Key Terms for Learning
- acquisition
- period of initial learning in classical conditioning in which a human or an animal begins to connect a neutral stimulus and an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus will begin to elicit the conditioned response
- associative learning
- form of learning that involves connecting certain stimuli or events that occur together in the environment (classical and operant conditioning)
- classical conditioning
- learning in which the stimulus or experience occurs before the behaviour and then gets paired or associated with the behaviour
- cognitive map
- mental picture of the layout of the environment
- conditioned response (CR)
- response caused by the conditioned stimulus
- conditioned stimulus (CS)
- stimulus that elicits a response due to its being paired with an unconditioned stimulus
- continuous reinforcement
- rewarding a behaviour every time it occurs
- extinction
- decrease in the conditioned response when the unconditioned stimulus is no longer paired with the conditioned stimulus
- fear conditioning
- a type of classical conditioning that elicits a fear response
- fixed interval reinforcement schedule
- behaviour is rewarded after a set amount of time
- fixed ratio reinforcement schedule
- set number of responses must occur before a behaviour is rewarded
- higher-order conditioning
- (also, second-order conditioning) using a conditioned stimulus to condition a neutral stimulus
- insight
- the sudden understanding of a solution to a problem
- instinct
- unlearned knowledge, involving complex patterns of behaviour; instincts are thought to be more prevalent in lower animals than in humans
- latent learning
- learning that occurs, but it may not be evident until there is a reason to demonstrate it
- law of effect
- behaviour that is followed by consequences satisfying to the organism will be repeated and behaviours that are followed by unpleasant consequences will be discouraged
- learning
- change in behaviour or knowledge that is the result of experience
- model
- person who performs a behaviour that serves as an example (in observational learning)
- negative punishment
- taking away a pleasant stimulus to decrease or stop a behaviour
- negative reinforcement
- taking away an undesirable stimulus to increase a behaviour
- neutral stimulus (NS)
- stimulus that does not initially elicit a response
- observational learning
- type of learning that occurs by watching others
- operant conditioning
- form of learning in which the stimulus/experience happens after the behaviour is demonstrated
- partial reinforcement
- rewarding behaviour only some of the time
- positive punishment
- adding an undesirable stimulus to stop or decrease a behaviour
- positive reinforcement
- adding a desirable stimulus to increase a behaviour
- primary reinforcer
- has innate reinforcing qualities (e.g., food, water, shelter, sex)
- punishment
- implementation of a consequence in order to decrease a behaviour
- radical behaviourism
- staunch form of behaviourism developed by B. F. Skinner that suggested that even complex higher mental functions like human language are nothing more than stimulus-outcome associations
- reflex
- unlearned, automatic response by an organism to a stimulus in the environment
- reinforcement
- implementation of a consequence in order to increase a behaviour
- secondary reinforcer
- has no inherent value unto itself and only has reinforcing qualities when linked with something else (e.g., money, gold stars, poker chips)
- shaping
- rewarding successive approximations toward a target behaviour
- spontaneous recovery
- return of a previously extinguished conditioned response
- stimulus discrimination
- ability to respond differently to similar stimuli
- stimulus generalization
- demonstrating the conditioned response to stimuli that are similar to the conditioned stimulus
- unconditioned response (UCR)
- natural (unlearned) behaviour to a given stimulus
- unconditioned stimulus (US)
- stimulus that elicits a reflexive response
- variable interval reinforcement schedule
- behaviour is rewarded after unpredictable amounts of time have passed
- variable ratio reinforcement schedule
- number of responses differ before a behaviour is rewarded
- vicarious punishment
- process where the observer sees the model punished, making the observer less likely to imitate the model’s behaviour
- vicarious reinforcement
- process where the observer sees the model rewarded, making the observer more likely to imitate the model’s behaviour