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GRE Psychology: Learning

Subjects : gre, psychology
Instructions:
  • Answer 50 questions in 15 minutes.
  • If you are not ready to take this test, you can study here.
  • Match each statement with the correct term.
  • Don't refresh. All questions and answers are randomly picked and ordered every time you load a test.

This is a study tool. The 3 wrong answers for each question are randomly chosen from answers to other questions. So, you might find at times the answers obvious, but you will see it re-enforces your understanding as you take the test each time.
1. How to avoid something undesirable






2. Decreasing responsiveness to a stimulus due to increasing familiarity






3. Reinforcement delivered after a consistent number of responses; vulnerable to extinction






4. Not-so-neutral stimulus - elicits response without conditioning (e.g. salivation)






5. Continuous motions easier to learn - once started continues naturally - bike; discrete divided into parts and do not facilitate recall of each other - setting up chessboard






6. Learning curve






7. Previous CS now a UCS (e.g.*bell > [ light > food > ] salivation)






8. Drive to reduce cognitive dissonance - holding conflicting ideas simultaneously whether beliefs - attitudes - or actions


9. Preparedness - that certain associations are learned more easily than others; animals programmed to make certain connections; Garcia effect - nausea associated with food






10. Evoking responses of autonomic nervous system through training






11. Learning and behaving by imitation; Albert Bandura'S Bobo doll (children watching adults with blow up dolls)






12. Individuals are motivated by what brings most pleasure and least pain






13. John Garcia - Certain associations are learned more easily than others - Nausea & food can be paired easily - but light and nausea cannot be paired






14. Part of motivation. One must be adequately aroused to learn or perform






15. Ability to discriminate between different but similar stimuli (door bell is different from phone ringing)






16. Higher arousal for simple tasks (motivation) - lower arousal for complex tasks (concentration); optimal arousal is an inverted U on a graph - Y-axis: performance - X-axis: arousal - Difficult task --> upside-down U shape - Simple task --> reaches pea






17. Applied expectancy-value theory to individual behaviour in large organizations (e.g. those lowest on totem pole have least motivation since little incentives)






18. What a person learns in one state is best recalled in that state






19. How people learn in educational settings such as student and teacher attributes






20. Skinner - instrumental conditioning; behaviour primarily influenced by reinforcement strategies - do what rewards - not what doesn'T






21. Performance = Drive x Habit; will do what has worked in the past to satisfy drive






22. CS presented after UCS (e.g. food - then light); proven ineffective; accomplishes only inhibitory conditioning - harder time pairing CS with UCS later even with forward conditioning






23. Born with certain physiological needs - will be tension if not satisfied; when it is - return to state of homeostasis and relaxation






24. Motivated to do what they do not want to do by rewarding themselves afterwards with something they like to do - Eat dessert after eating unwanted vegetable






25. Learning about something in general (history) for knowledge rather than learning-specific stimulus-response chains (e.g. Tolman'S experiments with animals forming cognitive maps of mazes rather than simple escape routes)






26. Most time to learn but least likely to be extinguished; reinforcements are delivered after different numbers of correct responses - ratio cannot be predicted






27. Accidental learning - unrelated items grouped together; opposite of intentional learning (e.g. dog associates car with vet)






28. Learned reinforce - often through society; money - prestige - rewards






29. Relatively permanent or stable change in behaviour as the result of experience






30. Associative or dissociative attitudes on 7pt scale toward objects


31. Differential reinforcement of successive approximations; Skinner rewarded rats first for being near lever then for touching it - reward for behaviours that brought them closer to the desired one (e.g. pressing lever)






32. Naturally occurring response (e.g. salivation to food)






33. Rewards delivered after differing time periods; second most effective strategy in maintaining behaviour






34. Primary/instinctual (hunger or thirst) - secondary/ acquired (money or other learned reinforcers) - exploratory (seek novelty or explore) - We are primarily motivated to maintain physiological or psychological homeostasis.






35. Pairing of the CS and the UCS in which the CS is presented before the UCS - delayed conditioning and trace conditioning






36. Response that CS elicits after conditioning; UCR and CR will be the same (e.g. salivation)






37. Takes place without reinforcement - knowledge not immediately expressed - e.g. learning while watching chess






38. Performance = Expectation x Value; expectancy-value theory; goals they expect they can meet and how important goal is






39. Shaping; Skinner rewarded rats first for being near lever then for touching it - reward for behaviours that brought them closer to the desired one (e.g. pressing lever)






40. Opposite of stimulus discrimination; make same response to a group of similar stimuli (e.g. fire alarms may sound different but same response)






41. Fritz Heider'S balance theory - Charles Osgood and Percy Tannenbaum'S congruity theory - Leon Festinger'S cognitive dissonance theory; what about individuals who often seek stimulation - novel experience - or self-destruction?






42. Previous learning helps learning of another task later






43. The failure to generalize a stimulus






44. Promotes extinction of undesirable behaviour - negative stimulus presented after behaviour to decrease likelihood of reoccurrence - Skinner thinks it is not effective in long run






45. People learn through their culture. They learn acceptable and unacceptable behaviours through culture






46. Parents reduce temper in child by not giving into - reinforcing behavior






47. Rewards after a certain period of time rather than number of behaviours; can be argued that it does little to motivate an animal'S behaviour






48. Animals strongly and automatically connect nausea and food - especially strong in children; preparedness






49. Ebbinghaus - when learning something new - rate of learning usually changes over time; can be positively or negatively accelerated






50. Teacher encourages independent learning - only provides assistance when needed