Learning - AP Psychology

The dog was conditioned to expect food after hearing the bell or sound, which caused him to salivate before eating. After many repetitions, even before the food arrived, the dog expected to be fed soon after hearing the bell; therefore, the salivation was conditioned to happen after hearing the sound.

Generalization refers to the tendency for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to induce the conditioned response. For example, a dog’s owner rings a bell when he feeds his dog. Over successive occurrences, a dog might begin to salivate to bells of a slightly different timbre.

The light is considered the conditioned stimulus because it results in the conditioned response only after it is paired with the unconditioned stimulus (i.e. the loud noise). Prior to learning, the conditioned stimulus does not elicit the learning response. On the other hand, the unconditioned stimulus always causes the response, even without learning. The unconditioned and conditioned responses are the subject's jumping behaviors.

Forward conditioning is an effective form of classical conditioning. Forward conditioning includes both trace and delay conditioning. In trace conditioning, the conditioned stimulus (CS) is presented first, is then stopped/removed, and then the unconditioned stimulus (US) is presented. While this can be effective, it is not the most effective of the choices. The most effective form of forward conditioning is delay conditioning, where the CS is presented and then overlaps with the US. In backward conditioning the US is presented before the CS, and does not result in any learning. Simultaneous conditioning occurs when both the US and CS are presented at the same time.

The correct answer is classical conditioning. In classical conditioning you can train an animal to have a response to an unrelated stimuli. Originally clapping was not associated with going for a walk. Because you associated them together the dog is now conditioned to think clapping means he is going for a walk. On the other hand the rest of the choices are incorrect. Operant conditioning is training a certain desired behavior by reinforcement. Negative reinforcement is an example of operant conditioning. This is when you take something good away to create a desired behavior. Such as taking away a child's cell phone until they clean their room. Positive reinforcement is another example of operant conditioning. This is when you give something good to create a desired behavior. An example of this is giving a child a cookie because they cleaned their room. Last, positive punishment is when you add something bad to decrease a behavior. An example of this is if you spank a child for misbehaving.

When Skinner developed the operant conditioning box, it famously became known as the Skinner box. When a stimulus was presented, the box was designed such that a reward (or punishment) could be delivered depending on the subject's reaction to the stimulus. For example, when a light was shown, a mouse could push a lever and receive food.

The Bobo doll experiment serves as a groundbreaking study on aggression and demonstrates that children are able to learn by behavioral observation.

In the Bobo doll experiment, children who observed an adult acting agressively towards a blow up "Bobo doll" toy would emulate and mimic that behavior. This supports the social learning theory developed by Bandura.

Gardner claimed that a person's intelligence could be measured along these eight parameters: linguistic, logic-mathematical, musical, spatial, bodily-kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, and naturalistic. These eight different abilities correspond to three overarching categories of intelligence: the ability to create things of cultural value, problem solving, and the ability to gather knowledge. He informally considers there to be two additional intelligences: existential and pedagogical.

Many criticize Gardner for his lack of evidence to support his theory, as well as potentially confusing the difference between "intelligence" and "ability." Yet he has inspired many to think about intelligence from a less rigid and more holistic point of view.

Learned helplessness occurs when a person believes that they have no power to change their life for the better. Thus, Johnny will also have an external locus of control, defined as believing that fate is controlled by external forces (e.g., luck, other people).

The Flynn Effect refers to an increasing IQ average (by about three to four points) every ten years years. The Flynn Effect is a result of today’s advanced healthcare and improved living conditions. Also, increased emphasis on the importance of education in today’s culture has impacted this rising number.

Bandura's Bobo doll experiment involved children viewing adults act aggressively toward the Bobo doll. When left alone with the Bobo doll, the children acted in the same manner toward the doll as they had observed the adults doing. This supported the idea of children observing, then imitating, a certain behavior, which are two key factors in observational learning.

Hindsight bias refers to a person's tendency to overestimate one's past abilities after gaining new information that the person did not have at the time of acting. Jen gets mad at herself after looking up how to solve the math problem because she now knows how to do it and it seems easy to her in that moment, despite the fact that she did not have this information while taking the test.

Seligman's work on learned helplessness began as a traditional classical conditioning study pairing the ringing of a bell with an electric shock. What surprised Seligman and his team was what occurred in the later part of the study, when the team changed the dogs' environment to give them a chance to escape the area administering the shock: because the dogs had been conditioned to understand that a shock would always follow the bell's ringing, they did not even try to exit the dangerous area. That is to say, they had learned helplessness.

Evolving the theory of behaviorism to include a social component, Albert Bandura introduced the concept of observational learning. He declared that humans are quite capable of learning by observing the sequence of behaviors and consequences in others. For example, if a young lad watches his older brother receive a reprimand from his mother for picking flowers from the flowerbed, he will learn that the same consequences would apply to him if he were to do the same.

Self-efficacy is a concept introduced by Albert Bandura as part of his theory on observational learning. While much of his theory focused on social learning, he also described aspects of learning that involved just the individual. Personal determination and self-knowledge are not Bandurian terms. Reciprocal determinism is a term introduced by Bandura but is associated with the interaction between the individual and the social environment.

Bandura’s experiment demonstrated that children who observe aggressive behavior that is praised or encouraged are more likely to mimic what they see. Scientist reached this conclusion by comparing these aggressive behaviors with the relatively unaggressive behaviors of children who witnessed aggressive actions that were not praised and negatively reinforced.

Context-dependent memory is a theory that suggests that information is optimally remembered when it is recalled in the same place in which it was initially learned. So, this theory suggests that you will do best on an exam when you take it in the same classroom where you learned that information!

The recency effect occurs because there is less time to forget the words at the end of a list, as opposed to words at the beginning or in the middle of a list.

The sensory store is the first step of perception. It gathers all of the sensory information that is coming in through the five senses. Attention towards particular stimuli brings them out of the sensory store and into working memory/short-term memory. The rest of the sensory infomation decays very rapidly.