Download Study guide for Chapters 1-4

Study Guide for Chap. 1-4 and class notes
PSYCH 300 Learning & Adaptive Behavior
As you study this material, do not confuse an example of the phenomenon with an explanation of
the phenomenon.
Chapter 1:
1. Explain Descartes' proposal of the differences in the mechanisms producing behavior
between humans and animals.
2. Was Tolman a dualist? Justify your opinion.
3. Identify and briefly explain Aristotle’s principles of association.
4. Compare and contrast the functionalist approach with the structuralist approach.
5. Was Hull a hedonist? Justify your opinion.
6. Compare the techniques used by Pavlov and Watson for studying associations. Were they
studying the same type of associations (look beyond superficial differences)? Justify your
opinion.
7. How was Skinner’s version of behaviorism different from those that preceded him?
8. Skinner argued that there was a strong resemblance between the principle of operant
conditioning and the principle of natural selection. Explain this resemblance.
9. Describe Skinner’s radical behaviorism. How does his approach to determinism differ
from that of Bandura’s?
10. Evolutionary changes are similar to learning in that they are also related to environmental
influences. What defines the differences between the two concepts?
11. Explain Shepard's law in your own words. What does it predict?
12. What question does Shepard’s law attempt to answer? What is the answer?
13. Explain the justification for the statement, “All organisms have what it takes to become
ancestors – and that means to survive and reproduce.”
14. Explain the justification for the statement, “We think, feel, and act in ways that once
enhanced the reproductive success of our ancestors.”
15. Explain how the predictability of environmental conditions determines which of the three
classes of adaptive behavior will normally be observed.
16. Explain Tinbergen’s four “Whys”. What is the purpose?
Chapter 2:
1. What is meant by the term “functional relationship?” How are they measured?
2. Explain the difference between overt and covert behaviors. How are each measured?
3. What is meant by the term “establishing operation?” How are they created?
4. Explain the difference between contingency and contiguity.
5. What does a cumulative recorder measure? What are the x- and y-axes in a cumulative
record?
6. Explain the difference between the interval recording technique and time-sample
recording.
7. Explain how the multiple-baseline design is used in single-subject designs, such as your
experiment with rats.
8. Our experiment with rats incorporate both single-subject design and between groups
design. Explain how.
9. Explain the differences between multiple-baseline-across-persons design, multiplebaseline-across-settings design, multiple-baseline-across-behaviors design.
10. Explain an appropriate way to use the changing-criterion design to help your friend stop
producing some inappropriate behavior (you select the behavior).
Chapter 3:
1. Explain the difference(s) between a simple reflex and a model action pattern (MAP)
without relying on examples. (Hint: include considerations of the eliciting stimuli, not
just the responses). (You may mention examples, but make sure that your answer does
not rely on them).
2. Provide a detailed example of a supernormal stimulus.
3. Explain the difference(s) between kineses and taxes. Then provide brief examples of both.
4. Identify the general principles or characteristics of habituation.
5. How is sensitization different than habituation?
6. Explain how habituation is consistent or inconsistent with Shepard's law.
7. Clothing stores spend huge amounts of money to fight off the effects of habituation.
Explain how.
8. Explain how Soloman and Corbit’s (1974) Opponent-Process Theory of Motivation relies
on the concept of homeostasis, negative feedback, and compensatory reactions.
9. Explain how Soloman and Corbit’s (1974) Opponent-Process Theory of Motivation can
“explain” the time course of habituation of emotional responses.
10. Show how the a-process and the b-process in the opponent-process theory of emotion can
explain the time course of drug tolerance.
11. Explain how Shepard's law predicts that important cause-and-effect relationships in the
environment should be learned. Which relationships?
12. Explain the difference between habituation and conditioned suppression.
13. Explain the difference between conditioned suppression and conditioned inhibition.
14. Describe Pavlov’s typical preparation for the study of classical conditioning (how he
usually studied it).
15. Explain the difference between associative learning and non-associative learning. Then
give two categories of each.
16. Explain the difference between spontaneous recovery from habituation and spontaneous
recovery in classical conditioning.
17. How does classical conditioning contribute to the positive hedonic value of your friends?
18. Explain how the suppression ratio is measured.
19. Explain what experimental procedure is required to be able to measure conditioned
suppression. (Note: I am not asking for the formula for the suppression ratio).
20. Give a clear example of conditioned suppression in your own life.
21. Explain in your own words what a graph of the mean suppression ratio over trials tells us.
22. Give a detailed example of taste-aversion learning in rats.
23. Identify the fundamental difference between excitatory conditioning procedures and
inhibitory conditioning procedures.
24. Compare the trace conditioning and long-delayed conditioning procedures by drawing
depictions of both procedures.
25. Design an experiment for measuring conditioned inhibition based on the summation test.
26. Explain the difference(s) between extinction of classically conditioned behavior and
habituation.
27. Why is extinction considered to be different than forgetting?
Chapter 4:
1. In classical conditioning, what is the difference between spontaneous recovery and
disinhibition during an extinction procedure?
2. Give a clear example of stimulus generalization in inhibitory classical conditioning.
3. Give a clear example of stimulus discrimination in excitatory classical conditioning.
4. Explain the concept of higher-order conditioning in classical conditioning.
5. Give an example of human sensory preconditioning in your own personal life.
6. Give an example of latent inhibition in your own personal life.
7. Give an example of blocking in your own personal life.
8. Give an example of overshadowing in your own personal life.
9. Suppose that an 8-sec key light comes on immediately before food is delivered to hungry
pigeons, independent of their behavior. Explain how behavior changes with continued
exposure to this procedure. What is this change in behavior called?
10. Explain the US revaluation procedure. What other names might this procedure be called?
11. Kamin (1968) discovered a phenomenon that put to rest the idea that temporal contiguity
is sufficient for conditioning. Identify the phenomenon and explain how this conclusion
necessarily follows.
12. What is overshadowing? How does it differ from blocking?
13. Explain why overshadowing, clocking, and latent inhibition are considered three
limitations to classical conditioning.
14. What is the difference between latent inhibition and the CS preexposure effect? Justify
your opinion.
15. What is occasion setting? Is it a binary relation or a hierarchical relation? Explain.
16. Give a clear example of occasion setting in your own personal life.
17. What is pseudoconditioning? Does it involve associative or non-associative learning?
18. How can you tell the difference between pseudoconditioning and true conditioning?
19. Compare and contrast the summation test and the retardation test. How do they measure
conditioned inhibition?