Module 26

Module 26

1. learning: acquiring new and relatively enduring information/behaviors

   • Allows us to adapt to environment by teaching us what to expect and prepare for
   • Operant Conditioning: learning to repeat acts that bring rewards and to avoid acts that bring unwanted results
   • Cognitive Learning: learning new behaviors by observing events and by watching others, and through language we learn things we have neither experienced nor observed
     • the acquisition of mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language
     • Observational learning: allows us to learn from others' experiences
   • associative learning: learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli or a response and its consequences
     • Classical Conditioning: we learn to associate two stimuli and thus to anticipate events
       • we learn that a flash of lighting signals a clap of thunder
       • Neutral Stimulus: in classical conditioning, a stimulus that elicits no response before conditioning
       • Unconditioned response: in classical conditioning, an unlearned, naturally occurring response (such as the salivation) to an unconditioned stimulus (such as food in the mouth)
       • Unconditioned stimulus: in classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally (naturally and automatically) triggers a response.
       • Conditioned response:in classical conditioning, a learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus
       • Conditioned Stimulus: in classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus, comes to trigger a conditioned response
       • Acquisition: in classical conditioning, the initial stage, when one links a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus begins triggering the conditioned response.
       • Pavlov's Legacy: many other responses to many other stimuli can be classically conditioned in many other organisms and Pavlov showed us how a process such as learning can be studied objectively.
     • operant conditioning: we learn to associate a response (our behavior) and its consequence
       • we learn to repeat acts followed by good results and avoid acts followed by bad results
       • Acquisition: the strengthening of a reinforced response
     • High Order Conditioning: a procedure in which the conditioned stimulus in one conditioning experience is paired with a new neutral stimulus, creating a second (often weaker) conditioned stimulus. For example, an animal that has learned that a tone predicts food might then learn that a light predicts the tone and begin responding to the light alone (also called second order conditioning
     • Extinction: the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus does not follow a conditioned stimulus; occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced
       • Spontaneous recovery: the reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response.
     • Generalization: the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses.
       • Discrimination: in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus
   • Habituation: an organism's decreased response to a stimulus with repeated exposure to it