Learning is defined as a “relatively permanent change in behavior due to

Associative learning involves learning that certain events occur together. Two forms of associative learning are classical conditioning, in which the organism associates _____, and operant conditioning, in which the organism associates _____.

Working with dogs, Pavlov paired a tone or other neutral stimulus with food in the mouth. The dogs then came to salivate when presented with the neutral stimulus alone. Salvation in response to food in the mouth occurs naturally in dogs, without conditioning; food is therefore the unconditioned stimulus (UCS). Salvation in response to a tone must be learned; the tone is therefore a

Dogs can learn to respond to one kind of stimulus and not to another–for example, to salivate at the sight of a circle (the CS) but not a square. Distinguishing between a CS and an irrelevant stimulus is

Early behaviorists believe that for conditioning to occur the unconditioned stimulus (UCS) must immediately follow the conditioned stimulus (CS). _____ demonstrated this was not always so.

Research by Garcia and Koelling showed that rats developed aversions to certain tastes but not to sights or sounds, thus supporting

Watson and Rayer classically conditioned a small child named Albert to fear a white rate. After Watson paired the rat with a frightening noise, Little Albert cried when the rate was presented (even without the noise). The child later showed fear in response to a rabbit, a dog, and a seal skin coat. Little Albert’s fear of objects resembling the rat illustrates

Salivating in response to a tone paired with food is a (an) _____; pressing a bar to obtain food is a (an) _____.

Thorndike’s law of effect states that “rewarded behavior is likely to recur.” This law became the basis of operant conditioning and the “behavioral technology” developed by

B. F. Skinner taught rats to press a bar to obtain a food pellet. To guide the rat’s natural behavior toward the desired behavior, he used

A reinforcer is anything presented after a response that increases the frequency of that response. Imagine that your dog barks at every noise it hears. The barking disturbs you, so you put the dog outside when it starts to bark. The stopping of the barking is for you the termination of an aversive stimulus, or a 

Continuous reinforcement–reinforcement of the desired response every time it occurs–makes for rapid learning and, when reinforcement stops, for rapid extinction. A partial reinforcement schedule that reinforces a response at unpredictable times is a

A medieval proverb notes that “a burnt child dreads the fire.” In behavioral terms, the burning is an example of a

Most researchers today believe that cognitive processes can play an important role in learning. Evidence for the effect of cognition (thoughts, perceptions, and expectations) comes from studies in which rates

Rats were carried passively through a maze and given no reward. In later trials involving food rewards, they immediately did as well as rats that had been reinforced for running the maze. The rats had learned without reinforcement demonstrate

Children learn many social behaviors by imitating parents and other models. This type of learning is called

Parents are powerful models of behavior. They are most effective in getting their children to imitate them if

Bandura believes that modeling is not automatic. Whether a child will imitate a model depends in part on the

There is a considerable controversy about the effects of heavy exposure to television programs showing violence. However, most experts agree that repeated viewing of television violence

Human memory involves information processing. We take information in, retain it, and later get it back out. In psychological terms, these steps are

Short-term memory is an intermediate stage of memory where information is held before it is stored or forgotten. The newer concept of working memory

Rehearsal is the conscious repetition of information a person wants to remember, either in the short or long term. Rehearsal is part of

Psychologists have found that when people are shown a list of words and are immediately tested, they tend to recall the first and last items on the list more readily than those in the middle (called the serial position effect). When people are retested after a delay, they are most likely to recall

Many people use visual imagery to help them remember material that would otherwise be difficult to master. Memory aids that use visual imagery, peg-words, or other organizational devices are called

Chucking is a way of organizing information into familiar and manageable unit. A related technique involves organizing material into broad categories, which are then divided into subcategories. This technique, used in chapter outlines and organizational charts, is called

Sensory information is initially recorded in our sensory memory. This memory may be visual (_____ memory) or auditory (_____ memory).

Our capacity for storing long-term memories is essentially limitless. However, our short-term memory for new information is limited. When confronted with a list of a novel items, most people can immediately recall

Researchers have found that long-term potentiation (LTP) provides a neural basis for learning and memory. LTP refers to

A person who has amnesia following damage to the hippocampus typically has difficulties in learning new facts and recalling recent events. However, the person may well be able to recall the more distant past and certain well-learned skills, such as how to ride a bicycle or hem a dress. Memories of skills are

The physical basis of memory–how and where memories are physically stored in the brain–is not yet well understood. However, research suggests that the hippocampus, a neural center in the limbic system of the brian, plays an important role. The hippocampus may function as a

To measure long-term memory, psychologists test a person’s ability to recall information. They also test ability to recognize relearning time. A psychologist who asks you to write down as many objects as you can remember having seen a few minutes earlier is testing your

To gain access to a memory, a person activates an association that leads to that memory. The association may be activated by a specific odor, visual image, or mnemonic; all of these are examples of

In some cases, retrieval may be enhanced by being in a context similar to one you have already experienced. The resulting feeling that “you’ve been there before” is known as

When happy, we tend to recall happy times. When depressed, we more often recall depressing events. This tendency to recall experiences that are consistent with our current emotions called

In some cases, forgetting may be due to encoding failure. That is, meaningless information may not be transferred from

Forgetting may result from storage decay. Ebbinghaus found that about three days after a session of learning nonsense syllables, people have forgotten much of what they learned. Ebbinghaus’ “forgetting curve” shows that as time goes on, our retention of the nonsense syllables tends to

Experiments show that the hour before sleep is a good time to memorize information. For example, studying a vocabulary list before going to sleep minimizes the disrupting effects of all the other new words and terms that might, in the course of a school day, claim our attention. Going to sleep after learning new material minimizes

People unknowingly revise or rearrange their memories of events. According to Sigmund Freud, painful or unacceptable memories are self-censored, or blocked from consciousness, through a mechanism called

Because we often alter information as we encode it and because we tend to fill in memory gaps with our assumptions about events, our memories are generally not exact reproductions of events. One reason for this memory reconstruction is

Aspects of our memories are distributed to different parts of the brain. Thus, while we may recognize a face in the crowd, we may not be able to recall where we know the person from. This is called

We use the concept bird to think and talk about a variety of creatures, all of which have wings and feathers. A concept is

Sometimes we solve problems through trial and error, trying hundreds or even thousands of solutions before finding one that works. At other times we are most methodical or systematic. The most systematic procedure for solving a problem is

A major obstacle to problem solving is the confirmation bias, the tendency to search for information that confirms our preconceptions while ignoring information that might prove us wrong. Another obstacle to problem solving is fixation, which is

You move into a new neighborhood and notice that your next-door neighbor is very neatly dressed, wears glasses, and is reading a Greek play. Given a choice between her being a librarian and a store clerk, you incorrectly guess she is a librarian. Your incorrect judgment is probably due to

After the events of 9/11 by foreign-born terrorists, some observers initially assumed that the 2003 East Coast blackout was probably the work of foreign-born terrorists. This assumption illustrates

The way an issue is posed can affect our decisions and judgments. For example, consumers respond more positively to ground beef described as “75 percent lean” rather than “25 percent fat.” In this case people’s reactions were influenced by

Children progress from babbling to one-word communications and then to sentences of two words. The one-word stage of speech development is usually reached at about

B. F. Skinner believed that we learn language the same way we learn other behaviors–through association, imitation, and reinforcement. Skinner’s behaviorist view is most helpful in explaining

According to Noam Chomsky, we are biologically prepared to acquire language and are born with a readiness to learn the grammatical rules of the language we hear or see. He believes all we need to acquire language is

Benjamin Lee Whorf proposed that our language determines the way we perceive and think about the world. Although we now know that language influences, rather than determines, our thinking, Whorf’s hypothesis does help explain why

Insight is defined as a sudden and often novel realization of a problem’s solution. Of the examples discussed in this section, the problem-solving behavior that most closely resembled insight was

There is much controversy over whether apes can be taught to use language in the way that humans do. However, most researchers of ape sign language agree that apes can

Intelligence quotient, or IQ, was originally defined as the ratio of mental age to chronological age multiplied by 100. By this definition, a 6-year-old child with a measured mental age of 6 would have an IQ of 100. Likewise, a 6-year-old with a measured mental age of 9 would have an IQ of

Savant syndrome is retardation combined with incredible ability in one specific area. The existence of savant syndrome seems to support

Intelligence tests predict school grades reasonably well but are less successful at predicting achievement in other areas. Robert Sternberg has therefore identified three aspects of intelligence, which are

Emotional intelligence is the ability to perceive, understand, and regulate emotions. Emotionally intelligent people are characterized by

Creativity is the ability to produce novel and valuable ideas. Which of the following is not a characteristic of a creative person?

The Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale (WAIS) yields an overall intelligence score as well as separate verbal and performance (nonverbal) scores. The WAIS is best able to tell us

The Stanford-Binet, the Wechsler Adult Intelligence Scale, and the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children are known to have very high reliability (about +.9). This means that

A current view is that about 50 percent of intelligence score variation among individuals can be attributed to heredity. The strongest support for heredity’s influence is the finding that

The heritability of a trait may vary, depending on the range of populations and environments studied. To say that the heritability of intelligence is about 50 percent means that 50 percent of

Within the limits set by heredity, experiences help shape intelligence. The experience that has the clearest, most profound effect on intellectual development is