Exam 7: Section 4: Learning

The Rescorla-Wagner model predicts that conditioning will be easier when the CS is an unfamiliar event than when it is familiar.

Shaping through approximations involves providing reinforcers for behaviors that are closer and closer to the overall desired behavior.

Wild-raised chimpanzees imitate a human modeling tool use more accurately than chimpanzees raised by humans.

Examples of primary reinforcement include food, comfort, and warmth.

Habituation occurs only in complex organisms.

Wild-raised chimpanzees imitate a human modeling tool use less precisely than two-year-old humans.

Operant behavior is behavior under the control of its consequences.

Thorndike used shaping through approximations to teach his cats how to escape the puzzle box.

In classical conditioning, the conditioned stimulus (CS) is initially neutral and does not evoke a conditioned response.

The effects of learning are usually short-lived.

Once a conditioned response has been extinguished, it will not occur again unless the CS-US pairings are reintroduced.

Cognitive psychologists conducted most of the experiments on learning from the 1930s to the 1950s.

The part of the brain that is essential to emotional conditioning is the thalamus.

In some cases, observational learning may be just as effective as repeatedly practicing a skill.

Pavlov's dogs, which were conditioned to salivate at the sound of a tone, also may salivate at the sound of a doorbell, illustrating the process of generalization.

If connections between the amygdala and hypothalamus are severed, the physiological changes associated with fear conditioning will not occur.

Implicit learning is unrelated to IQ.

Flashing lights paired with a speeding ticket may become primary punishers.

In negative reinforcement, an unpleasant stimulus is removed upon the occurrence of the target behavior.

A taste aversion will not form unless the sickness follows food intake within a few minutes of ingestion.