Exam 5: Learning

According to the _____ model developed by _____, behavior is shaped and maintained by its environmental consequences.

Explain how a deer's ability to survive in the woods during hunting season might demonstrate classical and operant conditioning processes.

Compare and contrast operant and classical conditioning in terms of types of behavior studied, responses conditioned, extinction processes, and cognitive and evolutionary influences on each.

Which of the following is a valid criticism of the methodology of Watson and Rayner's "Little Albert" study?

Behaviors conditioned using a continuous reinforcement schedule tend to be more resistant to extinction than behaviors conditioned using a partial reinforcement schedule.

Steven Spielberg's classic movie Jaws is a thriller about a great white shark that terrorizes tourists at a local beach. Just before the shark's appearance, eerie music begins playing. As the unseen shark comes closer, the tempo of the music picks up. After the audience experiences this a few times, the sound of the music triggers the emotional reaction of fear in the audience even though the shark still has not appeared. At that point, the sound of the eerie music is a(n):

After repeatedly pairing the sound of a bell with food being placed in a dog's mouth, the sound of the bell alone will make the dog salivate. The dog's salivation to the sound of the bell is called the:

In one study, orangutans imitated the behavior of both humans and other orangutans, but they were more likely to imitate high-status or dominant models than low-status models. The orangutans were also more likely to imitate models with whom they had close relationships, such as biological parents, siblings, or their human caregivers. They virtually never imitated human strangers. This study illustrates that positive punishment factors seem to play a role in observational learning in primates, just as they do in humans.

A major contribution of B. F. Skinner to the psychology of learning was his demonstration of the effects on behavior of different schedules of reinforcement.

In an operant conditioning experiment, a pigeon learned to peck at a blue disk to get a food pellet. The researcher then withheld reinforcement, and eventually the bird stopped pecking the disk. This example illustrates:

Who discovered the basic process of classical conditioning?

A supervisor reprimands an employee for wearing jeans to work. From then on, the employee wears a suit and tie to work. This is an example of negative punishment, or punishment by removal.

The evolutionary perspective helps explain why the most common phobias are fears of:

Your friend Madison became very ill a few hours after eating the fried chicken special in the college cafeteria. Now, Madison feels queasy whenever she smells fried chicken. Having read the learning chapter in your psychology class, you explain that:

After buying an electric grass trimmer, Richard changed into his shorts and went out in his bare feet to trim the grass. When he moved the trimmer too close to his leg, the rotating line cut a gash in his ankle. Richard no longer wears shorts or goes barefoot when he uses the grass trimmer. Richard's behavior of dressing inappropriately for gardening has been changed as a result of:

One year after Mexican television broadcast a dramatic series that promoted literacy among adults, enrollment in literacy instruction groups in Mexico:

Discuss criticisms of the famous "Little Albert" study.

A conditioned stimulus from one learning trial is used in place of an unconditioned stimulus in a new conditioning trial, where it is paired with a second conditioned stimulus. The second conditioned stimulus then comes to elicit the conditioned response, even though it has never been directly paired with the unconditioned stimulus. This is a description of a procedure called higher order conditioning.

Population Communications International is a nonprofit group that develops television and radio drama series based on the principles of observational learning.

On the first trial, a rat in a Skinner box receives reinforcement for the first bar press it makes after 50 seconds have elapsed. On the second trial, the rat receives reinforcement for the first bar press it makes after 70 seconds. Although it varies from trial to trial, on average the rat's behavior is reinforced once every 60 seconds. The rat is on a _____ schedule of reinforcement.