Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Psychologists formally define learning as: A) a process that produces a relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge as a result of past experience. B) a process that produces a relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge due to natural or instinctive processes. C) a relatively permanent change in behavior that ...
Study with Quizlet and memorize flashcards containing terms like Ivan Pavlov was a(n), A young child has learned to associate the sight of a nurse's white uniform with the fear and pain of getting an injection. If the young child begins reacting with fear to the sight of any white jacket, what has occurred? 1) stimulus generalization 2) second order conditioning 3) spontaneous recovery 4 ...
Benjamina started her walk from the front door of her ground floor apartment. She walked 6 meters to the corner of the building and then turned the corner and walked 10 meters to her friend’s apartment.
Resistance to extinction is substantially increased when a partial or intermittent schedule of reinforcement has been used to maintain behavior. On an intermittent reinforcement schedule, only some responses are reinforced. For example, instead of reinforcing each response (CRF), the experimenter may program reinforcement after 100 key pecks have been emitted. In this situation, the bird must emit 100 pecks before food is presented. This intermittent schedule will generate many more responses during extinction than continuous reinforcement. When people are described as persistent or tenacious, their behavior may reflect the effects of intermittent reinforcement.
Intermittent reinforcement is not the only factor that determines the return to operant level during extinction. Resistance to extinction is also affected by discriminative stimuli that are conditioned during sessions of reinforcement. Skinner (1950) showed that "maximal responding during extinction is obtained only when the conditions under which the response was reinforced are precisely reproduced" (p. 204).
When extinction has been in effect long enough, behavior may return to operant level . In practice, however, a return to operant level is rarely accomplished. This is because many extinction sessions are usually required before operant level is attained. Extinction is typically measured as the number of responses emitted in some amount of time. For example, a bird may be reinforced on CRF for 10 consecutive daily sessions; following this, extinction is initiated. The pigeon's responses are recorded over 3 extinction sessions. The number of responses emitted by the bird or the rate of response during the last session may be used to index resistance to extinction. Operants are rapidly extinguished after a few reinforced responses, but when operants are reinforced many times, resistance to extinction increases. Several experiments (Hearst, 1961; Perin, 1942) have shown that resistance to extinction reaches a maximum after 50 to 80 reinforced responses.
Nevin (1988a, 1988b) indicates that the partial reinforcement effect (PRE) is the result of two basic processes: reinforcement and discrimination. According to Nevin's analysis, reinforcement has the uniform effect of increasing resistance to change. That is, in a given situation, the higher the rate of reinforcement for an operant the greater the resistance to change. The implication is that behavior maintained by a CRF schedule is more resistant to change than behavior controlled by an intermittent schedule of reinforcement.
An additional reason for increased resistance to extinction following intermittent reinforcement involves contact with the contingencies. For example, a rat that has been reinforced for every 100 responses must emit 100 responses before contacting the change from reinforcement to extinction. In contrast, an animal that is reinforced for each response contacts the extinction contingency immediately. Since each response is a nonreinforced occurrence, the animal repeatedly encounters the change to extinction. If an animal on CRF emits 50 responses during extinction, it has contacted the extinction contingency 50 times. A rat on intermittent reinforcement may have to emit 5,000 responses to have equal experience with the change in contingencies.
Pigeons were trained to peck a yellow triangle on an intermittent schedule of food reinforcement. After training, a red triangle was substituted for the yellow one, and extinction was started. During 15 min of extinction in the presence of the red triangle, the rate of response substantially declined. At this point, the yellow triangle replaced the red, but extinction was continued. The effect of introducing the yellow triangle was that rapid responding began immediately, and the usual extinction curve followed. This effect is portrayed in Fig. 4.14, in which responding in the presence of the yellow triangle is at a high rate during the first 30 min of intermittent reinforcement. When the red triangle and extinction were introduced, the rate of response declined. Finally, extinction was continued, and the yellow triangle was reinstated. Notice that the rate of response immediately recovers and then declines toward extinction.
An interesting phenomenon that occurs during extinction is called spontaneous recovery. After a session of extinction, the rate of response may be close to operant level. At this point, the animal is taken out of the operant chamber and returned to a holding cage. The next day, the organism is again placed in the operant chamber, and extinction is continued. Surprisingly, the animal begins to respond above the operant level, and this defines spontaneous recovery. Over repeated sessions of extinction, the amount of recovery decreases. If many sessions of extinction are provided, the rate of response will no longer recover.
Terms in this set (49) Psychologists formally define learning as: a process that produces a relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge as a result of past experience. In psychology, the term conditioning refers to: learning associations between environmental events.
Animal trainers Keller and Marian Breland tried to train a raccoon to pick up two coins and deposit them in a metal box. However, instead of dropping the coins in the box, the raccoon would rub the coins together, much as raccoons do with their food in the wild.
Phobias of heights, storms, snakes, and spiders are much more common than phobias of cars, stairs, stoves, or sharp objects. According to psychologist Martin Seligman, the reason is that: we are more likely to develop phobias for objects or situations that posed a threat to our evolutionary survival.
accidental reinforcement. Martina is an animal trainer at Sea World. To teach a new dolphin to jump through a hoop high above the water, Martina first reinforces the dolphin for approaching the hoop while it is under the water. Then, she reinforces the dolphin for swimming through the hoop under water.
In a 15-year longitudinal study, psychologists recorded children's television viewing habits and then tracked them down as adults 15 years later. What difference did they find between the men who had watched the most violent television as children as compared to men who had watched lesser amounts of violent television?
To explain this, Seligman proposed that: humans are biologically prepared to develop fears of objects or situations that may once have posed a threat to humans' evolutionary ancestors.
Terms in this set (49) Psychologists formally define learning as: a process that produces a relatively permanent change in behavior or knowledge as a result of past experience. In psychology, the term conditioning refers to: learning associations between environmental events.
Animal trainers Keller and Marian Breland tried to train a raccoon to pick up two coins and deposit them in a metal box. However, instead of dropping the coins in the box, the raccoon would rub the coins together, much as raccoons do with their food in the wild.
Phobias of heights, storms, snakes, and spiders are much more common than phobias of cars, stairs, stoves, or sharp objects. According to psychologist Martin Seligman, the reason is that: we are more likely to develop phobias for objects or situations that posed a threat to our evolutionary survival.
accidental reinforcement. Martina is an animal trainer at Sea World. To teach a new dolphin to jump through a hoop high above the water, Martina first reinforces the dolphin for approaching the hoop while it is under the water. Then, she reinforces the dolphin for swimming through the hoop under water.
In a 15-year longitudinal study, psychologists recorded children's television viewing habits and then tracked them down as adults 15 years later. What difference did they find between the men who had watched the most violent television as children as compared to men who had watched lesser amounts of violent television?
To explain this, Seligman proposed that: humans are biologically prepared to develop fears of objects or situations that may once have posed a threat to humans' evolutionary ancestors.