Adaptive Learning and

the Human Condition

1st Edition

Student Resources

Please note: This title has recently been acquired by Taylor & Francis. Due to rights reasons, any multimedia resources will no longer be available.

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Learning Objectives

Chapter 1

After studying Chapter 1, the student should be able to

  1. Understand how learning principles provide explanations for human behavior.
  2. Differentiate between direct and indirect learning.
  3. Define “empirical.”
  4. Identify the types of questions that the scientific method can answer.
  5. Recognize some of the names in the early history of psychology.
  6. Understand how each of the main early schools of psychology contributed to the practice of psychology today.
  7. Define “independent variable” and “dependent variable.”
  8. Recognize the importance of both heredity and environment.
  9. Explain human genetic potential by means of the human homunculus.
  10. Name three types of learning.
  11. Describe operational learning.
  12. Describe structural/functional learning.
  13. Understand that learning is an adaptive process.
  14. Differentiate between direct and indirect learning.

Chapter 2

After studying Chapter 2, the student should be able to

  1. Define “internal validity.”
  2. Define “external validity.”
  3. Explain why nonexperimental research methods as well as experimental research methods are used in psychology.
  4. Identify some of the designs used in experimental research methods.
  5. Explain why group studies need to only include two groups to demonstrate adaptive learning.
  6. Describe small-N design.
  7. Define “baseline.”
  8. Discuss external validity with adaptive learning research methods.
  9. Discuss the choice of experimental apparatus for research with nonhumans.

Chapter 3

After studying Chapter 3, the student should be able to

  1. Describe Pavlov’s research with classical conditioning.
  2. List four procedures used to demonstrate and measure predictive learning.
  3. Understand the principles behind basic predictive learning phenomena.
  4. Define “acquisition.”
  5. Define “extinction.”
  6. Describe spontaneous recovery.
  7. Contrast external inhibition and disinhibition.
  8. Describe renewal.
  9. Understand when stimulus generalization and stimulus discrimination occur.
  10. Contrast higher-order conditioning and sensory preconditioning.
  11. Name two different procedures to describe excitatory and inhibitory learning.
  12. Explain latent extinction.
  13. Define “positive occasion setter” and “negative occasion setter.”

Chapter 4

After studying Chapter 4, the student should be able to

  1. List the four main variables influencing predictive learning.
  2. Recognize the terminology used for sequencing of events.
  3. Understand temporal contiguity.
  4. Explain acquired taste aversion as an exception to temporal contiguity.
  5. Define “salient.”
  6. Define “overshadowing.”
  7. Give two possible mechanisms for the extinction process.
  8. Describe Pavlov’s stimulus substitution model.
  9. Define “blocking.”
  10. Give an overview of the Rescorla-Wagner model.
  11. Define “surprise factor.”

Chapter 5

After studying Chapter 5, the student should be able to

  1. Differentiate between basic and applied science.
  2. Describe Watson and Rayner’s attempt to teach a young child to fear a white rat.
  3. Contrast direct and indirect classical conditioning of emotions.
  4. Define “vicarious.”
  5. Understand desensitization and sensitization procedures.
  6. Define “sensitization/aversion therapy.”
  7. Describe semantic generalization.
  8. Give some examples of classical conditioning of attitudes.
  9. Define “evaluative conditioning.”
  10. Describe Siegel’s learning model of drug tolerance and overdose effects.

Chapter 6

After studying Chapter 6, the student should be able to

  1. Define “comparative psychologist.”
  2. Explain the importance of Thorndike and Skinner to the study of control learning.
  3. Describe several apparatuses used to study control learning.
  4. Name the four possibilities in Skinner’s contingency schema.
  5. Give an overview of the adaptive learning perspective.
  6. Describe unconditioned reinforcers, conditioned reinforcers, and generalized reinforcers.
  7. Differentiate between discriminative stimuli and warning stimuli.
  8. Define “stimulus-response chain.”
  9. Name two basic control learning phenomena.
  10. Describe appetitive control.
  11. Define “aversive control.”
  12. Define “species-specific characteristics.”

Chapter 7

After studying Chapter 7, the student should be able to

  1. List five main variables that influence control learning.
  2. Define “deprivation.”
  3. Discuss timing of consequences.
  4. Describe intensity of consequences.
  5. Understand scheduling of consequences in terms of intermittent reinforcement and intermittent punishment.
  6. Discuss contingency between response and consequence.
  7. Identify two theories on the maintenance of avoidance responding.
  8. Briefly describe the two-factor theory of O. H. Mowrer.
  9. Identify three possible theoretical explanations of the PREE.
  10. Discuss problems in implementing punishment.
  11. List six drawbacks of punishment procedures.

Chapter 8

After studying Chapter 8, the student should be able to

  1. Briefly describe the views of Skinner and Chomsky on the acquisition of language.
  2. Discuss different aspects of parenting in terms of control learning.
  3. Name Baumrind’s four parenting styles.
  4. Discuss Kohlberg’s pre-conventional, conventional, and post-conventional morality.
  5. Describe the Good Behavior Game.
  6. Appreciate that maladaptive behavior can be viewed as consisting of behavioral excesses and behavioral deficits.
  7. Discuss the treatment of autism through applied behavioral analysis.
  8. Give two examples of control learning interventions with verbal individuals.
  9. Name several applications of empirically validated therapeutic techniques.
  10. Discuss the use of technology to treat behavioral excesses.
  11. Identify methods used in relapse prevention.

Chapter 9

After studying Chapter 9, the student should be able to

  1. Describe a Skinner box.
  2. Define “cumulative recorder.”
  3. Define “intermittent schedules of reinforcement.”
  4. Name Skinner’s four schema for intermittent schedules of reinforcement.
  5. Give a possible explanation for why ratio schedules produce higher response rates than interval schedules.
  6. Describe learned industriousness.
  7. Discuss differential reinforcement schedules as alternatives to punishment.
  8. Understand the use of extinction as an alternative to punishment.
  9. Explain how noncontingent reinforcement is an oxymoron.
  10. Give one application of noncontingent reinforcement that has been found to be effective.

Chapter 10

After studying Chapter 10, the student should be able to

  1. Define “multiple schedule.”
  2. Give an example of how trait labels are inaccurate as descriptions of behavior.
  3. Define “culture” from an adaptive learning perspective.
  4. Define “socialization.”
  5. In adaptive learning terms, explain why baseball pitchers are sneaky.
  6. Describe presence/absence discrimination training theory.
  7. Describe the relation in the laboratory between discrimination training and stimulus control patterns.
  8. Give an overview of Spence’s discrimination learning model.
  9. Discuss attention theory and discrimination learning.

Chapter 11

After studying Chapter 11, the student should be able to

  1. Define “concept learning.”
  2. Differentiate between qualitative concepts and quantitative concepts.
  3. Discuss the learning of natural concepts.
  4. Understand the “win-stay lose-shift” strategy of learning.
  5. Discuss Kohler’s experiments with chimpanzees and insight.
  6. Contrast the facilitative effects and interference effects of prior experience.
  7. Give the five stages of the general problem-solving process.
  8. Explain the law of accelerating returns.
  9. Explain how the phonetic alphabet and the Arabic numbering system led to the advance of technology.

Chapter 12

After studying Chapter 12, the student should be able to

  1. Define “observational learning.”
  2. Give the four stages of Bandura’s model of observational learning.
  3. Explain how the role of attention in control learning is similar to its role in observational learning.
  4. Describe retroactive and proactive interference.
  5. Summarize Bartlett’s memory concepts of assimilation, leveling, and sharpening.
  6. Explain the role of motivation in observational learning.
  7. Define “language.”
  8. Name several of Hockett’s features of language.
  9. Appreciate how the principles of predictive and control learning can help to explain the acquisition of language.
  10. Define “serial learning” and the “serial-position effect.”

Chapter 13

After studying Chapter 13, the student should be able to

  1. Describe Maslow’s hierarchy of human needs.
  2. Explain how the Nukak satisfy their physiological needs.
  3. Describe the Nukak’s shelter and safety arrangements.
  4. Summarize the Nukak’s love and interpersonal needs.
  5. Identify sources of self-esteem for the Nukak.
  6. Explain the role of the house of the tapir in Nukak self-actualization.
  7. Contrast the ways that we satisfy our physiological needs in comparison to the ways that the Nukak meet these needs.
  8. Compare our shelter and safety needs to those of the Nukak.
  9. Contrast the ways that love and interpersonal needs are satisfied by the Nukak and in our society.
  10. Discuss the developmental tasks and stages for the Nukak and for modern Americans.
  11. Describe how esteem needs are met by our society and by the Nukak.
  12. Contrast methods of self-actualization between the Nukak and ourselves.
  13. Discuss the perils for the Nukak of contact with a contemporary civilization such as our own.

Chapter 14

After studying Chapter 14, the student should be able to

  1. Define “concurrent schedule of reinforcement.”
  2. Discuss how the matching law can apply with concurrent schedules.
  3. Explain Rachlin and Green’s experiments with pigeons on the magnitude and delay of reinforcement.
  4. Describe the marshmallow test.
  5. Explain how discounting delayed consequences may be adaptive in an environment like that of the Nukak.
  6. Compare the concept of freedom in the Nukak culture and our own.
  7. Outline some problems with how we account for natural disasters if we accept the assumption of determinism.
  8. Explain how accepting that we are a lawful part of nature makes us freer and more in control of our lives.
  9. Understand that we have the ability to apply self-control techniques to ourselves in what amounts to an exercise in problem solving.
  10. Define “humanistic ecology.”

Self-Test Questions

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14