My EPPP - EPPP Practice Questions: Learning and Memory

b. unconditioned stimulus

The technique described in the question is known as higher-order conditioning. When the

original CS (Variable B) is paired with a second CS (Variable C), the original CS is acting as a

US.

b. extinction

Although systematic desensitization is based on counterconditioning, research using a

dismantling strategy suggests that its effects are actually due to exposure to the CS without

the US (i.e., classical extinction).

a. pairing anxiety-inducing stimuli with relaxation

Reciprocal inhibition is used to reduce fear and anxiety responses and involves pairing

stimuli that evoke fear with stimuli that produce relaxation or another incompatible

response.

d. unconditioned stimulus.

In this situation, the shoe is the conditioned stimulus (CS) and will be paired with electric

shock or other stimulus that naturally produces an unpleasant reaction so that, eventually,

the shoe also produces the unpleasant reaction. The electric shock or other stimulus that

naturally produces an unpleasant reaction is the unconditioned stimulus (US).

b. the gradual removal of prompts

When teaching a new response, nonverbal and verbal prompts may be used to help elicit that

response. Because the ultimate goal is for the response to occur independently, prompts are

gradually removed once the response is well-established. This procedure is referred to as

fading. For the exam, you want to be sure not to confuse fading with thinning, which refers to

a reduction in reinforcement.

c. a college student cleans his dorm room to keep his roommate from nagging him about

how sloppy he is

Negative reinforcement is occurring when a behavior is performed (increases) to escape or

avoid a stimulus. In this case, the student cleans his room to avoid his roommate’s nagging.

Negative reinforcement, like positive reinforcement, results in an increase in a behavior. In

responses “a” and “d”, a behavior is not being performed (i.e., is decreasing) because of the

consequences. Both of these situations are examples of punishment. Response “b” is an

example of positive reinforcement: The boy’s whining is increasing because of the stimulus

that is applied following the whining.

c. accidental reinforcement

Skinner found that the odd behaviors exhibited by pigeons in his study were the result of

accidental pairing of reinforcers with those behaviors. For example, if a pigeon was

accidentally reinforced with food while it was pecking at the floor, it would continue pecking

at the floor even though it had never been deliberately reinforced for doing so. Skinner

concluded that the superstitious behaviors of humans can be attributed to accidental

reinforcement.

b. The child’s whining will first increase, then decrease.

Use of extinction to eliminate a previously reinforced response often results in a temporary

extinction (response) burst.

d. differential reinforcement

Differential reinforcement for other behaviors (D.R.O.) involves reinforcing a person when

he/she exhibits other, alternative behaviors to the target behavior during a prespecified period

of time (e.g., every 10 minutes).

a. backward chaining

Mrs. Ichthys’s son has been taught a complex behavior by teaching him the individual

responses in the “behavior chain.” Since Mrs. Ichthys has started with the last behavior and

“worked backward” from there, this is best described as an example of backward chaining.

c. feelings of hopelessness

In their version of the learned helplessness hypothesis, Abramson et al. de-emphasize the role

of attributions (emphasized in the previous version) and emphasize the role of hopelessness

in the development of depression.

b. Socratic questioning

An essential technique in Beck’s cognitive therapy is guided discovery, which makes use of

Socratic questioning that is designed to help the individual identify the impact of cognitions

on emotions and behavior.

a. interpreting experiences in patterned, reflexive ways

As the name implies, automatic thoughts are automatic or reflexive. They also have an

interpretive (evaluative) component – e.g., “this is awful.”

d. education, skills acquisition, and application.

Unfortunately, the names given to the three stages of stress inoculation vary somewhat in the

literature. The first stage is referred to as the education, conceptualization, or cognitive

phase; the second stage as the skills application or training phase or the skills acquisition

and rehearsal phase; and the third phase as the application or application and follow-through

phase.

b. Raynaud’s disease

Raynaud’s disease is a disorder of the blood vessels that limits circulation to certain areas of

the body (usually the fingers and toes). Thermal (temperature) biofeedback has been found to

be an effective treatment for this disorder.

b. proactive interference

Proactive interference occurs when previously acquired information (your friend’s old e-mail

address) interferes with the ability to learn or recall recently or newly acquired information

(your friend’s new e-mail address). Retroactive interference occurs when recently acquired

information interferes with your ability to recall previously acquired information. According

to decay theory, forgetting is due to the fading of memory traces over time. Cue-dependent

forgetting occurs when there are insufficient retrieval cues.

a. words in the beginning of the list

This question is asking about the serial position effect. Research on this phenomenon has

found that when there is a delay between learning and recall, words at the beginning of the

list are remembered best. (When there is no delay, words in the beginning and end of the list

are remembered best and to about the same degree.)

c. holds a large amount of sensory data for a brief period

Sensory memory seems to be able to store a large number of sensory events, but it does so

for only a very brief period of time (5 to 1 second).

d. semantic

The levels of processing model distinguishes between three levels of information processing

which, from shallowest to deepest, are structural, phonemic, and semantic. Semantic

processing produces the best recall and involves processing terms, concepts, etc. in terms of

their meaning.