Psychology Classical Conditioning Quiz

Learning and Conditioning

• Learning is a process where experience changes behavior or knowledge. This includes acquiring information, like math, and altering behavior in response to rewards or punishments.

Classical Conditioning (CC)

• Classical conditioning is associating two stimuli, where one stimulus elicits a response originally caused by another.
• Discovered by Ivan Pavlov in the late 1800s.
• Example (Pavlov's Dogs):
  • Before Conditioning: Meat powder (US) → Salivation (UR); Metronome (NS) → No salivation.
  • During Conditioning: Pairing metronome (NS) with meat powder (US).
  • After Conditioning: Metronome (CS) → Salivation (CR).

Core Concepts

• Unconditioned Stimulus (US): Naturally triggers a response (e.g., food).
• Unconditioned Response (UR): Natural response to the US (e.g., salivation).
• Neutral Stimulus (NS): Initially has no significant response (e.g., metronome).
• Conditioned Stimulus (CS): NS becomes CS after association with US (e.g., metronome).
• Conditioned Response (CR): Learned response to the CS (e.g., salivation).

Distinguishing UR and CR

• UR: Reflexive and natural.
• CR: Learned and associated with the CS.

Evolutionary Functions of Conditioning

• Food-Related Conditioning: CR prepares for digestion.
• Fear Conditioning: CRs (e.g., freezing) improve survival.

Processes of Classical Conditioning

• Acquisition: Initial phase of pairing NS and US to produce CR.
• Extinction: Weakening of CR when CS is presented without US.
• Spontaneous Recovery: Reappearance of CR after extinction & rest.
• Generalization: CR to stimuli similar to CS.
• Discrimination: CR only to the specific CS, not similar stimuli.

Stimulus Generalization

• Responding to similar stimuli rather than the exact CS.
• Flexible behavior.
• Based on overlapping neural activation (Hebb's rule).

Stimulus Discrimination

• Responding only to the specific CS, not similar stimuli.
• Maintaining specificity in behavior.

Applications of Conditioning

• Emotional Learning: Fears from conditioned associations.
• Advertising: Using similar branding for positive responses.
• Conditioned Taste Aversions: Avoiding food after illness.

Hebb Rule & Biological Basis

• Hebb Rule: Neural connections strengthen with repeated pairing.
• Biological Basis: Classical conditioning is observed across species.

Operant Conditioning

• Definition: Behavior influenced by its consequences.

• Key Difference: Voluntary actions vs. reflexive responses.

• Contingency: Consequences depend on actions.

• Reinforcement: Increases behavior.

• Punishment: Decreases behavior.

• Positive Reinforcement: Adding stimulus.

• Negative Reinforcement: Removing stimulus.

• Positive Punishment: Adding stimulus.

• Negative Punishment: Removing stimulus.

• Types of Negative Reinforcement:

• Avoidance Learning: Preventing stimulus.

• Escape Learning: Removing stimulus.

Operant Conditioning Tools

• Thorndike's Law of Effect: Rewarded behaviors are repeated.
• Skinner Box: Apparatus to study operant responses.

Shaping

• Reinforcing successive approximations of a desired behavior.
• Step-by-step reinforcement for achieving complex behaviors.

Primary and Secondary Reinforcers

• Primary: Satisfy basic needs (food, water).
• Secondary: Gain value by association (money, grades).

Dopamine and Operant Conditioning

• Dopamine: Released during reinforcement, strengthens the behavior.
• Links actions with rewards, motivating future behaviors.

Discriminative Stimuli

• Cues that signal when reinforcement is available.
• Discrimination: Learning response to only specific stimulus.
• Generalization: Responding to similar stimuli.

Delayed Reinforcement and Extinction

• Delayed Reinforcement: Slower learning from delays in rewards.
• Extinction: Behavior decreases when reinforcement stops.

Reward Devaluation

• Value of reward decreases over time, changing behavior.

Reinforcement Schedules

• Rules for when behavior gets enforced.
  • Continuous Reinforcement: Every response reinforced.
  • Partial Reinforcement: Not all responses reinforced.
• Fixed-Ratio (FR): Reinforcement after a set number of responses.
• Variable-Ratio (VR): Reinforcement after varying number of responses.
• Fixed-Interval (FI): Reinforcement after a set time.
• Variable-Interval (VI): Reinforcement after varying time intervals.
• Ratio schedules have higher response rates; interval schedules are slower.
• Partial reinforcement makes behaviors more resistant to extinction.

Cognitive Perspectives on Learning

• Latent Learning: Learning without immediate reinforcement.
• S-O-R Theory: Cognitive processes during learning.
• Observational Learning: Learning by observing others.
• Components: Attention, memory, reproduction, motivation.
• Imitation and Mirror Neurons: Mimicking behavior through neural activation.

Media Exposure and Aggressive Behavior

• Passive vs. Interactive Media.
• Imitation of behaviors, often violent.
• Violent or aggressive content can normalize aggression.
• Research challenges and desensitization.

Memory

• Memory Systems: Sensory, short-term, and long-term.
• Sensory Memory: Briefly holds sensory information.
  • Iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory).
• Short-Term Memory (STM): Holds limited info for 30 seconds.
  • Chunking increases capacity.
• Long-Term Memory (LTM): Stores info indefinitely.
  • Capacity is unlimited.

Factors Influencing Retrieval

• Quality of Encoding: Better encoding = easier recall.
• Retrieval Strategies: Improve recall.
• Serial Position Effect: Primacy (first) & recency (last) effects.

Forgetting

• Proactive Interference: Old info interferes with new.
• Retroactive Interference: New info interferes with old.

Neural Basis of Memory

• Hippocampus: Transfers STM to LTM.
• Frontal and temporal lobes are critical for STM.
• Long-Term Potentiation (LTP): Strengthens neural connections.
• Consolidation & Reconsolidation.
• Types of Amnesia.

Memory Organization

• Schemas: Mental Structures Organizing Knowledge.
• Self-Schemas: Organized self-relevant information.
• Schema-Driven Memory Processing: Encoding, storage, retrieval.
• Constructive Memory: Filling in memory gaps with schemas.
• Cultural Influences on Schemas.

Memory Reconstruction

• Memories are not perfect recordings but reconstructions.
• Influenced by biases, mental state, and self-view; Children as Eyewitnesses; Misinformation Effects; Questioning Techniques

Mnemonics

• Method of Loci: Associating information with locations.
• Acronyms: Creating words from first letters.
• Dual Coding: Combining visual and verbal cues.

Memory Improvement Techniques

• Rehearsal, Elaborative Rehearsal, Levels-of-Processing, Self-Reference effect, Retrieval, Encoding Specificity principle, Context-dependent Memory, State-Dependent Memory, Mood-Dependent Memory, Emotional Memories, Flashbulb Memories(vivid and detailed memories of significant emotional events).