Psychology Chapter 6: Learning

Types of Learning

• Habituation is a type of simple sensory learning where the strength of a reflex response decreases after repeated presentations of the stimulus.
• Learning refers to any enduring change in the way an organism responds based on its experience.

Reflexes

• Behaviours that are elicited automatically by a stimulus in the environment are referred to as reflexes.
• Reflexes are behaviours that are elicited automatically by an environmental stimulus, such as the knee-jerk reflex elicited by a doctor's rubber hammer.

Laws of Association

• Aristotle proposed the law of contiguity, which proposes that two events will be associated if they are experienced close together in time.

Classical Conditioning

• Classical conditioning was originally proposed by Ivan Pavlov.
• In classical conditioning, an unconditioned stimulus or response is something that occurs naturally, without any prior learning.
• A conditioned stimulus or response is something that has been learned.
• Maximal conditioning occurs when the conditioned stimulus (CS) precedes the unconditioned stimulus (UCS).
• Temporal order of the CS and UCS is crucial to conditioning.

Conditioned Taste Aversions

• Conditioned taste aversions are easily acquired and can be acquired in some cases while unconscious.
• Conditioned taste aversions have been demonstrated in animals without a cortex.

Extinction in Classical Conditioning

• Extinction in classical conditioning results from the omission of the UCS.
• Extinction is usually temporary, and the conditioned response may reappear with time.

Latent Inhibition

• Latent inhibition refers to the fact that a familiar stimulus is less likely to produce a conditioned response.