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Learning Theory Final Exam

Terms in this set (187)

The basic procedure for studying mirror neurons in humans generally involves all these conditions EXCEPT:
"meaningless action."
The tendency to adopt the behavior of the group is known as:
social conformity.
According to the _____ hypothesis, memories for actions are stored in specialized cortical regions that map observed actions onto the motor representations of those actions
direct-matching
A theory of human behavior proposing that the kinds of reinforcement an individual has experienced in past social contexts will determine how that individual will act in a given situation is known as _____ theory.
social-learning
Children with autism:
have problems with perspective taking.
What is the MOST extensively studied form of vocal learning in any species?
song learning in birds
Mirror neurons are rarely identified in humans because:
recording the firing patterns of individual neurons requires brain surgery.
James observed his father raking up leaves in the front yard. He proceeded to get a rake and raked up leaves just like his father did. This is an example of:
true imitation.
If one wanted to encourage 8-year-old Alice to read, who would be the BEST person to serve as a model?
another 8-year-old girl
Studies of copying how to open a box in humans and chimpanzees have shown that _____ are more likely to emulate a model's behavior instead of truly imitate it than _____.
chimpanzees; human children
In Bandura's Bobo doll study, Bandura believed that the children were learning the aggressive acts:
while they were observing the model.
When Derrick first arrived in Thailand, he found it very difficult to adapt. Fifteen years later, his family has come to see him, and they are having a hard time recognizing him. He has not only learned the language, but also adapted his attire and personality to his new home. This is an example of
social conformity.
One-year-old Dahlia observed her mother eating peas by poking them with a fork and bringing them to her mouth. Dahlia picked up a fork, used her fingers to balance some peas on the fork, and brought them to her mouth. This is an example of:
emulation
Which statement is an example of a task that would be required in a two-action test?
Two dolphins are taught to swim to a trainer for a fish reward, one by swimming through a tunnel and the other by swimming in a wiggly path.
Which statement is TRUE regarding violent entertainment and aggressive behavior?
Children who play violent video games behave more aggressively than children who play nonviolent video games when tested immediately afterward.
Imagine that you are attending a very fancy dinner for the first time. You learn which utensil to use for each course of the meal by watching which utensils the other guests use. This demonstrates:
social transmission of information.
Direction of one organism's attention toward specific objects, events, or locations within an environment as a result of another organism's action is called:
stimulus enhancement.
A model of song learning that consists of three basic phases that are song memorization, song practice, and song utilization is known as:
the template model.
Which statement is TRUE regarding activation of the amygdala in normal healthy people?
Higher amygdala activation is correlated with better memory
Which statement is TRUE regarding the connections within the amygdala?
Fibers from the thalamus and cortex project to the basolateral nucleus, which in turn sends projections to the central nucleus.
High levels of stress hormones:
can cause neuronal death in the hippocampus.
Stress hormones at the time of learning _____ new memory formation; the presence of stress hormones at the time of recall _____ retrieval of older memories
often improve; often impair
Which statement is TRUE regarding flashbulb memories?
Rehearsing and discussing the event can introduce inaccuracies into the memory
The famous case of "Little Albert" fearing a white rat demonstrates that:
phobias can arise through classical conditioning
According to cognitive expectancy theories of avoidance, animals make a decision based on
a comparison of expected outcomes for responding and not responding.
According to the James-Lange theory of emotion, the:
bodily responses associated with an emotion leads to the conscious feeling of that emotion.
The psychological syndrome that can develop after a person is exposed to a horrific event is called:
post-traumatic stress disorder.
Which statement has been suggested as a mechanism by which the hippocampus affects fear learning in the amygdala?
The hippocampus receives signals from the basolateral nucleus and glucocorticoids from the adrenal gland
Which statement is TRUE regarding emotions in nonhuman animals?
The biological responses made in emotional situations are similar in humans and nonhuman animals.
Janice successfully solved several problems in her math class. She was then given some very difficult problems that she could not solve. The research on learned helplessness suggests that if Janice is then given some easier problems to try to solve, she will:
try to solve the problems.
Which statement is an example of an overt behavior caused by an emotion?
Derrick screams loudly when his brother startles him.
All of these factors make individuals more vulnerable to PTSD EXCEPT:
strong social support
Five-year-old Lisa has learned that loud thunder usually follows a bolt of lightning. As soon as she sees lightning, she covers her ears to avoid the loud thunder. According to the two-factor theory of avoidance learning, covering her ears is reinforced because:
it removes the fear that has become associated with the lightning.
As a child, Olivia had a nightmare about cows and she now feels fearful upon seeing cows as an adult. One explanation for her fear is that:
cows are a CS that produce the CR of fear.
Which statement is an example of mood congruency of memory?
If one is upset, one remembers unpleasant material better than pleasant material
Which statement is an example of a conditioned emotional response?
A rat freezes in response to a tone that was previously paired with a shock.
According to Seligman's research on learned helplessness, one way to help "immunize" people from becoming depressed would be to:
expose them early in life to adversities they can overcome.
Depressed people are more likely to recall unpleasant memories than pleasant memories. This is an example of:
mood congruency of memory.
The types of emotional reactions seen in people with frontal lobe damage suggest that the frontal lobes:
maintain a balance between too little and too much emotion
PTSD appears to be:
dependent on individual factors that influence vulnerability to PTSD.
Bradley was overjoyed when he learned that he was accepted into a top medical school. His heart rate and blood pressure increased, and he started to breathe more rapidly. According to the James-Lange theory of emotion:
Bradley's physiological changes led him to consciously experience "happiness."
The initial temporary storage for information perceived by the visual system is known as _____ memory.
visual sensory
Deficits in working memory in people with schizophrenia may be caused by a(n) _____ in the prefrontal cortex
lack of sufficient dopamine
Cats and many other mammals get through life with a frontal lobe that occupies less than _____ of their cerebral cortex.
4%
Which part of the brain is activated when a person tries to remember past events?
dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
Permanent or near-permanent storage of memory that lasts beyond a period of conscious attention is known as:
long-term memory
If Penelope wants to use her working memory MOST effectively, she should:
focus on one task at a time.
Where does information automatically and rapidly decay?
sensory memory
Which task is used to study task shifting in working memory?
Wisconsin Card Sorting Test
It has been suggested that in ADHD, the basal ganglia:
send inappropriate signals to the prefrontal cortex.
The metaphor of memory as a computer compares RAM with _____ memory and a hard drive with _____ memory.
working; long-term
In Atkinson and Shiffrin's model of memory, information flows from:
sensory memory, to short-term memory, to long-term memory.
It is often easier to remember words if one can also picture them in the mind. This is because one is using one's:
verbal and visuospatial memory stores.
Place models of memory are known as _____ models of memory.
multi-store
During working-memory tasks, patients with schizophrenia seem to:
recruit the ventrolateral PFC to compensate for a dysfunctional dorsolateral PFC.
Evan must study for two exams and write a term paper. He needs to decide how to distribute his work during the day, including how much time to spend studying each subject, when to work on the term paper, how much he needs to accomplish before taking a break, and so forth. The task Evan's central executive is MOST concerned with in this example is:
setting goals and planning.
Which statement suggests that the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex is dysfunctional in people with schizophrenia?
People with schizophrenia display disturbance in both cognition and memory.
Which psychiatric problem is one of the MOST commonly diagnosed in children?
Which psychiatric problem is one of the MOST commonly diagnosed in children?
Research suggests that phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad processes take place in the _____ prefrontal cortex, while central executive functions take place in the _____ prefrontal cortex.
ventrolateral; dorsolateral
An individual suffering from _____ would exhibit deficits in working memory due to insufficient levels of dopamine.
schizophrenia
One noted characteristic of frontal-lobe damage is:
loss of ability to plan and organize.
Which task is used to study stimulus selection and response inhibition in working memory?
Stroop task
According to the findings of George Miller, the capacity of short-term memory is about _____ items.
seven
Suppose Yulia's mother asks her to pick up six items at the grocery store on her way home, but she has no place to write the items down. She keeps repeating the items over and over in her mind until she can get a pencil and piece of paper to write them down. In this example, Yulia would be relying primarily on her _____ memory
short-term
Human society often employs _____, which decrease(s) the effectiveness of punishment as a learning tool
delayed punishment
The matching law of choice behavior states that given two responses that are reinforced on different VI schedules, an organism will
respond in order to approximately match the relative rate of reinforcement for each response
A mouse is placed in a maze and timed to see how long it takes him to reach the end. Once the first trial is completed, the experimenter places him back in the maze again to see if the speed in which he completes it changes. This is referred to as a
discrete trial
Which statement demonstrates the free-operant paradigm?
A rat in a Skinner box can press a bar at any time to receive food
Which is NOT an example of a behavioral addiction?
addiction to alcohol
Hedonic value refers to _____, while motivational value refers to _____
how much one likes a reinforcer; how much one wants a reinforcer
Negative punishment involves _____ an outcome to _____ a behavior
taking away; decrease
If a person wants to use shaping to train a new puppy to respond to a name, he would call the name and then:
reward when the puppy looks at him, then for turning toward him, and then for taking a few steps in his direction
A rat with a dorsal striatum lesion would have trouble learning to:
receive food when a red light comes on.
The main difference between reinforcement and punishment is that:
punishment decreases a behavior, while reinforcement increases a behavior
A post-reinforcement pause is seen when _____ schedules of reinforcement are used.
fixed-interval and fixed-ratio
____ is the progressive reduction of the subjective value of a reward the longer it is delayed
Delay discounting
Drug addicts continue taking drugs in part to avoid the unpleasant effects of withdrawal. In this case, the behavior of taking drugs is being
negatively reinforced
Lauren is trying to stop her son from banging his spoon on the table during meals by praising him whenever he uses his spoon to eat his food. This is an example of differential:
reinforcement of alternative behaviors
Which statement is TRUE about punishment?
Its effects can be counteracted if the punished behavior is simultaneously being reinforced
A _____ is a device that measures the total number of behavioral responses
cumulative recorder
If one blocks dopamine in a user of amphetamine, one would expect that it would:
suppress cravings for the drug
One suggestion regarding the roles of dopamine and opioids in the brain is that:
dopamine is involved in "wanting" a drug, whereas opioids are involved in "liking" a drug
Which statement is TRUE regarding the orbitofrontal cortex
Neurons code the expectation as well as the specific outcome.
The incentive salience hypothesis says that dopamine:
provides organisms with the motivation to work for reinforcement
In the brain, what are the naturally occurring substances that have effects similar to those of opiate drugs such as heroin and morphine?
endogenous opioids
What part of the brain is responsible for the motivational value of pain?
dACC
For punishment to be MOST effective:
the behavior cannot be concurrently reinforced.
In what way does operant conditioning differ from classical conditioning?
In classical conditioning, the consequence arrives regardless of the animal's behavior, while in operant conditioning, it only arrives once the animal has made a response
Children may misbehave in order to get the attention that is associated with being punished. In this example, the attention serves as _____ for misbehavior.
positive reinforcement
Suppose a child acquired a fear of the doctor's office because the office came to be associated with getting shots. To remove this fear, the child's parents decide to bring the child to the doctor's office several times each week without the child getting a shot. What technique are the parents using to eliminate the child's fear?
extinction
Because Taylor's grandmother Dolly often brings home-baked goodies when she visits, Taylor feels her mouth water at the sight of her grandmother. For a week her grandmother brought cookies with her whenever she visited Taylor. A few weeks later, Taylor went to visit her grandmother at her house. In this scenario, blocking would be demonstrated if Taylor:
does not feel her mouth water when she visits her grandmother's house
According to the Rescorla-Wagner model, an increase in the association between the CS and US occurs when:
an unexpected US follows a CS
Recordings of activity in the _____ during eyeblink conditioning in rabbits show activity that occurs _____ the response is made
interpositus nucleus; a few milliseconds before
Removing the interpositus nucleus results in:
complete loss of conditioned responses
The hippocampus:
is especially active during the early phases of classical conditioning
The mechanisms for classical conditioning in Aplysia involve _____ changes in the neural circuits that connect the _____
presynaptic and postsynaptic; CS and CR
Classical conditioning involves learning
that a stimulus predicts an important event
Which statement demonstrates classical conditioning?
A dog learns that the sound of the treat container being opened indicates a treat for him
Every day when Marie returns home from work, her daughter gives her a big hug as soon as she walks through the front door. Now, the sight of the front door makes Marie feel happy. In this example, the conditioned stimulus is:
the front door
The unconditioned response occurs:
without any training or conditioning.
Suppose a child grows up hearing his parents making negative comments about cats, and eventually the child comes to have negative feelings about cats. What is the conditioned stimulus?
the cats
Suppose a child only goes to the doctor when she has to get a shot, and the child eventually learns to cry as soon as her doctor walks into the room. What is the conditioned response?
crying when the doctor comes in
When the eyeblink reflex is conditioned using a tone, the conditioned response is
blinking in response to the tone
In Siegel et al.'s study of heroin tolerance in rats, which group experienced the LOWEST mortality rate when given a large dose of heroin?
the group that received a large dose in the same environment they had previously received smaller doses
When researchers gave animals an injection of an inert placebo to pre-expose them to the contextual cues associated with drug use, they found that the animals:
formed an association between the context and drug use more slowly than normal
Bouton's work suggests that cue-exposure therapy should:
be spread out over time
Patients with damage to the cerebellum
are slower in learning a CR
In Garcia and Koelling's taste-aversion studies, it was found that rats in:
the poison group were more likely to associate a taste with their illness than a tone with their illness
The results of Garcia and Koelling's taste-aversion studies demonstrate that animals can
learn some associations more readily than others
The _____ has/have different subregions for each kind of sensory stimulation
pontine nuclei
For humans performing a category-learning task, Gluck and Bower's neural network model can:
predict how often a particular categorization will be made
If a friend pats you on the back, the neurons that carry the information from the touch receptors on your back to your brain are part of the:
peripheral nervous system.
The illusion of feeling that a novel experience has happened before is called
déjà vu.
_____ is the ability of synapses to changes as a result of experience
Synaptic plasticity
Which statement is TRUE?
A) DTIs are a type of MRI that measure how the shapes of different brain regions change over time.
B) The main problem with phrenology is that bumps on the skull are caused by bulges in underlying brain tissue.
C) Structural neuroimaging cannot show details of brain tissue and brain lesions.
D) MRIs use strong magnetic fields to generate images of the brain's structures.
D) MRIs use strong magnetic fields to generate images of the brain's structures.
The part of cerebral cortex that is important for processing visual elements is the
occipital lobe
Remembering what information would be MOST likely to involve the amygdala
how one felt when graduating from high school
Molecules on the surface of the postsynaptic cell that bind with and respond to neurotransmitters are called
receptors
Britney is trying to teach her little brother to use his manners. She gives him a cookie whenever he remembers to say "please." Which neurotransmitter regulates the toddler's use of manners to obtain the cookie?
dopamine
The Bell-Magendie law:
proposes one nerve system for sensing and another for responding.
In functional neuroimaging, a difference image is used for determining:
how much neural activity has changed relative to a baseline
Most neurons can produce and release _____ neurotransmitter(s) and can receive _____ neurotransmitter(s)
only one; many different
While sitting at a baseball game, Ed feels something crawling up his leg. He is able to realize it before he gets stung. Which part of the cerebral cortex is responsible for this realization?
parietal lobe
What is synaptic plasticity?
the ability of synapses to change as a result of experience
Multiple sclerosis is a disease in which _____, which interferes with neural function, leading to jerky muscle movements and impaired coordination, as well as problems with vision and speech
the myelin coating of axons degenerates
Gina is having trouble hearing her friends when they speak to her. Which lobe of her brain might be damaged?
temporal
Incoming sensory information is passed from the thalamus to the:
primary sensory cortices
Which statement is FALSE regarding the ability of drugs to improve memory in healthy individuals?
A) Drugs can be used to improve attention, but it isn't clear whether this results in improvement in memory.
B) Various drugs have shown "brain-boosting" improvements in the memory of healthy adults.
C) Drugs can be used to treat sleep disorders, which may help increase attention, though these might not be good for memory.
D) Various drugs can increase levels of acetylcholine in patients with Alzheimer's disease, which may produce temporary memory improvements in these adults.
B) Various drugs have shown "brain-boosting" improvements in the memory of healthy adults
Highly superior autobiographical memory (HSAM) is the ability to recall:
specific details of almost any day of one's life
Axons are wrapped in _____, a fatty substance that insulates the electrical signals transmitted by neurons
myelin
_____ is a neurotransmitter that has many functions in the brain, including the promotion of neural plasticity
Acetylcholine
A doctor is concerned that Martha has dysfunction involving the axons or neural connections of her brain. Which neuroimaging technique would BEST be able to detect this problem?
diffusion tensor imaging (DTI)
Imprinting involves all EXCEPT
learning reflexes.
An event-related potential (ERP) is
a measure of the activity of a single neuron.
A person, who is able to reach for a cup of coffee but cannot accurately grasp the object, may have damage in
basal ganglia or cerebellum
A person, who is unable to voluntarily reach for a cup of coffee may have damage of:
frontal lobe, motor cortex, M1
Anatomical changes in neural circuits (such as growth or loss of synapses) seem to be responsible for _____ forms of memory; intracellular changes (such as an increase or decrease in neurotransmitter vesicles) seem to be responsible for _____ forms of memory.
long-term; short-term
According to Aristotle's principle of frequency, the ideas of "chair" and "table" are linked because people see chairs and tables together:
very often
learning
The process by which changes in behavior arise as a result of experience and interaction in the world
If I say "left," it might make one think of the word "right." The connection in one's memory between these concepts is known as:
associationism
James was in a bicycle accident in which he was not wearing a helmet. He was not injured, and now, based on this experience, he believes that helmets are unnecessary. James exhibits the views of
empiricism
Yvonne believes that babies learn words by being rewarded for sounds that sound like those words in response to something they hear. This idea resembles the ideas of
B. F. Skinner
believed in dualism
René Descartes
Which description is an example of a stimulus in René Descartes's reflex arc?
a person being tapped on the shoulder
associationism
The principle that memory depends on the formation of linkages ("associations") between pairs of events, sensations, and ideas, such that recalling or experiencing one member of the pair elicits a memory or anticipation of the other.
contiguity
Nearness in time (temporal contiguity) or space (spatial contiguity).
empiricism
A philosophical school of thought that holds that all the ideas we have are the result of experience
nativism
A philosophical school of thought that holds that the bulk of knowledge is inborn (or native)
classical conditioning
A type of learning in which the organism learns to respond to a previously neutral stimulus that has been repeatedly presented along with a biologically significant stimulus; also called Pavlovian conditioning
learning curve
A graph showing learning performance (the dependent variable, usually plotted along the vertical axis) as a function of training time (the independent variable, usually plotted along the horizontal axis)
independent variable
The factor that is manipulated in an experiment.
response
The behavioral consequence of perception of a stimulus
dependent variable
The outcome factor; the variable that may change in response to manipulations of the independent variable.
extinction
The process of reducing a learned response to a stimulus by ceasing to pair that stimulus with a reward or punishment.
generalization
The transfer of past learning to novel events and problems.
operant conditioning
The process whereby organisms learn to make responses in order to obtain or avoid important consequences; also called instrumental conditioning
law of effect
The observation, made by Thorndike, that the probability of a particular behavioral response increases or decreases depending on the consequences that have followed that response
Dualism (Descartes)
The principle that the mind and body exist as separate entities
reflex arc
An automatic pathway from a sensory stimulus to a motor response.
Behaviorism (Watson)
A school of thought that says psychology should restrict itself to the study of observable behaviors (such as lever presses, salivation, and other measurable actions) and not seek to infer unobservable mental processes
Radical Behaviorism (Skinner)
An extreme form of behaviorism championed by B. F. Skinner and holding that consciousness and free will are illusions and that even so-called higher cognitive functions (e.g., human language) are merely complex sets of stimulus-response associations
cognitive map
An internal psychological representation of the spatial layout of the external world.
Which gene appears to help modify synaptic plasticity and may be associated with the rate at which we forget new information?
WWC1
Mutations on which genes seem to be associated with early-onset Alzheimer's?
APP, PS1, and PS2
The time period in which learning occurs MOST easily and is MOST effective is known as:
a sensitive period.
Which statement is TRUE regarding skill learning?
People who exhibit highly practiced skills continue to improve their skills even into old age.
Research has shown that the use of gestures:
emerges before children have mastered spoken language
Eyeblink conditioning:
can be learned by infants when delay conditioning is used.
The research on the development of episodic and semantic memory discussed in the textbook which tested recall of the hiding of three different stuffed toys showed that:
4-year-olds provided more correct answers than 3-year-old children.
When Tryon (1940) bred "maze-bright" rats together, he found that:
with each generation, the rats' offspring made fewer errors.
In a paired-associate learning test, elderly adults:
perform well if items are presented at a slower pace during study.
At what age does eyeblink conditioning start to decline?
40
In studies of emotion and episodic memory, elderly adults typically remember:
more positive than negative images.
Which gene appears to govern how action potentials propagate down the axon, determining whether the message gets passed on to the next neuron?
SNC1A
The study of mechanisms by which gene expression can be modified, without modifying the genes themselves, is known as:
epigenetics.
Which statement is TRUE regarding neurogenesis?
The vast majority of newly born neurons in adults appear to die off within a few weeks after formation.
In old age:
the ability to maintain changes in synapse strength may be reduced.
Which person's skill will be the MOST resistant to decline in older adulthood?
Janice, who is a professional chef
Which statement does NOT provide a possible reason for the slow maturation of episodic memories in children?
Young children are incapable of elicited imitation.
Which statement is TRUE regarding synaptogenesis?
It continues throughout the lifespan.
People who _____ have a decreased risk of developing Alzheimer's disease.
are physically active
What has been suggested by research on fraternal and identical twins?
More than half of the variation in memory scores may be accounted for by differences in genetic makeup.
In Alzheimer's disease, the hippocampus is _____ than normal, which is the _____ in healthy aging.
smaller; opposite of
Down syndrome is:
much more likely in children born to older mothers.
Which statement is TRUE regarding imprinting?
Imprinting can be unlearned.
Down syndrome is caused by a condition in which an embryo inherits three (rather than two) copies of chromosome:
21.
Which statement supports the idea that age-related improvement in working memory capacity at least partially reflects exposure to and familiarity with the material to be remembered?
Ten-year-old chess experts can remember more pieces than adults who do not play chess, even though the children's digit spans are lower.
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