Exam 7: Learning and Adaptation: the Role of Experience

Psychologists sometimes use aversion therapy in order to condition repulsion to a stimulus that triggers an unwanted behaviour by pairing that stimulus with an aversive or noxious UCS.

When Pavlov was conditioning his dogs to salivate in response to a tone,he first paired the tone with the presentation of food until the tone alone could induce salivation.In his experiments,which of the following was considered to be the unconditioned stimulus?

In operant conditioning,______________ increases the likelihood of a behaviour by removing an unpleasant or aversive consequence.

All of the following are circumstances under which conditioned responses are typically acquired more rapidly EXCEPT:

Shaping is best defined as the process in which:

A young child is hungry and wants a cookie but is too short to reach the table where the cookie jar is kept.She tries various things to get the jar,such as jumping or throwing her teddy bear at the jar in hopes of knocking it off the table,but to no avail.Eventually,almost by accident,she realizes that she can pull the tablecloth on which the jar sits and is thus able to reach the jar.In the future,she will be more likely to try this technique again since it was effective.This example best demonstrates:

Alex loves to see his girlfriend smile.When he stops on the way home from the office to pick up a little gift for her,she gets the biggest smile on her face when he gives it to her.According to the principles of operant conditioning,Alex stops to buy her gifts more and more frequently because:

Summarize Garcia's research on conditioned taste aversion.How does this research challenge some of the basic assumptions of classical conditioning?

Which of the following statements about fear conditioning is ? A.It is associated with the development of schizophrenia. B.It is associated with an over reactive right amygdala. C.It is considered to be a conditioned emotional response. D.It leads to activation of the sympathetic nervous system.

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 professional baseball player would be viewed as a(n):

Rats and human patients experience pleasure when the hypothalamus is stimulated and will act as if they have just been ____________.

In classical conditioning,an organism learns an association between two stimuli while the type of learning in which an association between a behaviour and its consequence is learned is called:

In a study designed to improve immune system functioning of rats,a researcher pairs a drug that strengthens the immune system with sweet water.After several trials,the drug is removed,but when the rats consume only the sweetened water,their immune system functioning improves.This example demonstrates a potentially important application of:

Learning NOT to respond to uneventful familiar stimuli so that the organism can conserve energy and attend to more important stimuli is an example of:

When a CS is repeatedly presented by itself and eventually the CR weaken and disappears,__________ is said to have occurred.

Imagine that you have a headache.You take two aspirin and notice that in a few minutes,your headache starts to subside.Because the aspirin effectively eliminated your headache,you would probably be more likely to take them again the next time you have a headache.This example best demonstrates the process of:

Pavlov determined that a tone triggered salivation more quickly when the size of the _________ was more intense or greater.

A child has learned that when her mother is not home,she can sneak a cookie from the cookie jar and not get caught.In this instance,the absence of the mother serves as a(n)_____________ stimulus.

The influence of a behaviour on an organism's chances for survival and reproduction in its natural environment is called the concept of _______________.

You are driving down the freeway rather quickly because you are late for a meeting,but you notice a police car parked on the side of the freeway.You quickly apply the brakes and slow down to the speed limit.In this instance,the police car represents a: