Attention, Perception, Learning and Memory Questions and Answers

Answer: A

The correct matching is acquisition with the initial stage of learning in which a response is established (4), extinction with the diminishing of a conditioned response (3), spontaneous recovery with the reappearance of an extinguished response after a rest period (1) and generalization with the tendency of similar stimuli to evoke similar responses (2). The code is 4, 3, 1, 2.

The second code gives spontaneous recovery to generalization and the reverse, and the other two begin with the wrong items.

Answer: D

All three statements explain Sujal's ability, so the answer is 1, 2 and 3. Judging how far an approaching automobile is requires depth perception, which is the ability to see the world in three dimensions, and distance perception. It relies on monocular cues, such as relative size and interposition, and binocular cues, such as retinal disparity and convergence. Each of the three plays a part, so the options naming only some of them are incomplete.

Answer: C

Behaviours that animals and humans emit voluntarily and that act on the environment are called operants in Skinner's operant conditioning. The name comes from the fact that they operate on the environment to produce consequences.

'Responses' is a general term, 'instruments' belongs to the instrumental conditioning label for the same procedure, and reinforcements are the consequences that follow the operant, not the behaviour itself.

Skinner contrasted operants with respondents, which are reflex-like responses elicited by a known stimulus, such as an eye blink to a puff of air.

Answer: B

Negative reinforcement strengthens the response that removes or avoids an unpleasant stimulus, so it raises the probability of the avoidance or escape response. The stimulus is what is removed, not what is strengthened. An event is not a behaviour, and 'instruments' is not a term for what reinforcement increases.

Answer: B

The key gives insight learning. In insight learning the learner suddenly grasps the relationship between a means and an end, such as using a stick to reach food, instead of building up stimulus-response associations; the wording of the stem matches NCERT's discussion of insight learning.

Latent learning (Tolman) is learning that is not shown until a reward appears, instrumental learning rests on reinforced responses, and verbal learning concerns learning of words and associations, so none of them fits as well.

Answer: B

Only statement 2 is not a type of unconditioned stimulus. In classical conditioning the unconditioned stimulus is something that naturally evokes a response without learning, and it is of two kinds: appetitive stimuli (such as food) and aversive stimuli (such as a shock or a puff of air). 'Reinforcing stimuli' is a term from operant conditioning, where it names a consequence that strengthens behaviour.

So 1 and 3 are types of unconditioned stimulus, and the options naming them are wrong.

Answer: A

Punishment tends to suppress a response, but usually only temporarily, because the behaviour can return once the punishing consequence is no longer expected. Reinforcement in all its forms increases the probability of a response: positive reinforcement by adding a rewarding consequence and negative reinforcement by removing an unpleasant one. So negative reinforcement, reinforcement and positive reinforcement are wrong choices here.

Punishment suppresses the behaviour while the threat is present, and the behaviour may return when the punisher is absent, which is why Skinner called its effect temporary.

Answer: D

The key accepts the option that lists all three names: modelling, social learning and imitation. Observational learning, in which a person learns by watching the behaviour of others (Bandura), is described in textbooks under each of these labels. Options naming only modelling, only social learning, or just the first two are incomplete, because the stem asks for what it is 'also known as' and the fullest list is the key.

All three words describe learning through watching another person (the model) and copying the behaviour that is seen, although imitation is the most direct copying.

Answer: C

Latent learning is learning that occurs without reinforcement and shows up in behaviour only when reinforcement is provided later (Tolman's rats that explored a maze and then ran it quickly once food was placed at the goal). Insight learning is a sudden grasp of a solution, observational learning is learning by watching a model, and imitative learning is copying a model, none of which waits for reinforcement before being learned.

The Tolman experiment had three groups of rats, and only the group rewarded from day 11 showed a sudden drop in errors, which showed earlier learning.

Answer: D

The statement that the experimenter was primarily interested in the psychology of learning is not true. Pavlov was a Russian physiologist studying digestion and salivation in dogs, and he found conditioning by chance (serendipitously) when the dogs began to salivate at the sight of the empty plate or the person who brought the food, before any food was given. The other three statements are therefore true.

Pavlov received the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1904 for his work on digestion, which is the study that led him to conditioning.