Exam 7: Section 4: Learning

According to Skinner, superstitions arise when reinforcers are not contingent on any particular behavior.

Discriminative stimuli precede behavior, and reinforcers follow behavior.

Reinforcement under variable interval schedules depends partly on the passage of time.

B. F. Skinner invented the operant conditioning chamber.

Simple, but not complex, tasks can be learned through observation.

The Brelands' found that raccoons being trained to put a coin inside a box instead buried the coin in the ground.

Operant behavior is voluntary in nature.

Rats will choose to electrically stimulate the pleasure centers of their brain over food or sex.

Variable ratio schedules of reinforcement produce slightly lower response rates than fixed ratio schedules.

The nucleus accumbens, medial forebrain bundle, and hypothalamus are all major pleasure centers in the brain.

Stimuli that help us satisfy biological needs are termed secondary reinforcers.

Practice testing has been shown to be an effective study strategy.

Bandura's research demonstrated that simply observing aggressive models was not sufficient to produce aggressive behavior in children; reinforcement of the aggressive behavior was needed.

Edward Chace Tolman introduced the term cognitive map.

In second-order conditioning, a neutral stimulus becomes a CS when it is repeatedly paired with a previously established CS.

Shaping through approximations more quickly establishes a complex behavior than trial-and-error learning.

B. F. Skinner was diametrically opposed to the consequence-based conceptualization of learning studied by Thorndike.

In a diffusion chain, component behaviors are shaped through approximations until the end behavior is reached.

Rats that discover food in one arm of a maze with many arms will tend to revisit that arm over and over again, searching for more food.

Edward Chace Tolman argued that latent learning is a by-product of reinforcement.