Exam 7: Learning and Adaptation: the Role of Experience

It is virtually impossible to train a rat to peck a key for food, but very easy for a pigeon to learn this task. Most likely this reflects the operation of

A child who has her TV-watching privileges taken away because she lied to her parents is receiving a response cost punishment.

Describe four major schedules of partial reinforcement and their effects on behaviour.

Olag has severe symptoms of posttraumatic stress disorder. It is likely that neuroimaging studies will show

Sonia's mother is often busy and doesn't pay very much attention to her. When Sonia cries or screams, her mother comes over and scolds her. Though she doesn't like being scolded, Sonia prefers getting some attention to having no attention at all. Sonia learns that when she wants her mother's attention, she should scream or cry. What kind of learning is this?

Jack works hard for a living. He gets paid in cash once a month. While Jack likes the cash, it really is nothing more than a

When a discriminative stimulus influences a behaviour, that behaviour _____________.

Janice is trying to teach her dog to heel, so she buys a choke collar. Every time the dog strains on the leash, the collar restricts around his neck. Every time the dog drops back to walk beside her, the collar loosens up. In theory, this should cause the dog to learn to walk beside Janice. What type of consequence results from the collar loosening up?

According to the concept of instinctual drift, which of the following statements would be true?

When an operantly conditioned behaviour occurs in response to a new antecedent stimulus that is similar to the original antecedent stimulus, that behaviour is said to be under stimulus control.

While walking through the mall, a young boy sees a new pair of shoes and immediately tells his grandmother that he would like to have them. The grandma initially refuses, prompting the boy to get upset and he starts to cry. The grandma hates to see her grandson get upset, so she changes her mind and buys him the shoes. In this example, we could say that the grandma's initial refusal was _____________ and the boy's mini-tantrum was ____________.

The behavioural approach explains learning in terms of both directly observable events and mental events.

Classical conditioning can also affect our physical health as in the example of allergies. For example if the kitty litter is repeatedly paired with a natural allergen, like cat dander, the kitty litter alone can start to trigger the allergic reaction. In this example, the kitty litter would be the ________________.

You are taking a shower in your dorm and you hear a toilet being flushed nearby. You briefly step out of the flow of water because you have learned that the water becomes very hot for a few moments after this happens. In this example, which of the following would be considered to be the discriminative stimulus?

The psychologist Albert Bandura, a prominent researcher of observational learning, suggested that for organisms to learn from observation, they must first _____________.

A response, such as salivation, is automatically triggered when a stimulus has been associated with an impending important event and is known as a ______________ response.

Jeff's parents want him to study more. To do this, they tell him that if he studies two hours per night during the week, they will pay for him to go to the movies with a friend on the weekend. After a month, they notice that Jeff is studying more often and more consistently. According to the principles of operant conditioning, getting money to go to the movies would be a(n)

What role does awareness play in operant conditioning?

Operant extinction, aversive punishment, and response cost punishment are similar in that they all _____________.

A smart political candidate becomes friends with a very popular professional baseball player because she hopes that this will improve her popularity with the voters. With regard to classical conditioning principles, the positive emotional reactions already evoked by the professional baseball player would be viewed as a(n)