Unit 6

Learning: A relatively permanent change in an organism’s behavior due to experience.

Habituation: A form of non-associative learning that refers to the decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated exposure.

Associative Learning: A learning principle that states that ideas and experiences reinforce each other and can be mentally linked.

Stimulus: Any object, event, or situation that elicits a response from an organism.

Cognitive: Thinking or mentally processing information such as concepts, language, and images.

Ivan Pavlov: Russian physiologist who studied salivary response in dogs. He noticed dogs associated food with the stimuli that were paired with feeding. These stimuli triggered salivation even in the absence of food.

Classical Conditioning: Forms associations between stimuli (CS and US). Respondent behavior is an automatic response to stimuli.

John B. Watson: A classical conditioning psychologist most famous for his "Little Albert" experiment where he conditioned a young boy to fear a white rat.

Behaviorism: The theory that all behaviors are determined entirely by external stimuli in the environment.

Unconditioned Stimulus (US): What produces a natural result?

Unconditioned Reaction (UR): What natural response happens?

Neutral Stimulus (NS): What are you trying to associate?

Conditioned Stimulus (CS): What NOW produces the natural result?

Conditioned Response (CR): Usually the same thing as the natural response.

Acquisition: The initial stage in classical conditioning in which an association between a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus takes place.

Higher-Order Conditioning: A form of classical conditioning where a new ‘second order’ conditioned stimulus is created by pairing a new stimulus with a previously created conditioned stimulus.

Extinction: When the US (food) does not follow the CS (tone), CR (salivation) begins to decrease and eventually causes extinction.

Spontaneous Recovery: After a rest period, an extinguished CR (salivation) spontaneously recovers, but if the CS (tone) persists alone, the CR becomes extinct again.

Stimulus Generalization: The tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus.

Stimulus Discrimination: The learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and other stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus.

Operant Conditioning: Forms associations between behaviors and the resulting events. An organism operates in the environment producing reward or punishment.

B.F. Skinner: American psychologist at Harvard. Expanded on Thorndike’s work with operant conditioning. Worked with rats and pigeons using the operant chamber/Skinner box.

Edward L. Thorndike: American psychologist at Columbia University. His studies in learning influenced Educational Psychology.

Law of Effect: Behavior that is rewarded is more likely to occur again.

Skinner Box / Operant Chamber: A device used in experiments conducted by B.F. Skinner to study animal behavior.

Reinforcement: A stimulus that increases the likelihood that a specific behavior will occur.

Shaping: The operant conditioning process in which reinforcers guide behavior toward the desired target through successive approximations.

Discriminative Stimulus: Any stimulus, such as a stop sign or traffic light, that provides the organism with a cue for making a certain response to obtain reinforcement.

Positive Reinforcement: A stimulus presented after a behavior that increases that behavior.

Negative Reinforcement: Any stimulus that, when removed after a response, increases the frequency of that behavior.

Primary Reinforcer: An innately reinforcing stimulus like food or drink.

Conditioned (Secondary) Reinforcer: A learned reinforcer that gets its reinforcing power through association with the primary reinforcer.

Continuous Reinforcement: Reinforce the desired response each time it occurs.

Partial (Intermittent) Reinforcement: This reinforces a response only part of the time. Slower acquisition but greater resistance to extinction.

Fixed-Ratio: Reinforces after a specific number of responses.

Variable-Ratio: Reinforces after an unpredictable number of responses (e.g., slot machine).

Fixed-Interval: Reinforces after a specific time has elapsed.

Variable-Interval: Reinforces at unpredictable time intervals.

Punishment: An aversive event that decreases the behavior it follows.

Biofeedback: The use of an external monitoring device (e.g., electrocardiograph) to provide an individual with information regarding their physiological state.

Respondent Behavior: Behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus.

Operant Behavior: Behavior that operates on the environment producing consequences.

John Garcia: Known for taste aversion. Showed that CS and US can be separated by hours and still result in conditioning if the CS is biologically relevant.

Robert Rescorla: Discovered that animals learned the predictability of a stimulus.

Edward Tolman: Believed that rats used cognitive processes during maze exploration.

Cognitive Map: A mental picture or image of the layout of the physical environment.

Latent Learning: Learning that remains hidden until an incentive is given.

Insight: Sudden realization of a problem’s solution.

Intrinsic Motivation: A desire to perform a behavior effectively for its own sake.

Extrinsic Motivation: A desire to perform a behavior to receive promised rewards or avoid threatened punishment.

Coping: Alleviating stress using emotional, cognitive, or behavioral methods (which are learned).

Problem-Focused Coping: Coping strategies that try to eliminate the source of stress or reduce its impact through direct action.

Emotion-Focused Coping: Coping strategies that change the impact of a stressor by avoiding or ignoring the stressor and attending to emotional needs.

Learned Helplessness: The helplessness and passive resignation an animal or human learns when unable to avoid repeated aversive events.

Internal Locus of Control: The perception that you control your fate.

External Locus of Control: The perception that chance or outside forces beyond your control dominate your fate.

Self-Control: The ability to control impulses and delay short-term gratification for greater long-term rewards.

Observational Learning: The process of learning a new skill or task by watching others perform the same task.

Modeling: A type of learning where individuals learn how to act or perform by observing another individual.

Albert Bandura: Influential social cognitive psychologist best known for social learning theory, self-efficacy, and the Bobo doll experiments.

Mirror Neurons: Neurons that fire both when an action is performed and when you see someone do the same action.

Prosocial Behavior: Actions that benefit other people or society, such as helping, sharing, donating, cooperating, and volunteering.