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| a type of learning in which behavior is strengthened if followed by a reinforcer or diminished if followed by a punisher. | ||
| behavior that occurs as an automatic response to some stimulus; Skinner's term for behavior learned through classical conditioning. | ||
| behavior that operates on the environment, producing consequences. | ||
| Thorndike's principle that behaviors followed by favorable consequences become more likely, and that behaviors followed by unfavorable consequences become less likely. | ||
| a chamber also known as a Skinner box, containing a bar or key that an animal can manipulate to obtain a food or water reinforcer, with attached devices to record the animal's rate of bar pressing or key pecking. Used in operant conditioning research. | ||
| an operant conditioning procedure in which reinforcers guide behavior toward closer and closer approximations of the desired behavior. | ||
| in operant conditioning, any event that strengthens the behavior it follows. | ||
| increasing behaviors by presenting positive stimuli, such as food. A positive reinforcer is any stimulus that, when presented after a response, strengthens the response. | ||
| increasing behaviors by stopping or reducing negative stimuli, such as shock. A negative reinforcer is any stimulus that, when removed after a response, strengthens the response. (Note, this is not the same thing as punishment.) | ||
| an innately reinforcing stimulus, such as one that satisfies a biological need. | ||
| a stimulus that gains its reinforcing power through its association with a primary reinforcer; also known as secondary reinforcer. | ||
| reinforcing the desired response every time it occurs. | ||
| reinforcing a response only part of the time; results in slower acquisition of a response but much greater resistance to extinction than does continuous reinforcement. | ||
| an event that decreases the behavior that it follows. | ||
| a mental representation of the layout of one's environment. For example, after exploring a maze, rats act as if they have learned a cognitive map of it. | ||
| learning that occurs but is not apparent until there is an incentive to demonstrate it. | ||
| a desire to perform a behavior for its own sake. | ||
| a desire to perform a behavior due to promised rewards or threats of punishment. | ||
| learning by observing others. | ||
| the process of observing and imitating a specific behavior. | ||
| frontal lobe neurons that fire when performing certain actions or when observing another doing so. The brain's mirroring of another's action may enable imitation, language learning, and empathy. | ||
| positive, constructive, helpful behavior. The opposite of antisocial behavior. | ||
| in classical conditioning, a stimulus that unconditionally—naturally and automatically—triggers a response. | ||
| in classical conditioning, an originally irrelevant stimulus that, after association with an unconditioned stimulus (US), comes to trigger a conditioned response. | ||
| in classical conditioning, the learned response to a previously neutral (but now conditioned) stimulus (CS). | ||
| in classical conditioning, the unlearned, naturally occurring response to the unconditioned stimulus (US), such as salivation when food is in the mouth. | ||
| a relatively permanent change in an organism's behavior due to experience. | ||
| learning that certain events occur together. The events may be two stimuli (as in classical conditioning) or a response and its consequences (as in operant conditioning). | ||
| a type of learning in which an organism comes to associate stimuli. A neutral stimulus that signals an unconditioned stimulus (US) begins to produce a response that anticipates and prepares for the unconditioned stimulus. Also called Pavlovian or respondent conditioning. | ||
| the view that psychology (1) should be an objective science that (2) studies behavior without reference to mental processes. Most research psychologists today agree with (1) but not with (2). | ||
| the initial stage in classical conditioning; the phase associating a neutral stimulus with an unconditioned stimulus so that the neutral stimulus comes to elicit a conditioned response. In operant conditioning, the strengthening of a reinforced response. | ||
| the diminishing of a conditioned response; occurs in classical conditioning when an unconditioned stimulus (US) does not follow a conditioned stimulus (CS); occurs in operant conditioning when a response is no longer reinforced. | ||
| the reappearance, after a pause, of an extinguished conditioned response. | ||
| the tendency, once a response has been conditioned, for stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus to elicit similar responses. | ||
| in classical conditioning, the learned ability to distinguish between a conditioned stimulus and stimuli that do not signal an unconditioned stimulus. |
