psych 9b // chapter 6

• Learning is the process by which an organism’s experience produces an enduring change in behavior.
• Associative learning is a form of learning that involves making connections between stimuli and behavioral responses.
• Nonassociative learning is a form of learning that involves a change in the magnitude of an elicited response with repetition of the eliciting stimulus.
• Habituation is a form of nonassociative learning by which an organism becomes less responsive to a repeated stimulus.
• Dishabituation is the recovery of a response that has undergone habituation, typically as a result of the presentation of a novel stimulus.
• Dual-process theory is the idea that both habituation and sensitization are independent processes that are always at work, and that which of the two wins out in a given situation depends on an organism’s level of physiological arousal.
• Classical conditioning is a passive form of learning by which an association is made between a reflex-eliciting stimulus and other stimuli.
• An unconditioned stimulus (US) is a stimulus that produces a reflexive response without prior learning.
• An unconditioned response (UR) is a response that is automatically generated by the unconditioned stimulus.
• A neutral stimulus (NS) is a stimulus that initially does not elicit a specific response or reflex.
• A conditioned stimulus (CS) is a stimulus that has no prior positive or negative association but comes to elicit a response after being associated with the unconditioned stimulus.
• A conditioned response (CR) is a response that occurs in the presence of the conditioned stimulus after an association between the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus is learned.
• Acquisition is the initial learning of the association between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli during classical conditioning.
• Generalization is the tendency to respond to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus, so that learning is not tied to a specific stimulus.
• Discrimination is the ability to respond to a particular stimulus, but not similar stimuli, thus preventing overgeneralizations.
• Extinction is an active learning process in which there is a weakening of the conditioned response to the conditioned stimulus in the absence of the unconditioned stimulus.
• Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of an extinct behavior after a delay.
• The residual plasticity hypothesis is the idea that neural networks of learning persist even after extinction, providing a residual memory trace of the association, which can lead to savings if conditioning is reintroduced.
• Savings is the phenomenon where relearning or recalling previously learned information or skills requires less time or effort compared to the initial learning or acquisition phase.
• Contingency is the degree to which one event predicts or is associated with another event.
• Activity in neurons that release dopamine, a neurotransmitter that is released after a rewarding event, sheds light on the role of predictions in learning.
• A prediction error is a discrepancy between the predicted outcome and the actual outcome of a situation or event.
• Blocking is a classical conditioning phenomenon whereby a prior association with a conditioned stimulus prevents learning of an association with another stimulus because the second one adds no further predictive value.
• Conducted by John Watson and Rosalie Rayner, the "Little Albert" experiment was a study involving an infant and a white rat that demonstrated that fear, a much more complex behavioral response than salivating, could also be conditioned.
• Counterconditioning is a therapeutic technique used in psychology to change or replace an unwanted or maladaptive response to a stimulus by pairing it with a new, more desirable or response in order to alter the individual’s learned association.
• Preparedness is the species-specific biological predisposition to learn some associations more quickly than other associations.
• Conditioned taste aversion is a classically conditioned response where individuals are more likely to associate nausea with food than with other environmental stimuli.
• Vicarious classical conditioning is a form of learning in which an individual acquires new behaviors or responses by observing the experiences of others rather than through direct personal experience with the stimuli.
• Operant conditioning is a mechanism by which behavior acts as an instrument to change the environment and, as a result, voluntary behaviors are modified.
• In operant conditioning, the antecedent is the stimulus or environmental cue that precedes the behavior and sets the occasion for the behavior to occur.
• In operant conditioning, the behavior is the observable and measurable action or response emitted by the individual in response to the antecedent stimulus.
• In operant conditioning, the consequence is the outcome or event that follows the behavior, which can either increase or decrease the likelihood the behavior will be repeated.
• Proposed by Edward Thorndike, the law of effect is the idea that behavior is a function of its consequences— actions that are followed by positive outcomes are strengthened, and actions that are followed by negative outcomes are weakened.
• Reinforcement involves a stimulus that increases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated.
• A primary reinforcer is a consequence that is innately pleasurable and/or satisfies some biological need.
• A secondary reinforcer is a learned pleasure that acquires value through experience because of its association with primary reinforcers.
• The diamond-water paradox is a phenomenon that refers to how secondary reinforcers, although learned, have taken on properties that are distinct from and even more potent than the primary reinforcers from which they are derived.
• Punishment involves a stimulus that decreases the likelihood that a behavior will be repeated.
• Positive reinforcement is the presentation of a positive stimulus, leading to an increase in the frequency of a behavior.
• Negative reinforcement is the removal of a negative stimulus, leading to an increase in the frequency of a behavior.