Exam 7: Learning and Adaptation: the Role of Experience

Thorndike's law of effect states that

An instructor administers exams every 2 weeks throughout the term of her course. As a result, a sizeable percentage of the students in her class study very hard every 2 weeks and do little studying in between. This example is most similar to which partial reinforcement schedule?

Are variable or fixed schedules more resistant to extinction? Why?

Tyler wakes up to a noisy drilling machine from the neighbour's house. He is unable to concentrate on his work from the disturbing loud drilling. As the day goes by, he is able to do his work despite the noise from the drilling machine being as loud as it was when it started. Tyler has _____________.

In operant conditioning, to decrease the likelihood of a behaviour, punishment is applied as a ________.

A child typically needs to burn her hand on a hot stove only once to learn to avoid doing this in the future. Psychologists involved in classical conditioning would most likely consider this as an example of

Starbucks has a new program where you receive stars for purchases made at their stores. Later you can redeem these stars for other products. It seems that Starbucks is using a procedure similar to

Stuart is afraid of public speaking, but only when he has to make speeches on the weekend. He is a professor and has no trouble speaking in front of large groups of students, and he has made effective presentations at conferences, as long as he presents on a weekday. The specificity of Stuart's fear mostly clearly demonstrates the process of

When a response increases in frequency by the subsequent removal (or avoidance) of a stimulus, it is called ______________.

A researcher in a classical conditioning experiment is attempting to condition a startle response to a green light. To do this, she illuminates the light at the same time that she plays a very loud noise. This experiment is utilizing what is called simultaneous pairing of the

If your cat learns to associate the sound of an electric can opener with being fed and gets excited whenever they hear you use it, they may nevertheless show no response to the sound of other electric appliances that sound somewhat similar (e.g. a garbage disposal). What concept does that demonstrate?

you want to try to determine the best predictor of behaviour. From a cognitive perspective, the best predictor of behaviour is

How animals appear to be biologically "prewired" to easily learn behaviours that are related to their survival as a species because of evolutionary forces is referred to by the term ____________________.

The psychologist Albert Bandura identified a four-step process necessary for observational learning to occur. Which of the following is NOT one of the steps?

Operant extinction refers to the process in which a behaviour is

Which of the following illustrates aversive (positive) punishment?

Edward Thorndike proposed that a response that was followed by a satisfying consequence was more likely to occur. This was termed as Thorndike's law of __________.

You are watching a rat press a bar in a Skinner box. As you look at the cumulative record, you notice that there are significant pauses in responding after reinforcement is delivered. Moreover, the pauses are not flat, they are curved or scalloped. What kind of schedule is the rat being trained on?

Edward Thorndike assumed that animals were able to escape his puzzle box because

A few days ago, Wendy got a speeding ticket on a highway behind Superior College. This morning, on her way to College, on the same stretch of the road where she had received the speeding ticket, Wendy immediately slowed down and checked her speedometer when she saw the flashing lights of a security vehicle. The security vehicle reminded her of the police car from the day she got the ticket. This is an example of _____________.