Types of Learning
Learning is the acquisition of new knowledge or skills, while this term refers to the retention of learned information.
What is memory?
This occurs when an individual learns to ignore a stimulus that is repeatedly presented without consequence.
What is habituation?
A stimulus that naturally elicits a response, like food causing salivation.
What is the unconditioned stimulus?
When a conditioned stimulus is repeatedly presented without the unconditioned stimulus, the conditioned response weakens because the predictive value of the CS declines. What is this process called?
What is extinction?
According to the ABC model, which type of learning focuses on how consequences that follow a behavior shape that behavior over time?
Operant conditioning.
This type of learning involves changes in response strength due to repeated exposure to a stimulus.
What is nonassociative learning?
This process increases responsiveness to a repeated stimulus, often due to stress or arousal.
What is sensitization?
A learned response to a conditioned stimulus.
What is the conditioned response?
After extinction has occurred, the sudden reappearance of a conditioned response following a rest period demonstrates that the original learning was not erased but inhibited. What is this phenomenon called?
What is spontaneous recovery?
Pressing a lever for food is an example of a behavior controlled by its consequences. This demonstrates the core principle of which learning process?
What is operant conditioning?
This type of learning involves forming associations between stimuli or between behavior and consequences.
What is associative learning?
A student who becomes less responsive to noisy dorm sounds over time demonstrates this.
What is habituation?
In a coffee shop, a person repeatedly hears the espresso machine while drinking coffee. Over time, the sound alone makes them feel more alert. In this scenario, identify the conditioned stimulus
The sound of the espresso machine.
This form of learning allows an organism to avoid foods that caused illness after a single pairing, due to a biologically prepared association between taste and nausea. What is this called?
What is conditioned taste aversion?
In Siegel’s research on morphine tolerance, rats that received the same dose of morphine in a new environment showed severe overdose reactions. What does this finding demonstrate?
What is situation-specific tolerance?
Habituation and sensitization are examples of this major category of learning.
What is nonassociative learning?
During midterms, a student is extremely stressed. They jump and startle every time someone drops a pencil in class, even though it’s normally a quiet sound.
What is sensitization?
Extreme levels of heat, cold, pain, food, drugs, & water are all examples of
In aversive conditioning for alcohol misuse, pairing alcohol consumption with nausea alters the evaluative response to alcohol by making its taste predict an aversive physiological reaction. What is the conditioned stimulus in this treatment?
What is the taste or smell of alcohol?
When drug-associated cues reliably predict morphine administration, the body prepares by producing opposite physiological reactions (reduction of dopamine secretion).
What learning process allows these cues to acquire this predictive value?
What is classical conditioning?
Operant conditioning and classical conditioning both fall under this broader type of learning.
What is associative learning?
In Kandel’s sea slug research, a puff of water to the siphon naturally causes the slug to retract its gill without any prior learning. What is this automatic reaction called?
What is the unconditioned response?
In a hypothetical classical conditioning experiment with Kandel’s sea slugs, a brief water jet to the siphon (originally a neutral stimulus) is repeatedly paired with a mild shock that naturally causes the gill-withdrawal reflex. After enough pairings, the water jet alone triggers the slug to withdraw its gill. What is the conditioned stimulus?
What is the water jet?
In drug conditioning research, tolerance can become context-specific when environmental cues reliably predict drug administration. When the same dose is given in a new environment, overdose risk increases because compensatory conditioned responses do not occur. What is this phenomenon called?
What is situation-specific tolerance?
Chronic drug use leads to downregulation of these receptors, meaning the brain becomes less responsive to natural rewards compared to drug cues.
*Hint* this is the brain's protective mechanism to avoid drug overdose.
What are dopamine receptors?