Learning and Behavior: An AP Psychology Quiz

📚 Quick Study Guide: Learning and Behavior

• 🔍 Learning: A relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience.
• 🐕 Classical Conditioning (Ivan Pavlov): Learning to associate two stimuli and thus to anticipate events. Involves an unconditioned stimulus (UCS), unconditioned response (UCR), neutral stimulus (NS), conditioned stimulus (CS), and conditioned response (CR).
• 🔔 Key Terms in Classical Conditioning:
  • Acquisition: Initial stage of learning.
  • Extinction: Diminishing of a conditioned response.
  • Spontaneous Recovery: Reappearance of an extinguished CR after a pause.
  • Generalization: Tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the CS.
  • Discrimination: Ability to distinguish between a CS and other irrelevant stimuli.
• Skinner Box: A chamber used to study operant conditioning.
• 💡 Operant Conditioning (B.F. Skinner): Learning where behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. Focuses on voluntary behaviors.
• ➕ Reinforcement: Any event that strengthens the behavior it follows.
  • Positive Reinforcement: Adding a desirable stimulus (e.g., giving a treat).
  • Negative Reinforcement: Removing an aversive stimulus (e.g., taking aspirin for a headache).
• ➖ Punishment: Any event that decreases the behavior it follows.
  • Positive Punishment: Administering an aversive stimulus (e.g., a parking ticket).
  • Negative Punishment: Withdrawing a desirable stimulus (e.g., taking away car keys).
• ⏰ Schedules of Reinforcement:
  • Continuous: Reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs (fast acquisition, fast extinction).
  • Partial/Intermittent: Reinforcing a response only part of the time (slower acquisition, greater resistance to extinction).
    • Fixed-Ratio (FR): Reinforce after a set number of responses.
    • Variable-Ratio (VR): Reinforce after an unpredictable number of responses (high response rate).
    • Fixed-Interval (FI): Reinforce after a set time period.
    • Variable-Interval (VI): Reinforce after unpredictable time periods (slow, steady responding).
• 👀 Observational Learning (Albert Bandura): Learning by observing others and imitating their behavior, often without direct experience. Involves modeling and vicarious reinforcement/punishment.
• 🧠 Cognitive Learning: Acquiring mental information, whether by observing events, by watching others, or through language. Includes latent learning (learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it) and insight learning (a sudden realization of a problem's solution).

📝 Practice Quiz

1. In classical conditioning, what is the term for a stimulus that naturally and automatically triggers a response without any prior learning?

1. Conditioned Stimulus (CS)
2. Neutral Stimulus (NS)
3. Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS)
4. Conditioned Response (CR)

2. A child cleans their room to avoid nagging from their parents. This is an example of which type of operant conditioning?

1. Positive Reinforcement
2. Negative Reinforcement
3. Positive Punishment
4. Negative Punishment

3. A pigeon is reinforced for pecking a key only after it has pecked it 10 times. This scenario best illustrates which schedule of reinforcement?

1. Fixed-Interval
2. Variable-Interval
3. Fixed-Ratio
4. Variable-Ratio

4. Albert Bandura's Bobo doll experiment is a classic study demonstrating which type of learning?

1. Classical Conditioning
2. Operant Conditioning
3. Latent Learning
4. Observational Learning

5. After a conditioned response has been extinguished, its sudden reappearance after a period of rest is known as:

1. Generalization
2. Discrimination
3. Spontaneous Recovery
4. Acquisition

6. Which of the following is an example of positive punishment?

1. Taking away a child's video games for misbehaving.
2. Giving a student extra homework for talking in class.
3. Removing a painful shock when a rat presses a lever.
4. Praising a dog for sitting on command.

7. Learning that occurs but is not demonstrated until there is an incentive to do so is called:

1. Insight Learning
2. Cognitive Mapping
3. Latent Learning
4. Vicarious Learning