PSY 300 - Quiz 2

Learning occurs when experience (including practice) causes a relatively permanent change in an individuals knowledge or behavior.

Cognitive psychologists focus on changes in knowledge and believe learning is an internal mental activity that can not be observed directly. (thinking, remembering, problem solving)

The outcome of learning is change in behavior and emphasizes the effects of external events on the individual.

We remember things together (1) when they are similar, (2) when they contrast, and (3) when they are contiguous.

Whenever two or more events occur together often enough, they will become associated.

Event that activates behavior

Observable reaction to a stimulus

focuses on the learning of involuntary emotional or physiological responses

Automatic responses to stimuli

1920's Russian physiologist who was trying to determine how long it took a dog to secrete digestive juices after it had be fed, but his experiment changed when he noticed that the dogs began to salivate when the researchers would get up to feed them. He learned that he could cause the dogs to salivate when introducing different stimuli when presenting the food or eventually without presenting food. ie. the bell ringing without food

stimulus not connected to a response

stimulus that automatically produces an emotional or physiological response

naturally occurring emotional or physiological response

stimulus evokes a response after conditioning

learned response to a previously neutral stimulus

deliberate actions

learning in which voluntary behavior is strengthened or weakened by consequences or rewards