Deck 5: Learning

Question 1

When Anna was three years old, her aunt's pet parakeet landed on her head and pecked at her scalp, hurting her. Following this incident, Anna was afraid of the parakeet, but over time, Anna has become afraid of anything that flies, including butterflies, large flying insects, and wild birds. This example illustrates the phenomenon of _____ in _____ conditioning.

A) instinctive drift; operant
B) stimulus discrimination; classical
C) biological preparedness; operant
D) stimulus generalization; classical

Answer 1

stimulus generalization; classical

Question 2

Ivan conditioned his pet bloodhound, Watson, to drool every time the doorbell rang. After a few weeks, he got tired of mopping up the puddle of drool by his front door, so he repeatedly rang the doorbell without pairing the sound with food. Eventually, the process of _____ occurred, and Watson stopped drooling every time the doorbell rang.

A) learned helplessness
B) stimulus discrimination
C) instinctive drift
D) extinction

Answer 2

extinction

Question 3

According to _____, a rat learning to navigate a maze will eventually acquire _____.

A) Edward C. Tolman; a cognitive map of the maze
B) Martin Seligman; learned helplessness
C) John Garcia; a taste aversion to any food eaten in the maze
D) Ivan Pavlov; a conditioned emotional response to the maze

Answer 3

Edward C. Tolman; a cognitive map of the maze

Question 4

In the famous "Little Albert" study, what was the conditioned stimulus?

A) the white rat
B) fear of the loud clang
C) fear at the sight of the rat
D) the loud clang

Question 5

Pavlov taught a dog to salivate at the sound of a musical tone by repeatedly pairing the tone with food. In this example, the musical tone is the _____ before conditioning and the _____ after conditioning.

A) conditioned stimulus; neutral stimulus
B) unconditioned stimulus; conditioned stimulus
C) neutral stimulus; conditioned stimulus
D) unconditioned stimulus; conditioned response

Question 6

In psychology, the formal definition of learning is:

A) knowledge that can be measured by an intelligence or achievement test.
B) any knowledge or skill that has been acquired in a school or in a formal training program.
C) behavior that is the result of genetic programming.
D) a process that produces a relatively enduring change in behavior or knowledge as a result of past experience.

Question 7

"Responses followed by a satisfying effect are strengthened and likely to occur again in a particular situation, but responses followed by a dissatisfying effect are weakened and less likely to occur again in a particular situation." What principle does this statement describe?

A) biological preparedness
B) learned helplessness
C) the law of effect
D) the Premack principle

Question 8

In his original studies of digestion, Pavlov placed food on a dog's tongue to make the dog salivate. In this situation, the food is a(n) _____ and the dog salivating is a(n) _____.

A) conditioned stimulus; unconditioned response
B) unconditioned stimulus; unconditioned response
C) conditioned stimulus; conditioned response
D) unconditioned stimulus; conditioned response

Question 9

According to the Enhancing Well-Being with Psychology section "Using Learning Principles to Improve Self-Control," to help motivate yourself to finish your history term paper on time, you should:

A) provide yourself with a reinforcing stimulus before you begin, so you won't be distracted.
B) plan to reward yourself with a reinforcing stimulus when your term paper is complete.
C) frequently fantasize about all the enjoyable things you could be doing instead of writing your term paper, to make the process more enjoyable.
D) reduce your stress level by ignoring the deadline, and adopt a flexible approach to writing the paper.

Question 10

In an experiment, researchers conquered learned helplessness in dogs by:

A) repeatedly presenting the conditioned stimulus without the unconditioned stimulus.
B) dragging the dogs over a barrier to the side of the cage that was not electrified.
C) removing the food from the end of the maze.
D) disconnecting the food dispenser from the operant chamber in the dogs' cages.

Question 11

After two weeks of being screamed at by his drill sergeant at boot camp and shuddering with fear in response, a Marine recruit named Joe now shudders every time he hears the footsteps of his drill sergeant coming down the hall. When the drill sergeant enters the room, Joe snaps to attention and salutes. In this example, shuddering to the sound of the footsteps is _____ and saluting is _____.

A) an operant response in the presence of a discriminative stimulus; a conditioned response
B) an unconditioned response; an example of latent learning
C) a conditioned response; an operant response in the presence of a discriminative stimulus
D) an unconditioned response; an example of learned helplessness

Question 12

Based on a review of more than 30 years of research, the American Psychological Association and other public health organizations stated that viewing entertainment violence:

A) was associated with lower cognitive performance and negative social behavior in African American males but not in white males.
B) can lead to a decrease in aggressive attitudes, values, and behaviors.
C) was associated with lower cognitive performance and negative social behavior in white males and females but not in African American males and females.
D) can lead to an increase in aggressive attitudes, values, and behaviors.

Question 13

Madison met her first serious boyfriend when she was working a summer job at a café on the beach at an oceanfront resort. Years later, when Madison smells the distinctive scent of saltwater and sand, she still feels a twinge of sadness, remembering the end of their romance when they both returned to their separate colleges in the fall. In this example, the conditioned stimulus is _____ and the conditioned response is _____.

A) the smell of the ocean; sadness
B) sadness; the smell of the ocean
C) the smell of the ocean; sexual arousal
D) the smell of the ocean; memories of being a waitress at the café

Question 14

Gabe got stuck in an elevator in a high-rise office building one morning. Now he refuses to enter an elevator. If entering an elevator is the operant, what type of consequence has altered Gabe's behavior?

A) punishment by application
B) punishment by removal
C) positive reinforcement
D) negative reinforcement

Question 15

During a severe thunderstorm, Christopher was talking on the phone with his girlfriend when lightning struck the house and the electrical shock traveled through the telephone wire. Christopher received a strong shock and the fright of his life. Although he wasn't severely injured, he developed an intense fear of lightning and thunderstorms. However, Christopher did NOT develop a fear of telephones or his girlfriend. Which concept helps explain this fact?

A) latent learning
B) the law of effect
C) biological preparedness
D) stimulus discrimination

Question 16

If an action is negatively reinforced, it is _____ to be repeated. If an action is positively reinforced, it is _____ to be repeated.

A) less likely; more likely
B) more likely; less likely
C) less likely; less likely
D) more likely; more likely

Question 17

Pavlov taught a dog to salivate at the sound of a musical tone by repeatedly pairing food with that tone. In this example, the food is the _____ and the dog salivating to the food is the _____.

A) unconditioned stimulus; conditioned response
B) unconditioned stimulus; unconditioned response
C) conditioned response; unconditioned response
D) conditioned stimulus; conditioned response

Question 18

Sarah gets a weekly allowance, but only if all of her chores are completed by 5 P.M. on Friday night. Although Sarah does some work around the house during the week, she completes most of her chores in a burst of activity after she comes home from school on Friday afternoon. Sarah's behavior is being maintained on a _____ schedule of reinforcement.

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

Question 19

Which psychologists strongly insisted that psychology should only study observable behaviors, not mental processes or consciousness?

A) Martin Seligman and John Garcia
B) Robert Rescorla and Edward L. Thorndike
C) Edward C. Tolman and Albert Bandura
D) John B. Watson and B. F. Skinner

Question 20

While his exhausted mother was taking a nap, four-year-old Dennis decided to help her out by doing the laundry. He dragged a stool over to the washing machine, stuffed clothes into it, turned it on, and dumped a box of detergent on top of the clothes. Which psychologist and which learning theory could best explain Dennis's behavior?

A) Ivan Pavlov; classical conditioning
B) Edward Thorndike; the law of effect
C) Albert Bandura; observational learning
D) John Garcia; biological preparedness

Question 21

A rat has been trained in an operant conditioning chamber to press a lever to get a food pellet. Following the acquisition trials, the researcher then withheld reinforcement for lever pressing and eventually the rat stopped responding. This example illustrates:

A) the effect of negative reinforcement.
B) the effect of punishment by application.
C) learned helplessness.
D) extinction.

Question 22

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.

Question 23

Psychologists formally define learning as a process that produces a relatively enduring change in behavior as a result of experience.

Question 24

A group of rats was run through a maze for 12 days. On days 1 through 10, there was no food reward at the end of the maze, and the rats made many errors as they slowly moved through the maze. On day 11, researchers placed a food reward at the end of the maze. With the food reward in place, the rats ran the maze very quickly and with few errors. According to psychologist _____, this experiment demonstrated a phenomenon called _____.

A) B. F. Skinner; stimulus discrimination
B) Edward L. Thorndike; the law of effect
C) Albert Bandura; observational learning
D) Edward C. Tolman; latent learning

Question 25

The unconditioned response and the conditioned response are the same behavioral response, but they are elicited by different stimuli.

Question 26

If a classically conditioned dog salivates not just to the original tone, but also to a higher-pitched and a lower-pitched tone, the process of stimulus discrimination has occurred.

Question 27

According to psychologist _____ and the _____ perspective, classical conditioning involves learning the relationship between events rather than simply associating two events.

A) Edward C. Tolman; cognitive
B) Martin Seligman; cognitive
C) Robert Rescorla; cognitive
D) John Garcia; evolutionary

Question 28

Pavlov was the first psychologist to receive the Nobel Prize for his groundbreaking research on classical conditioning.

Question 29

A television commercial for a new camera features a handsome man taking photographs of beautiful women in bikinis on a California beach. This commercial uses _____ conditioning techniques, following an approach to advertising that was pioneered by _____.

A) operant; B. F. Skinner
B) classical; John B. Watson
C) operant; Edward L. Thorndike
D) classical; Ivan Pavlov

Question 30

When a dog has been classically conditioned to salivate at the sound of a bell, the sound of the bell has gone from being a neutral stimulus to being a conditioned stimulus.

Question 31

The manager of a large shopping mall was upset about the groups of rowdy teenagers hanging out by the mall entrance and scaring off his adult customers. He discovered that if he played classical music over the loudspeakers by the door, the teenagers no longer gathered at the entrance. The mall manager's use of classical music to modify the teenagers' behavior is an example of:

A) the operant conditioning extinction procedure.
B) punishment by application.
C) punishment by removal.
D) negative reinforcement.

Question 32

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

A) classical conditioning; John B. Watson
B) cognitive; Edward Tolman
C) evolutionary; John Garcia.
D) operant conditioning; B. F. Skinner

Question 33

Russian physiologist Ivan Pavlov accidentally discovered the process of classical conditioning while studying the role of saliva in digestion.

Question 34

Pavlov found that to produce a strong classically conditioned response, the interval between the conditioned stimulus (CS) and the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) should be no more than a few seconds.

Question 35

Outside of his laboratory, Pavlov was very much like the stereotypical image of the absentminded professor-forgetful, impractical, and gullible.

Question 36

In a series of conditioning experiments, a psychologist discovered that a rat readily made an association between the taste of flavored water and illness, but did not make an association between the taste of flavored water and a painful shock. The phenomenon called _____ best explains this example.

A) latent learning
B) stimulus discrimination
C) biological preparedness
D) instinctive drift

Question 37

According to Albert Bandura, the four factors that are necessary for observational learning to occur are:

A) attention, memory, motor skills, and motivation.
B) attention, conditioning, cognition, and reinforcement.
C) reinforcement, operant, stimulus discrimination, and imitation.
D) stimulus, response, conditioning, and consequence.

Question 38

Which of the following suggestions would probably help you overcome the temptation to choose a short-term reinforcer over a long-term reinforcer?

A) Reward yourself with the short-term reinforcer before you perform the behaviors that will lead to reinforcement in the long term.
B) Focus your attention on the delayed, long-term reinforcer.
C) Strengthen your resolve by surrounding yourself with stimuli that remind you of the short-term reinforcer.
D) Avoid making an advance commitment to the long-term goal and adopt a flexible approach to maximizing available reinforcement.

Question 39

A pigeon in operant chamber #1 regularly receives a pellet of food after every 10 pecks at a red disk, no matter how long it takes. A rat in operant chamber #2 regularly receives a pellet of food for the first bar press it makes after 10 minutes have passed, no matter how many bar presses it makes. The pigeon is on a _____ schedule of reinforcement, and the rat is on a _____ schedule of reinforcement.

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

Question 40

The startle reflex will occur in response to a sudden or unexpected noise. Using Pavlov's terms, the sudden noise would be termed the conditioned stimulus, and the startle reflex would be termed the conditioned response.

Question 41

John B. Watson designed advertisements for Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder that intentionally tried to create anxiety in young mothers about their ability to care for their infants.

Question 42

Psychologist John B. Watson strongly advocated the study of mental processes in order to understand how learning occurs in humans and other animals.

Question 43

After leaving academia, John Watson worked for an advertising agency and used classical conditioning principles to develop advertisements for such products as Maxwell House coffee and Camel cigarettes.

Question 44

In the "Little Albert" study, the fear response to the presence of the white rat after the conditioning trials was the unconditioned response (UCR).

Question 45

Behaviorist John B. Watson discovered classical conditioning during the experimental research with "Little Albert."

Question 46

If you own a dog that tends to salivate and get excited when you shake a box of dog biscuits, you may have noticed that your dog also drools when you shake a bag of cat food. If so, this is an example of stimulus generalization.

Question 47

In his experiments with dogs, Pavlov found that after a classically conditioned response had been extinguished, the dog returned to its original unconditioned state and was unable to relearn the response.

Question 48

Although John Watson and Rosalie Rayner (1920) were able to classically condition an emotional reaction in an infant by using extreme measures, such conditioned emotional reactions rarely occur in daily life.

Question 49

In John Watson and Rosalie Rayner's "Little Albert" study, the unconditioned stimulus was a loud clang, and the conditioned stimulus was a tame white rat.

Question 50

John B. Watson was opposed to the application of classical conditioning principles in advertising because he believed that such manipulative marketing was unethical.

Question 51

John Watson and Rosalie Rayner made no effort to eliminate the fear they conditioned in the infant called Little Albert.

Question 52

Classical conditioning is essentially the process of learning an association between two stimuli.

Question 53

Your dog tends to salivate and get excited when you shake a box of dog biscuits. However, your dog does not drool when you shake a bag of cat food. This is an example of stimulus generalization.

Question 54

Little Albert developed a strong conditioned fear of the white rat but not of other animals or furry objects.

Question 55

Pavlov classically conditioned a dog to salivate at the sound of a tone. He then repeatedly paired the tone with another stimulus, a bell. Later, when he rang the bell the dog salivated, even though the bell had never been paired with food. This example illustrates higher order conditioning (second-order conditioning).

Question 56

John B. Watson was a pioneer in the use of classical conditioning techniques in advertising.

Question 57

John B. Watson and Rosalie Rayner's famous study of Little Albert is considered to be a model experiment because it was a carefully controlled study with very precise and objective measures of the variables, including Albert's fear response.

Question 58

The conditioned response (CR) in the "Little Albert" study was the fear response to the loud clang.

Question 59

John B. Watson rejected the definition of psychology as the scientific study of the mind in favor of a definition that emphasized the prediction and control of behavior.

Question 60

After a dog has gone through the process of extinction and no longer salivates to the sound of a bell, the conditioned response will spontaneously reappear if the dog is given a period of rest and the sound of the bell is again presented.

Question 61

Psychologist Martin Seligman proposed that humans are biologically predisposed to learn to fear certain objects or situations that may have once posed a threat to humans' evolutionary ancestors.

Question 62

John Garcia's research demonstrated that taste aversions could be conditioned, but only after a minimum of five pairings of the CS (taste) and UCS (illness).

Question 63

Research on taste aversions has demonstrated that classical conditioning can occur with a single pairing of the CS and the UCS.

Question 64

B. F. Skinner shared the view of John Watson that psychology should restrict itself to studying objectively observable behaviors, not mental processes.

Question 65

For a regular-coffee drinker, the sight, smell, and taste of coffee are the original neutral stimulus, which, after being paired with caffeine (the UCS), eventually become conditioned stimuli and produce the conditioned response (CR) of increased arousal and alertness.

Question 66

Phobias and other irrational fears are always the result of a prior conditioning experience with the specific feared object or situation.

Question 67

The In Focus box discussing biological preparedness notes that researchers Arne Öhman and Susan Mineka have accumulated experimental evidence supporting the evolutionary explanation for the most common phobias, especially fear of snakes.

Question 68

One practical application of taste aversion research is that predators in the wild, such as wolves and coyotes, can be conditioned to lose their taste for livestock.

Question 69

Edward L. Thorndike conducted the famous puzzle box studies with cats.

Question 70

Sexual arousal can be classically conditioned.

Question 71

Robert Rescorla views classical conditioning as a process that involves the active processing of information about stimuli.

Question 72

Contrary to what Pavlov believed, John Garcia's research on taste aversions showed that animals are able to form associations between some stimuli much more easily than between other stimuli.

Question 73

Based on his studies of cats that tried to escape a puzzle box, Edward L. Thorndike became convinced that animals use reasoning abilities and problem-solving thought processes that are very similar to those of humans.

Question 74

It was Robert Rescorla who famously stated, "The animal behaves like a scientist, detecting causal relations among events and using a range of information about those events to make the relevant inferences."

Question 75

The law of effect helps to explain how classically conditioned responses develop from pairing a biologically significant UCS with a neutral stimulus.

Question 76

John Garcia is the psychologist credited with demonstrating the importance of an evolutionary approach to classical conditioning through his research showing that particular associations are more readily conditioned than others.

Question 77

According to psychologist Robert Rescorla, classical conditioning involves cognitive processes in which the organism learns that the conditioned stimulus reliably predicts the unconditioned stimulus.

Question 78

Regular-coffee drinkers can develop a classically conditioned response of alertness to the smell and taste of coffee, even if the coffee is decaffeinated.

Question 79

Research on taste aversions clearly shows that in order for classical conditioning to occur, the interval between the CS and the UCS can be no more than a few seconds.

Question 80

In Rescorla's experiment described in the text, the rats that received 20 tone-shock pairings plus an additional 20 shocks with no tone showed the strongest fear response.