ch.6

• learning - the process of acquiring through experience new and relatively enduring information or behaviours
• habituation - decreasing responsiveness with repeated exposure to a stimulus
• associative learning - learning that certain events occur together
• stimulus - any event or situation that evokes a response
• respondent behaviour - behaviour that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus
• operant behaviour - behaviour that operates on the environment, producing consequences
• cognitive learning - the acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language
• classical conditioning - type of learning in which we link two or more stimuli
• Ivan Pavlov - discovered classical conditioning
• behaviourism - view that psychology should be an objective science and it studies behaviour without reference to mental processes
• neutral stimulus - in classical conditioning, it's a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning
• unconditioned response - in classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response to an unconditioned stimulus
• unconditioned stimulus - in classical conditioning, a stimulus that naturally triggers an unconditioned response
• conditioned response - in classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral, but now conditioned, stimulus
• conditioned stimulus - in classical conditioning, an originally neutral stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a conditioned response
• conditioned = learned, unconditioned = unlearned
• pavlov's dog experiment

  • US - food
  • UR - salivation
  • NS - bell
  • CS - bell
  • CR - salivation
• acquisition

  • CC - the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response
  • OC - the strengthening of a reinforced response
• higher-order conditioning - a procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second but weaker conditioned stimulus
• extinction - the diminishing of a conditioned response

  • CC - when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus
  • OC - when a response is no longer reinforced
• spontaneous recovery - the reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response
• discrimination

  • CC - learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and a similar stimulus that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus
  • OC - ability to distinguish responses that are reinforced from similar responses that are not reinforced
• generalization

  • CC - tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses
  • OC - occurs when responses learned in one situation occur in other similar situations
• little albert experiment

  • watson and reyner conditioned a little boy names albert to fear a white rat
  • loud noise (us) elicits natural response of fear (ur)
  • white rat (originally ns) becomes the cs and the cr is crying
  • known as aversive conditioning because albert conditioned to have negative response
• operant conditioning - type of learning in which a behaviour becomes more likely to recur if followed by a reinforcer or less likely to recur if followed by a punisher
• law of effect - thorndike's principal that behaviours are followed by favourable consequences become more likely, and that behaviours followed by unfavourable consequences become less likely
• operant chamber - aka skinner box; contains a bar that an animal can manipulate to obtain food or water reinforcer; attached devices record the animal's rate of bar pressing
• reinforcement - any event that strengthens the behaviour it follows
• shaping - procedure in which reinforcers guide behaviour toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behaviour
• successive approximations - process of reinforcing or rewarding responses that are closer to the final desired behaviour
• discriminative stimulus - stimulus that elicits a response after association with reinforcement
• positive reinforcement - increasing behaviours by presenting positive reinforcers after a response which will strengthen the response
• negative reinforcement - increasing behaviours by stopping or reducing aversive stimuli by removing a negative reinforcer which will strengthen the response
• reinforcement is any consequence that strengthens behaviour
• primary reinforcer - an innately reinforcing stimulus such as one that satisfies a biological need
• conditioned reinforcers - a stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer; aka a secondary reinforcer
• reinforcement schedules - a pattern that defines how often a desired response will be reinforced
• continuous reinforcement schedule - reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs
• partial (intermittent) reinforcement schedule - reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement
• fixed ratio schedule - reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response only after a specified number of responses