Introduction to Psychology 202
Dr. Rosalyn M. King
LEARNING
(Student Assignments for Classroom Presentation)
For the next class, please come prepared to present your assigned area. Read the textbook
carefully and find any supplemental material that will help you explain your assigned concept to
the class. Visit the course website and the related learning links on the subject that you find on
the website. Use visual aids (overheads, diagrams, etc.) to teach your assigned segment to the
class.
1.
What is learning? What are some basic forms of learning? How do we learn? What is
associative learning? How does learned associations influence people and learning?
Learning:
Basic Forms:
Ways we learn:
Associative Learning:
Influences:
2.
Who was Ivan Pavlov? Why was his work important? Provide a biographical sketch of
his life and work. Summarize Pavlov’s contribution to our understanding of learning.
3.
Define Pavlov’s experiments on conditioning and classical conditioning. Include a
discussion of its component parts: Unconditioned response, unconditioned or neutral
stimulus, higher order conditioning, conditioned response and conditioned stimulus,
acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization and discrimination.
Develop diagrams to teach these concepts to the class.
4.
Discuss the cognitive and biological predispositions and constrainsts relative to classical
conditioning. Discuss the classical experiment about taste aversion and trauma.
5.
How is classical conditioning applied today? Now do some reflecting and provide other
examples of how classical conditioning is used in everyday life?
Page 2)
Psy 202 - Learning
6.
Who was B.F. Skinner. Provide an overview of his life and work. Summarize Skinner’s
contributions to our understanding of learning. How is his perspective different from
that of Pavlov?
7.
Define operant conditioning and operant behavior. What is an operant chamber?
Include a discussion of respondent and operant behavior, the law of effect and the
concept of shaping and chaining.
8.
What is reinforcement? What are the types of reinforcers? What are the principles and
schedules of reinforcement? How can each schedule of reinforcement be used in the
real world? Provide examples.
9.
What is punishment? What are the problems with punishment–how does it affect
behavior? What are the conditions that must be met for punishment to be effective?
10.
What are the cognitive and biological predispositions and constraints relative to operant
conditioning? Include a discussion of latent learning, creating cognitive maps,
intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and their influences on learning.
11.
What are the applications of operant conditioning? Can you think of other examples of
how operant conditioning is used in everyday life–at school, in sports and other
activities, at work and at home?
12.
Provide your overall understanding and distinctions between classical and operant
conditioning. How do cognitive processes affect classical and operant conditioning
13.
Describe Observational Learning, its components. How is observational learning enabled
by mirror neurons. Provide real life examples of how we learn from observation?
14.
Who is Albert Bandura? Provide a biographical sketch of his life and work. Describe his
psychological experiments on observational learning and the Bobo dolls.
15.
What is the impact of prosocial modeling and anti-social modeling?
16.
Describe the applications of observational learning– provide examples of positive &
negative learning and models, influences of the media and other examples from real
life.
rmk:8-12