorporating misleading information into one’s memory of an event

• Source Amnesia (source misattribution): Attributing to the wrong source an event we have experienced, heard, read, or imagined

Thinking & Language

• Cognition: The mental activities associated with thinking, knowing, remembering, and communicating.

• Concepts: mental groupings of similar objects, events, and people

• Prototype: a mental image or best example that incorporates all the features we associate with a category (Stereotypical example)

• Algorithms: step by step, methodical procedure guaranteeing a solution

• Heuristic: a simpler thinking strategy that allows us to solve problems efficiently (rules of thumb)

• Insight: a sudden realization of a solution to a problem

• Confirmation Bias: The tendency to search for information that supports our preconceptions and to ignore information that contradicts our beliefs

• Fixation: The inability to see a problem from a new perspective

• Mental Set: A tendency to approach a problem in one particular way, often a way that has been successful in the past

• Functional Fixedness: The tendency to think of things only in terms of their usual functions

• Representative Heuristics: Judging the likelihood of things in terms of how well they seem to represent or match prototypes

• Availability Heuristics: Estimating the likelihood of events based on their availability in memory

• Overconfidence: The tendency to be more confident than correct

• Belief Perseverance: Clinging to one’s beliefs even in the face of contrary evidence

• Belief Bias: The tendency for one’s past beliefs to influence one’s present views and distort logic

• Intuition: An immediate, automatic feeling or thought that does not include reasoning

• Framing: The way an issue is presented can significantly affect decisions and judgments

Language

• Phonemes: The smallest distinctive sound unit

• Morphemes: The smallest unit that carries meaning

• Grammar: A system of rules that enables us to communicate with and understand others

• Semantics: The set of rules by which we derive meaning from morphemes, words, and sentences.

• Syntax: The rules for combining words into grammatically sensible sentences in a given language

• Babbling: (4 months) – stage of speech of development in which the infant utters various sounds unrelated to language

• One-word: (1-2): the child speaks in single words that carry their meaning

• Two-word (Telegraphic): (18-24 months): Speech development explodes and children express statements in two word phrases

• Skinner’s Operant Learning: Language is primarily reinforced

• Chomsky’s Inborn Grammar: Language naturally occurs because humans are born with a Language Acquisition device

• Aphasia: Impairment of language, usually caused by left hemisphere damage to Broca’s or Wernicke’s area

• Linguistic Determinism: Whorf’s hypothesis that language determines the way we think

• Animal Thinking & Language (P. 395-401)

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