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Questions and Answers
What does the Law of Effect state regarding the consequences of responses?
What does the Law of Effect state regarding the consequences of responses?
Which of the following correctly describes a primary reinforcer?
Which of the following correctly describes a primary reinforcer?
In B.F. Skinner's framework, which choice best describes punishment?
In B.F. Skinner's framework, which choice best describes punishment?
Which question is NOT relevant for identifying the type of operant conditioning?
Which question is NOT relevant for identifying the type of operant conditioning?
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Which option accurately describes a secondary punisher?
Which option accurately describes a secondary punisher?
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What type of reinforcement is Ray's dad providing when he praises him for studying hard?
What type of reinforcement is Ray's dad providing when he praises him for studying hard?
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What type of consequence is described when the use of heroin alleviates withdrawal symptoms for the addict?
What type of consequence is described when the use of heroin alleviates withdrawal symptoms for the addict?
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Why is taking aspirin for a headache classified as negative reinforcement?
Why is taking aspirin for a headache classified as negative reinforcement?
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What is the target behavior when parents take away dating privileges as a consequence of being late?
What is the target behavior when parents take away dating privileges as a consequence of being late?
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What is the result of negative punishment in the context of being late from a date?
What is the result of negative punishment in the context of being late from a date?
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Which statement best describes the concept of reinforcement in operant conditioning?
Which statement best describes the concept of reinforcement in operant conditioning?
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In the context of operant conditioning, what defines punishment?
In the context of operant conditioning, what defines punishment?
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What effect does positive punishment have on behavior?
What effect does positive punishment have on behavior?
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What is an example of positive reinforcement?
What is an example of positive reinforcement?
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Which statement best describes operant conditioning?
Which statement best describes operant conditioning?
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What occurs during the extinction process in operant conditioning?
What occurs during the extinction process in operant conditioning?
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What does the principle of shaping involve?
What does the principle of shaping involve?
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In classical conditioning, what does the conditioned stimulus become associated with?
In classical conditioning, what does the conditioned stimulus become associated with?
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Which type of schedule of reinforcement is illustrated by 'buy 9 get the 10th free'?
Which type of schedule of reinforcement is illustrated by 'buy 9 get the 10th free'?
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What is the main idea behind Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve?
What is the main idea behind Ebbinghaus’s Forgetting Curve?
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Which theory suggests that memory interference can occur from new information?
Which theory suggests that memory interference can occur from new information?
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What characterizes retrograde amnesia?
What characterizes retrograde amnesia?
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What is a likely reason for motivated forgetting?
What is a likely reason for motivated forgetting?
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Which wave pattern is primarily associated with REM sleep?
Which wave pattern is primarily associated with REM sleep?
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What common theme might be experienced in dreams?
What common theme might be experienced in dreams?
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What is a major consequence of sleep deprivation?
What is a major consequence of sleep deprivation?
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What factor can influence the ability to recall information, according to the serial position effect?
What factor can influence the ability to recall information, according to the serial position effect?
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Which type of memory is primarily affected by anterograde amnesia?
Which type of memory is primarily affected by anterograde amnesia?
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What is a major cause of eyewitness memory errors?
What is a major cause of eyewitness memory errors?
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What is the duration of echoic memory?
What is the duration of echoic memory?
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Which level of awareness requires focused attention?
Which level of awareness requires focused attention?
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Which memory type allows recall without conscious awareness?
Which memory type allows recall without conscious awareness?
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How can short term memory capacity be expanded?
How can short term memory capacity be expanded?
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What does the encoding specificity principle suggest?
What does the encoding specificity principle suggest?
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Which of the following is a method for improving long-term memory?
Which of the following is a method for improving long-term memory?
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What is the main observation from Ebbinghaus's research on forgetting?
What is the main observation from Ebbinghaus's research on forgetting?
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Which subtype of declarative memory includes personal experiences?
Which subtype of declarative memory includes personal experiences?
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What is the relationship between mood and memory retrieval according to state-dependent learning?
What is the relationship between mood and memory retrieval according to state-dependent learning?
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What best describes automatic processes?
What best describes automatic processes?
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Which process involves transferring information into our memory system?
Which process involves transferring information into our memory system?
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Study Notes
Operant Conditioning
- Learning through voluntary behavior and its subsequent consequences
- Reinforcement increases behavior
- Punishment decreases behavior
- Edward Thorndike's Law of Effect: responses resulting in satisfying effects are more likely to occur again, while those that produce discomforting effects become less likely
- B.F. Skinner focused on observable behaviors and responses (not internal feelings)
- Primary Reinforcers: unlearned/innate, such as food, water, sex, connection, endorphins
- Secondary Reinforcers: learned, such as money, video game quests, stickers/tokens
- Primary Punishers: unlearned/innate, such as pain, deprivation
- Secondary Punishers: learned, such as legal consequences, fines, low grades
- Positive: adding a stimulus
- Negative: taking away a stimulus
Operant Conditioning Examples
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Example 1: Ray studies hard for his spelling test and gets a B+. His dad says "great job," and Ray studies even harder for the next test.
- Target Behavior: studying
- Reinforcement or Punishment: reinforcement (increased studying)
- Positive or Negative: positive (added praise)
-
Example 2: A heroin addict experiences withdrawal symptoms (tremors and pain). They use heroin to relieve the pain.
- Target Behavior: heroin use
- Reinforcement or Punishment: reinforcement (heroin use removes the pain)
- Positive or Negative: negative (removed withdrawal symptoms)
-
Example 3: Shawn has a headache, takes aspirin, and the pain goes away. They now take aspirin every time they have a headache.
- Target Behavior: taking aspirin
- Reinforcement or Punishment: reinforcement (increased aspirin use)
- Positive or Negative: negative (removed headache pain)
-
Example 4: You are late getting home from your date and your parents take away your dating privileges.
- Target Behavior: being late
- Reinforcement or Punishment: punishment (decreased lateness)
- Positive or Negative: negative (removed dating privileges)
Operant Conditioning Principles
- Acquisition: Organism voluntarily links a response with a consequence (like a reward).
- Generalization: Organism voluntarily responds to a new stimulus as if it were the previously conditioned stimulus.
- Discrimination: Ability to distinguish between similar stimuli and respond accordingly.
- Extinction: Gradual diminishing of a response when it's no longer reinforced.
- Shaping: Rewarding successive approximations of a task.
-
Schedules of Reinforcement: Specific patterns of reinforcement that determine when a behavior will be reinforced:
-
Ratio Schedules (response-based):
- Fixed Ratio: (e.g., buy 9 get the 10th free)
- Variable Ratio: (e.g., gambling)
-
Interval Schedules (time-based):
- Fixed Interval: (e.g., paycheck)
- Variable Interval: (e.g., pop quizzes)
-
Ratio Schedules (response-based):
Classical vs. Operant Conditioning
- Classical Conditioning: Focuses on involuntary responses to stimuli. Something happens to us, we learn a response (e.g., Pavlov's dog salivating).
- Operant Conditioning: Focuses on voluntary behaviors and their consequences. We do something, learn from the outcome (e.g., studying for a test and getting a good grade).
Effective Use of Reinforcement and Punishment
- Provide clear directions and feedback.
- Use appropriate timing and order of presentation.
- Be consistent.
- Combine learning principles: reinforce appropriate behavior, extinguish inappropriate behavior, punish extreme inappropriate behavior.
Classical Conditioning
- Pavlov's Dog:
- Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS): Food
- Unconditioned Response (UCR): Salivating
- Neutral Stimulus (NS): Bell
- Conditioned Stimulus (CS): The bell paired with food
- Conditioned Response (CR): Salivating to the bell
States of Consciousness
- Melatonin is released for sleep, around 10 pm for adults and 1 am for teenagers.
- Sleep deprivation can cause:
- Reduced cognitive functioning
- Lessened motor functioning
- Irritability and mood alterations
- Increased cortisol levels
- Greater risk for illness and disease (reduced immune function)
- Higher rate of obesity
- Sleep Stages:
- 90-minute cyclical pattern
- 4 cycles of light to deep to light sleep
- REM vs. nonREM sleep:
- REM: rapid eye movement/dream sleep
- NREM: non-rapid eye movement - 3 stages
Sleep Stages
-
- Awake: beta waves
-
- Drowsy: alpha waves
-
- NREM Stage 1 Sleep: theta waves
-
- NREM Stage 2 Sleep: sleep spindles and mixed EEG activity
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- NREM Stage 3 Sleep: delta waves
-
- REM Sleep: low voltage, high frequency waves - muscle atonia
Sleep Theories
- Adaptation/Protection Theory: conserve energy and protect from predators
- Repair/Restoration Theory: Recuperate from daily activities
- Growth/Development Theory: More sleep during brain growth stages
- Learning/Memory Theory: More REM sleep during peak learning stages
Dream Theories
- Wish Fulfillment: Unacceptable desires, repressed during the day, emerge in dreams
- Manifest Content: Storyline of the dream
- Latent Content: What the dream represents
- Activation-Synthesis Theory: Dreams are the brain's way of making sense of random electrical stimulation during REM
- Cognitive Theory: Dreams organize and interpret information from waking experiences
Common Dream Themes
- Being attacked or pursued
- Falling
- Sexual experiences
- Being lost
- Being paralyzed
- Flying
- Being naked in public
- School, teachers, studying
- Arriving late
- Death of a loved one, dead people as being alive
Dreaming and Age
- Infants sleep around 14 hours, 40% in REM
- Adults sleep about 7.5 hours, 20% in REM
- Older adults (70+) sleep around 6 hours, 14% in REM
Dream Facts
- Everyone dreams (2 hours), 95% are forgotten
- Some dream only in black and white
- Animals dream
- Lucid dreaming: 50% report at least one instance
- REM atonia: paralysis of voluntary muscles - may carry over into sleep paralysis
Mental Health for Student Athletes
- Balancing academic and athletic demands
- Perfectionism and athlete identity influence mental health
- Outline of mental health concerns and intervention strategies
- Athletic participation can positively affect mental health (reduced risk of depression)
Dual Identity Stress
- Travel and training demands
- Academic challenges and the team player dilemma
- Criticism of NCAA for lack of academic support
Social Challenges and Relationships
- Complex relationships and power imbalances among student athletes
Opportunities for Intervention
- Transition from high school to college
- Injury recovery and rehabilitation
- Transition out of sports upon graduation
Frances's Case (An Example)
- Illustrating mental health challenges in a student athlete
- Transition to injury isolation from the team
- Development of depressive symptoms
- Successful intervention with counseling and support groups
LGBTQ+ Psychology
- Faces higher risks for mental health conditions than the heterosexual and cisgender population.
- Stigma and discrimination create stress, making it difficult to seek treatment.
- Individuals are more than twice as likely to experience mental health conditions.
- Transgender and non-binary individuals are 4x as likely to have suicidal thoughts.
- Individuals avoid medical care due to fear of discrimination.
- Lack of adequate mental health care and necessary training in the medical field (even from compassionate clinicians).
- Substance misuse is higher, used to cope with mental health stress (can lead to addiction, job loss, and higher risk of STDs).
Forgetting
- Ebbinghaus's Forgetting Curve: We forget information immediately after learning it, and forgetting continues over time.
- Forgetting: Inability to remember information previously available.
- Adaptive Aspects of Forgetting: Weeding out unimportant information, helping to prioritize important information.
- Forgetting Traumatic Events: Protection mechanism
Forgetting Theories
- Decay Theory: "Use it or lose it" - memories are stored in the form of physical connections between neurons (lost over time).
-
Interference Theory: Competing memories interfere:
- Retroactive Interference: New information makes you forget old information.
- Proactive Interference: Old information interferes with ability to remember new information.
- Motivated Forgetting Theory: Forgetting on purpose (consciously or unconsciously) - Freud. Particularly for unpleasant or anxiety-producing information.
- Encoding Failure Theory: The information was never encoded into memory (information may have gone through short-term but not long-term memory).
- Retrieval Failure Theory: The information is there, but not available. Tip-of-the-tongue phenomenon: information is encoded but cannot be retrieved temporarily.
- Misinformation Effect: Misleading information, presented after an event, alters memories of the event.
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Serial Position Effect:
- Primacy: Information at the beginning of a list is easier to recall.
- Recency: Information at the end of the list (most recent) is easier to recall.
Factors that Influence Forgetting
- Culture: Cultures with strong oral traditions (stories) have better memory for story information than those with limited oral traditions.
Biological Bases of Memory
- Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI): Major cause of neurological disorders in 15-25 year olds.
-
Amnesia: A disordered form of forgetting, difficulty retrieving widespread, general memories or forming new ones.
- Types:
- Retrograde: Difficulty retrieving PAST memories (consolidation failure). Alzheimer's disease is an example.
- Anterograde: Difficulty forming NEW memories.
- Types:
Alzheimer's Disease (AD)
- Progressive mental deterioration, most common in old age.
- Symptoms:
- Memory loss (including recent events)
- Confusion and disorientation
- Difficulty with language and communication
- Personality changes
- Changes in behavior
- Loss of skills (e.g., driving, cooking)
- Decline in judgment and decision-making
- Difficulty with physical coordination
- Hallucinations and delusions (in later stages)
Memory Disturbances
- Retrograde amnesia: Difficulty retrieving memories from before the event causing amnesia.
- Anterograde amnesia: Difficulty forming new memories
Eyewitness Errors
- Can occur due to witness collaboration after a crime.
- Leading questions can create false memories that can multiply over time.
States of Consciousness
- Consciousness: Awareness of oneself and the environment.
- Altered state of consciousness: Temporary state that can occur during sleep and dreaming, or due to psychoactive drug use or hypnosis.
Levels of Awareness
- Controlled processes: Require focused attention and can interfere with other activities.
- Automatic processes: Require minimal attention.
Memory: Encoding, Storage and Retrieval Model
- Encoding: Processing information into the initial memory system.
- Storage: Storing information in the brain, similar to storing files on a hard drive.
- Retrieval: Retrieving and viewing stored information, like bringing a file to the screen on a computer.
Three Stage Memory Model
-
Sensory memory: Holds information from the five senses for a short period.
- Iconic visual memory lasts up to ½ a second.
- Echoic auditory memory lasts up to 2-4 seconds.
-
Short-term memory/working memory: Processes and temporarily stores information.
- Can receive and send information to long-term memory.
- Limited capacity (7 unique pieces of information)
- Can be expanded through chunking.
- Short duration (30 seconds)
- Can be extended through maintenance rehearsal.
-
Long-term memory: Stores information for long periods of time.
- Virtually unlimited capacity.
- Relatively permanent duration.
- Divided into different memory types:
-
Explicit/declarative memory: Memories that can be consciously recalled.
- Semantic memory: Facts and general knowledge.
- Episodic memory: Autobiographical events and contexts.
-
Implicit/nondeclarative memory: Memories that do not require conscious recall.
- Procedural memory: How to perform certain tasks.
- Classically conditioned memory: Phobias and other conditioned responses.
- Priming: Facilitated retrieval due to earlier exposure.
-
Explicit/declarative memory: Memories that can be consciously recalled.
Improving Long-Term Memory
- Organization: Using hierarchies, categories, and subsets.
- Rehearsal: Elaborative rehearsal focuses on understanding the information rather than just memorizing it.
- Retrieval: Using retrieval cues.
- Encoding specificity: Using the memory in the same context in which it was learned.
- State-dependent retrieval: Your mood state (drunk-related learning) can influence retrieval.
- Mnemonic: Using familiar information to assist recall.
Forgetting
- Inability to remember previously available information.
- Ebbinghaus research: Forgetting occurs soon after learning, then gradually tapers off; relearning takes less time than initial learning.
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Description
Test your knowledge on operant conditioning concepts from Psychology Chapter 6. This quiz covers key principles such as the Law of Effect, types of reinforcers, and punishers as discussed by B.F. Skinner. Challenge yourself to see how well you understand these fundamental ideas!