Deck 8: Learning

Question 1

Psychologists define learning as __________.

A) repeated exposure to a stimulus
B) an awareness of both internal and external events
C) an enduring change in behavior due to experience
D) a change in response to a stimulus

Answer 1

an enduring change in behavior due to experience

Question 2

Marta is sitting in her college class and does not notice the feeling of the pen in her hand, the pressure of her feet on the floor, or the sound of the air conditioning humming above her. The fact that Marta is not responding to these stimuli shows that she has ________________ to them.

A) oriented
B) associated
C) presented
D) habituated

Answer 2

habituated

Question 3

Habituation is often regarded as __________.

A) the simplest form of learning
B) the chance association of two stimuli
C) a "false alarm"
D) a common orienting response

Answer 3

the simplest form of learning

Question 4

Every time his dad returns home with bags of groceries, two-year-old Timmy looks at the bags and yells, "Cookies!" The child has made which of the following?

A) a habituation
B) an association
C) an unconditioned response (UCR)
D) a discrimination

Question 5

Bozo the dog knows that when his owner picks up his leash, she is likely going to take him for a walk. Therefore, he runs to the door. Learning theorists would say that Bozo has _______________ to his owner's retrieval of his leash.

A) generalized
B) recovered
C) reinforced
D) conditioned

Question 6

What is the distinction between classical conditioning and operant conditioning?

A) Classical conditioning involves instant learning, and operant conditioning involves learning over time.
B) Classical conditioning involves learning over time, and operant conditioning involves instant learning.
C) Classical conditioning involves learning based on associations, and operant conditioning involves
Learning based on consequences.
D Classical conditioning involves learning based on consequences, and operant conditioning involves
) learning based on associations.

Question 7

Classical conditioning occurs when an organism __________.

A) modifies its behavior as a result of experiencing consequences for its actions
B) increases the likelihood of a behavior for a reward such as money or peer approval
C) extends the association between a conditioned response and a consequence
D) comes to associate a previously neutral stimulus with a meaningful stimulus

Question 8

The researcher who discovered classical conditioning, quite by accident, is

A) B. F. Skinner
B) Ivan Pavlov
C) Rosalie Rayner
D) John Watson

Question 9

In Pavlov's classic experiment, he presented the sound of a bell along with meat powder to his dogs. After several trials, the dogs learned to salivate to the sound of the bell in the absence of the meat powder. In this study, the sound of the bell acted as __________.

A) an unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
B) an unconditioned response (UCR)
C) a conditioned stimulus (CS)
D) a conditioned response (CR)

Question 10

An unconditioned response (UCR) is __________.

A) automatic
B) natural
C) inborn
D) all of these

Question 11

A fixed stimulus-response (S-R) pattern is known as __________.

A) a reflex
B) a conditioned response
C) Pavlovian conditioning
D) forward conditioning

Question 12

In Pavlov's studies, the meat powder served as __________.

A) an unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
B) an unconditioned response (UR)
C) a conditioned stimulus (CS)
D) a conditioned response (CR)

Question 13

Another term for the word conditioned is _________.

A) recovered
B) extinguished
C) learned
D) motivated

Question 14

By pairing a flashing light with a loud noise, a researcher has taught a rat to exhibit a fear response to the light. In this study, the rat's conditioned response (CR) is the __________.

A) loud noise
B) fear response
C) flashing light
D) teaching the rat

Question 15

When posing for a picture, Marla started blinking before the camera's flash went off. To Marla, the camera has become __________________.

A) an unconditioned stimulus (UCS)
B) an unconditioned response (UR)
C) a conditioned stimulus (CS)
D) a conditioned response (CR)

Question 16

Forward conditioning occurs when the __________.

A) conditioned response is given before the neutral stimulus is presented
B) neutral stimulus is presented immediately before the conditioned response
C) unconditioned stimulus is presented at the same time as the neutral stimulus
D) neutral stimulus is presented immediately before the unconditioned stimulus

Question 17

Under which of the following circumstances is classical conditioning most likely to succeed?

A) The organism is no longer rewarded for exhibiting the CR.
B) The UCS and the CS are paired close together in time.
C) The desired behavior is reinforced with intrinsically rewarding stimuli.
D) The organism can generalize the association to stimuli similar to the CS.

Question 18

Which of the following studies is employing backward conditioning?

A) Presenting a tone before a puff of air is blown in a cat's face
B) Presenting a flashing light before a puff of air is blown in a cat's face
C) Presenting a flashing light before an electric shock is administered to a rat's tail
D) Presenting a flashing light after an electric shock is administered to a rat's tail

Question 19

Tracy was bitten by her neighbor's aggressive dog, and now she will not go near any household pets. Tracy has _________________ her fear of dogs to other animals.

A) generalized
B) extinguished
C) shaped
D) reinforced

Question 20

Dharma was bitten by a spider and developed an intense phobia of them. In an effort to cure Dharma's phobia, a psychologist gradually exposed her to spiders. After many sessions of having nonthreatening experiences with spiders, Dharma's phobia was cured. In other words, Dharma's spider phobia was
__________.

A) generalized
B) recovered
C) extinguished
D) punished

Question 21

John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner's (1920) classic experiment with Little Albert showed that __________.

A) fears can be conditioned
B) fears can be generalized
C) psychological studies can raise ethical issues
D) all of these

Question 22

"Give me a dozen healthy infants . . and I'll guarantee to take any one at random and train him to become any type of specialist . . . . doctor, lawyer, artist, merchant-chief, and yes, even beggar-man and thief,regardless of his talents, penchants, tendencies, abilities, vocations, and race of his ancestors." This quoteis attributed to which renowned American psychologist?

A) B. F. Skinner
B) John B. Watson
C) Mary Ainsworth
D) Carl Rogers

Question 23

When Mike checks his e-mail, he usually finds funny and interesting messages from his friends. Therefore, Mike checks his e-mail frequently. This is an example of which type of learning?

A) Classical conditioning
B) Operant conditioning
C) Observational learning
D) none of these

Question 24

Which of the following best describes how operant conditioning works?

A) Organisms learn by observing others.
B) Organisms learn relationships between stimuli.
C) Organisms learn from the consequences of their behavior.
D) none of these

Question 25

Which of the following is true with respect to primary reinforcers?

A) They are biologically satisfying.
B) They are not learned.
C) Examples are food and sex.
D) all of these.

Question 26

A potential reinforcer that becomes pleasant to us because of its association with something biologically rewarding is known as a ________________ reinforcer.

A) positive
B) primary
C) secondary
D) negative

Question 27

Which of the following is an example of positive reinforcement?

A) Tomas is tired so he drinks coffee to stay awake.
B) Cindy has a temper tantrum so her mother gives her a "time out."
C) Greta gets caught speeding and the police officer gives her a ticket.
D) Moe tells jokes and his friends laugh hysterically.

Question 28

Which of the following decreases the likelihood that a behavior will recur?

A) a reinforcement
B) a punishment
C) an association
D) modeling

Question 29

Removing a stimulus or condition to increase the frequency of a behavior is known as __________.

A) positive reinforcement
B) negative reinforcement
C) positive punishment
D) negative punishment

Question 30

What is the distinction between negative reinforcement and punishment?

A) Negative reinforcement seeks to increase the frequency of a behavior, and punishment seeks to decrease the frequency of a behavior.
B) Negative reinforcement seeks to decrease the frequency of a behavior, and punishment seeks to increase the frequency of a behavior.
C) Negative reinforcement uses biologically rewarding stimuli, and punishment uses biologically aversive stimuli.
D) none of these; there is no distinction between negative reinforcement and punishment.

Question 31

What did B. F. Skinner conclude about the effectiveness of reinforcements and punishments?

A) Reinforcements and punishments are equally effective at changing the frequency of a behavior.
B) Reinforcements are more effective than punishments at changing the frequency of a behavior.
C) Punishments are more effective than reinforcements at changing the frequency of a behavior.
D) Reinforcements and punishments are not effective at changing the frequency of a behavior.

Question 32

A Skinner box is a __________.

A) device psychologists use to test the principles of operant conditioning
B) carefully timed procedure in which the UCS is paired with the CS
C) contrived social situation used by psychologists to study modeling
D) all of these

Question 33

I want to teach a dolphin to swim through a hoop. First, I reward the dolphin for swimming near the hoop. Next, I reward the dolphin for touching the hoop. Then, I reward the dolphin for sticking his nose through the middle of the hoop. Finally, I reward the dolphin for swimming through the hoop. Psychologists call this process __________.

A) shaping
B) modeling
C) stimulus generalization
D) imprinting

Question 34

Psychologists have used operant conditioning to help people who __________.

A) have phobias
B) have learning disabilities
C) want to stop smoking
D) all of these

Question 35

How is applied behavioral analysis (ABA) used to treat autism?

A) It uses reinforcement to increase desired behaviors exhibited by autistic children.
B) It uses punishments to decrease undesired behaviors exhibited by autistic children.
C) It involves ignoring harmful behaviors exhibited by autistic children.
D) all of these

Question 36

Under which of the following schedules does reinforcement follow a set number of responses?

A) variable-ratio
B) variable-interval
C) fixed-ratio
D) fixed-interval

Question 37

Which of the following scenarios best depicts variable-ratio reinforcement?

A) Bishop gives his dog a treat every time the dog barks on command.
B) Dexter continues to put money into slot machines because he never knows how many pulls of the arm it will take to win the jackpot.
C) Doreen does not study for her accounting exams until one or two nights before the test is scheduled.
D) Agatha frequently studies the material from her physics class because she is not certain when the professor will be giving pop quizzes.

Question 38

A company pays its employees on Wednesdays, and on Thursdays employee productivity seems to be a little slow. This is an example of which of the following types of reinforcement?

A) variable-interval
B) variable-ratio
C) fixed-interval
D) fixed-ratio

Question 39

Instinctive drift means that an organism will __________.

A) revert back to inborn behavioral tendencies even if it learns a new behavior
B) seek reinforcement for behaviors that are biologically rewarding
C) learn a response more rapidly if it is reinforced on a variable schedule
D) learn to associate a neutral stimulus with a meaningful stimulus

Question 40

The biological constraint model of learning suggests that __________.

A) maladaptive responses are more likely to be reinforced
B) some behaviors are more likely to be learned than others
C) most animals learn through classical and not operant conditioning
D) none of these

Question 41

Darren ate a cheeseburger right before he got extremely nauseous from the flu. Now, every time Darren smells a cheeseburger, he gets nauseous. Darren is experiencing __________.

A) imprinting
B) habituation
C) a conditioned taste aversion
D) an instinctual drift

Question 42

Which of the following is true with respect to a conditioned taste aversion?

A) It is thought to be an evolutionary adaptation.
B) It guides an organism to engage in behaviors that ensure survival and reproductive success.
C) It can be accomplished with a single pairing of the CS and the UCS.
D) all of these are true.

Question 43

Garcia's experimentation with rats showed that __________.

A) it takes many pairings of the CS and the UCS to produce a taste aversion
B) rats will imprint to the first living organism they see
C) learning occurs quickly if successive approximations of a desired behavior are reinforced
D) only certain stimuli can be used to produce nausea

Question 44

________________ is a drug that employs the principles of classical conditioning in an attempt to create an aversion to alcohol.

A) Alprazolam
B) Disulfiram
C) Fluoxitine
D) aspirin

Question 45

Shaniqua is learning how to drive by watching her mother drive. This is an example of __________.

A) classical conditioning
B) operant conditioning
C) observational learning
D) reinforcement

Question 46

______________________ is the process of observing and imitating behaviors performed by others.

A) Modeling
B) Rewarding
C) Discrimination
D) Shaping

Question 47

Which of the following is true with respect to Albert Bandura's social learning theory?

A) It was the first to acknowledge that learning tied to biology is extremely powerful.
B) It claims that animals are primed from birth to readily learn some things but not others.
C) It described how a previously neutral stimulus can come to be associated with a meaningful one.
D) It noted that observation and modeling are major forms of learning.

Question 48

Juan hears his older brother using curse words around his friends, and now Juan uses curse words. Bandura would call Juan's learning __________.

A) discrimination
B) modeling
C) imprinting
D) habituation

Question 49

Psychologist ______________________ proposed that reinforcement can affect not only those being rewarded but also those observing the reward.

A) Ivan Pavlov
B) B. F. Skinner
C) Rosalie Rayner
D) Albert Bandura

Question 50

The Feist and Rosenberg text cites the real-life example of Ben Darras and Sarah Edmondson, who went on a killing spree after taking drugs and watching the movie Natural Born Killers. Psychologists explain Darras and Edmondson's criminal behavior as an unfortunate example of which type of learning?

A) operant conditioning
B) observational learning
C) classical conditioning
D) all of these

Question 51

Which of the following is true of learning?

A) Learning results from a brain-environment interaction.
B) Biology is necessary for learning to occur.
C) Learning influences an organism's biology.
D) all of these.

Question 52

___________________ is an animal's rapid, innate learning about a parent; this takes place shortly after birth.

A) Imprinting
B) Habituation
C) Enactive learning
D) Shaping

Question 53

In one example, Konrad Lorenz demonstrated imprinting when __________.

A) he conducted the first fMRI tests on infant-parent attachment
B) a flock of newborn baby geese followed him around, thinking he was their "mother"
C) he conducted a worldwide study on infant recognition of their parents' voices
D) he conditioned dogs to salivate at the sound of a duck quacking

Question 54

Learning occurs readily in response to particular stimuli during a ______________, and after this time it becomes much harder to learn certain skills and information.

A) behavior modification
B) instinctive drift
C) spontaneous recovery
D) sensitivity period

Question 55

Newborn Kayla smiles when she sees her father smile. This is most likely a result of which of the following physiological processes?

A) Mirror neurons are firing.
B) The tonic neck reflex is being initiated.
C) The parasympathetic nervous system is activated.
D) Wernicke's area has been activated.

Question 56

Which of the following young children is likely to experience the most neural growth?

A) Jade, whose parents constantly buy her new, stimulating toys and games
B) Ken, whose parents encourage him to play with his cartoon character puppets
C) Amanda, whose parents painted her room bright colors
D) Vern, whose parents hired an excellent babysitter to watch him while they work

Question 57

The phrase "use it or lose it" is particularly relevant to neural processes in that __________.

A) mirror neurons will practically disappear if we do not regularly engage in social behavior
B) the parietal lobe has shown to decrease in its ability to facilitate remembering dates, places, and faces if recognition and recall are not used regularly
C) glial cells rely on the conscious repetition of events from episodic memory to ensure retention of those events
D) synaptic connections will lose strength if they are not used regularly, and we may forget information

Question 58

Matthew has been playing the clarinet for many years, and he can play musical scales without giving much thought to the finger positions involved in the process. Matthew's mastery of the clarinet is likely a result of __________.

A) the resting potential of neurons associated with the storage and retrieval of musical information
B) strong synaptic connections that have been built up over years of practice and playing
C) years of classical conditioning leading to a permanent increase in GABA (gamma-aminobutyric acid) activity
D) consolidation of episodic memories by the limbic system

Question 59

Neurogenesis is __________.

A) the growth of new neurons
B) the destruction of neurons
C) depriving neurons of oxygen
D) mapping of the functions of neurons

Question 60

According to the research of van Praag, Kempermann, and Gage (1999), which of the following people will most likely experience neurogenesis?

A) Tank, who is interacting with people in his class
B) Velma, who is learning how to swim
C) Jack, who is running in a race
D) Celeste, who is navigating a maze

Question 61

Making Connections in Learning: According to the Feist and Rosenberg text, the best explanation for why people begin their habits of smoking cigarettes is __________.

A) social learning
B) operant conditioning
C) classical conditioning
D) filial imprinting

Question 62

Making Connections in Learning: According to the Feist and Rosenberg text, the best explanation for why people continue their habit of smoking cigarettes is __________.

A) positive reinforcement
B) negative punishment
C) the expression of unconditioned responses
D) the expression of conditioned responses

Question 63

Making Connections in Learning: Some people continue cigarette smoking because it reduces stress, social isolation, and appetite. From a learning perspective, smoking would likely continue because these reductions can be considered __________.

A) positive reinforcers
B) negative reinforcers
C) positive punishments
D) negative punishments

Question 64

Making Connections in Learning: Studies of the effects of attempts to quit smoking revealed that _________.

A) girls performed worse on cognitive tasks during nicotine withdrawal than did boys
B) girls reported fewer tobacco cravings than did boys
C) boys reported more symptoms of nicotine withdrawal than did girls
D) girls reported more symptoms of nicotine withdrawal than did boys

Question 65

Making Connections in Learning: A new public service campaign targeted at getting people to stop smoking shows images of cigarettes and coffins. This campaign is using the principles of __________.

A) classical conditioning
B) operant conditioning
C) modeling
D) habituation

Question 66

Making Connections in Learning: Thelma is trying to quit smoking, and her therapist tells Thelma to reward herself with one dollar for clothes shopping every time she successfully fights off the craving for a cigarette. The therapist is using __________.

A) conditioned taste aversion
B) modeling
C) classical conditioning
D) behavior modification

Question 67

Which of the following is an important method of human learning?

A) classical conditioning
B) operant conditioning
C) observational learning
D) all of these