Classical Conditioning
Which psychologist famously studied classical conditioning by experimenting with dogs?
Ivan Pavlov
Which psychologist developed the Skinner box and is most closely associated with operant conditioning?
B.F. Skinner
What is observational learning?
Learning by watching the behaviors of others and their consequences.
What is the main difference between working memory and long-term memory?
Working memory temporarily holds and manipulates information, while long-term memory stores information over extended periods.
What is a retrieval cue?
A clue or reminder that helps someone access information stored in memory.
What is classical conditioning?
Learning through association, when a previously neutral stimulus becomes associated with a stimulus that naturally produces a response.
What is the difference between reinforcement and punishment?
Reinforcement increases the likelihood of a behavior occurring again, while punishment decreases it.
Which psychologist conducted the famous Bobo Doll experiment?
Albert Bandura.
Which psychologist is famous for the "magical number seven, plus or minus two" in immediate memory research?
George A. Miller.
What is the difference between encoding and retrieval?
Encoding is the process of getting information into memory, while retrieval is the process of accessing information that has already been stored.
In Pavlov's experiment, food naturally caused dogs to salivate. Identify the unconditioned stimulus (US) and unconditioned response (UR).
US = Food; UR = Salivation in response to food.
A student receives $10 every time they earn an A on a test, making them study harder. What type of operant conditioning is this?
Positive reinforcement.
What did Bandura's Bobo Doll experiment demonstrate about children's behavior?
Children can learn and imitate aggressive behaviors by observing an adult model.
Which two psychologists developed the multi-store model of memory, explaining how information moves through sensory, short-term, and long-term memory?
Richard Atkinson and Richard Shiffrin.
What is the misinformation effect?
When misleading information introduced after an event changes a person's memory of it.
Every time a student hears a particular song, they feel anxious because it was repeatedly played during a stressful experience. Identify the conditioned stimulus (CS) and conditioned response (CR).
CS = The song; CR = Feeling anxious when hearing the song.
A teenager's parents take away their video games after they break curfew, and the behavior decreases. What type of operant conditioning is this?
Negative Punishment
A younger sibling begins helping with chores after watching an older sibling volunteer to help their parents. Is this prosocial or antisocial modeling? Explain.
Prosocial modeling because the child is imitating helpful behavior that benefits others.
A student can remember how to ride a bicycle after ten years but struggles to remember a phone number they heard ten seconds ago. Explain which two types of memory are being demonstrated.
Long-term procedural memory allows the student to remember how to ride a bicycle, while short-term memory temporarily holds the phone number.
A student learns a new password and then struggles to remember their old password. What type of interference is occurring?
Retroactive interference because newer information interferes with the retrieval of older information.
A dog initially ignores a bell. After the bell is repeatedly paired with food, the dog salivates when hearing the bell alone. Identify the neutral stimulus (NS), unconditioned stimulus (US), unconditioned response (UR), conditioned stimulus (CS), and conditioned response (CR).
NS = Bell before conditioning; US = Food; UR = Salivation to food; CS = Bell after conditioning; CR = Salivation to the bell.
A driver puts on their seat belt to stop an annoying beeping noise. Explain why this is negative reinforcement rather than punishment.
The unpleasant beeping is removed, increasing the likelihood of fastening the seat belt. Negative means removing something, while reinforcement means increasing a behavior.
A teenager watches an influencer receive attention for insulting people online and begins copying the behavior. Identify the learning process, type of modeling, and role of the observed consequences.
Observational learning; antisocial modeling; the attention received by the influencer may encourage imitation through vicarious reinforcement.
Psychologist Brenda Milner studied a patient known as H.M., who struggled to form new long-term memories but could still learn certain physical skills. What did this research reveal about how our brains store memories?
Different types of memory rely on different brain systems. The hippocampus is especially important for forming new long-term declarative memories, while procedural learning can rely on other brain systems.
A student cannot remember a classmate's name because they weren't paying attention during the introduction. Another student cannot remember a vocabulary word until the teacher gives them its first letter. Identify the memory problem in each situation.
The first student experienced encoding failure because they did not adequately process the information. The second student experienced retrieval difficulty because a retrieval cue helped them access the stored information.