Exam 7: Learning and Adaptation: the Role of Experience

A researcher argues that because of evolution,animals are biologically prepared to respond in particular ways and thus are anything but "blank slates." This person's perspective is most closely associated with the following perspectives:

Schedules of reinforcement that are more resistant to extinction because reinforcement has been unpredictable in the past are called ____________schedules of reinforcement.

Ben nearly drowned as a child and has since developed a deep fear of not only swimming,but all water in general.When Ben seeks help from Dr.Brown,the first thing Dr.Brown does is take Ben to a swimming pool and force him to get into the water.Dr.Brown is using:

Which of the following is an example of a primary reinforcer?

A particular species of tree squirrel has developed a fur colouring that allows it to blend in more effectively in its natural environment.As a result,these squirrels are more difficult to spot in the trees,are less likely to become prey for local predators,and are thus more likely to survive and reproduce.This example best demonstrates the process of:

Sharon works very hard at her job in order to earn attention and approval from her boss.She is responsible for a weekly sales report draft and puts in tremendous effort to be sure she has it on his desk every Friday by 9:00am.Sometimes her boss is pleased at her promptness and rewards Sharon by treating her to lunch.Many weeks this does not happen and her boss barely seems to notice the punctual delivery of the report.Even though most weeks her boss ignores her extra efforts,Sharon ________________.

The _____________________ of a behaviour refers to how the behaviour influences an organism's chances for survival and reproduction in its natural environment.

When a reaction decreases in response to a constant stimulus it is called _______________.

Tracy suffered from severe nausea for the first three months of her pregnancy.In order to make it easier on his wife,her husband used to order Chinese take-out food three or four evenings each week.Tracy knew she had to eat in order to nourish the baby so she forced herself to eat the take out food.When her child was six years old,he wanted to celebrate his birthday at a Chinese restaurant and Tracy became ill at the thought of eating Chinese food.For Tracy,the Chinese food had become so strongly associated with nausea that the association remained all these years later.This taste aversion is an example of :

Karen's boyfriend gets very excited whenever he smells pizza as he walks by the pizza place where she works because whether Karen is working then or not,he still associates the place with Karen.Which of the following correctly identify the unconditioned stimulus and the conditioned stimulus?

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):

Edward Tolman's research on how rats performed in mazes provided powerful evidence suggesting that:

Classical conditioning is to operant conditioning as:

Which of the following provides the best definition of habituation?

Interactions with immediate and past environments that occur through the laws of learning are called:

Psychologists who focus on how organisms learn and assume that there are general laws of learning that apply to virtually all organisms are called _____________________.

An operant process called ___________ reinforces successive approximations of a desired behaviour.

Historically,behaviourists tended to study behaviour in highly controlled environments,while ethologists typically chose to conduct their research in ___________ settings.

There was a case of an 11-year-old girl who was suffering from a disease in which her own immune system attacked her body.To treat her,researchers first paired cod liver oil with an immune-suppressant drug.Later,when she only received pure cod liver oil (without the drug),her immune system still showed the intended impairment.In this instance,the conditioned stimulus would be the:

A mother has been continually nagging her daughter about how messy her room is.Finally,the daughter gets so tired of her mom's complaints that she cleans her room,thus stopping the nagging of her mother.Given the fact that the withdrawal of the mother's nagging served to strengthen the daughter's room-cleaning behaviour,the mother's nagging would be considered a(n):