PSY 331 final review

Paul Ekman traveled to isolated civilizations in Papua-New Guinea to observe human behaviors that were not influenced by the rest of the world. What did he find?

• Individuals in these civilizations did not have any semblance of language

• Individuals in these civilizations still had developed their own language that was similarly structured to ours

• Individuals in these civilizations had some communication through simple gestures, but it did not follow any sort of grammatical rules

• Individuals initially did not have language but easily learned English when Paul Ekman began to teach them

In a classical conditioning paradigm, how is it demonstrated that classical conditioning has indeed occurred?

• the CS leads to a CR without the presence of the US

• the US leads to a CR without the presence of the CS

• the UR and CR become distinguishable from one another

• the NS becomes the US

Which of the following explanations for why post-reinforcement pauses (PRPs) occur in fixed ratio schedules is most supported by research?

• the animal is tired from doing so many behaviors to receive the previous reinforcer

• the animal is satisfied with the amount of reinforcer it has already received and must wait a while before it craves another reinforcer

• the animal knows it will take a lot more work to reach the next reinforcer

• the animal doesn't know when the next reinforcer is coming because it is random, so this uncertainty makes it give up

The cognitive revolution saw a development of new methodology and perspectives so that psychologists could analyze ______ while still remaining objective and scientific.

• behavioral outcomes

• dreams

• genetic and environmental interactions

• unobservable mental processes

Which of the following is an example of habituation?

• When we won a game in volleyball, our coach would bring snacks to the next practice. This encouraged us all to keep practicing hard and get better

• Babies are able to express facial expressions of basic emotions shortly after being born, even without observing someone else making the facial expression first

• My mom always gave me Sprite when I was sick to help settle my stomach, and now when I drink Sprite it makes me feel comfortable

• I woke up suddenly when I heard the first thunderstrike during a storm, but then was able to sleep through the rest of them

I am teaching my dog to sit on a box. Every time she moves toward the box, I reward her. I keep rewarding her for getting closer and closer to sitting on the box, and when she eventually sits on top of the box, I give her a big reward. This is an example of _______.

• Classical conditioning

• Backward chaining

• Forward chaining

• Shaping

Buying lottery tickets in the hopes that one will be a winner is an example of a _________ schedule.

• fixed ratio

• variable ratio

• fixed interval

• variable interval

Which of the following leads to the slowest extinction rates after a reinforcer is removed?

• fixed ratio

• variable interval

• continuous reward

• fixed interval

Jenkins and Harrison (1962) provided evidence that generalization gradients are learned behaviors (rather than innate) by testing one group of pigeons with non-differential training. That is, pigeons would only receive food for pecking a button when a 1000-hz tone was playing and a light was on. Later, when tested with slightly different sounding tones (e.g., 670-hz, 1500-hz), how did the animals respond?

• The pigeons responded equally often to all frequencies

• The pigeons only provided responses to 1000-hz frequencies, but not during other sounds

• The pigeons showed a typical generalization gradient

• The pigeons did not provide any responses at all

Which of the following is NOT a problem with the definitional view of concept learning?

• It seems impossible for our brains to store every experience we have had with objects in a given category

• People demonstrate very consistent typicality effects when generating exemplars of a category and categorizing given options

• Not every category seems to have a list of necessary and sufficient conditions that fit all items within that category

• Some items seem to fit category/concepts better than others