Attention, Perception, Learning and Memory Questions and Answers

Answer: B

The keyed answer is attention, sensory registration, selective filter, perceptual process, short-term memory. In Broadbent's filter model, input arrives at sensory registration, a selective filter passes only one channel, and the perceptual process then works on it before short-term memory. The other options reorder these, but I could not confirm why the key puts attention first, so this follows the official key. The point of the filter model is that attention selects one channel early, before meaning is analysed, and only the selected channel reaches short-term memory.

Answer: A

Procedural memory is not part of explicit or declarative memory. Declarative memory consists of semantic memory (facts), episodic memory (personal events) and autobiographical memory, whereas procedural memory (skills and habits) is a kind of implicit memory. Explicit memory is the conscious recall of facts and events, while implicit memory, such as riding a bicycle, shows in performance without conscious recall.

Answer: B

The statement that is not a salient feature of classical conditioning is "Conditioning occurs because of insight learning". Classical conditioning is mechanical: the conditional response is produced by pairing the CS with the UCS, the pairing continues, and the learning is a stimulus-stimulus association. Insight is sudden understanding, which is not how conditioning works. In classical conditioning learning is gradual and results from repeated pairing of the neutral stimulus with the unconditioned stimulus, as in Pavlov's work, not from sudden insight.

Answer: C

Reconditioning is the rapid recovery of a conditioned response when CS-UCS pairing is resumed after extinction. Spontaneous recovery is the reappearance of the response after a rest period without pairing, acquisition is the initial learning of the response, and learning is too general a term. Relearning of a response after extinction is typically faster than the original learning, which shows that extinction does not erase the earlier learning.

Answer: B

Marian Breland (with Keller Breland) described instinctive drift, the tendency of an animal's learned behaviour to drift back towards instinctive behaviour. Skinner studied operant conditioning, Tolman latent learning, and Seligman learned helplessness and preparedness. The Brelands trained animals for shows and found that, for example, raccoons trained to put coins into a bank started to rub the coins together, which is the instinctive food-washing behaviour.

Answer: D

Negative reinforcement is the encouragement of a behaviour by removing or avoiding a negative outcome or stimulus, as in obeying a parent before the count of three in order to avoid a scolding. Positive reinforcement adds a reward, positive punishment adds an unpleasant stimulus, and negative punishment removes something pleasant to reduce a behaviour. The word negative in negative reinforcement means that something is taken away, and reinforcement means the behaviour becomes more likely, here obeying before the count of three.

Answer: C

Wolfgang Kohler conducted his insight-learning experiments on chimpanzees, including the well-known ape Sultan who stacked boxes to reach a banana. Dogs were Pavlov's subjects, pigeons and rats were mainly Skinner's and Thorndike's. Kohler's experiments on the island of Tenerife showed that chimpanzees could solve problems by sudden insight into the relations, such as combining two sticks to reach food.

Answer: A

The child displays generalisation learning: fear conditioned to one stimulus spreads to similar ones, here another bearded man in a different outfit. Discrimination learning would be responding to only the original stimulus, and sign learning and stimulus learning are not standard terms for this. Generalisation is the tendency to respond to stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus, and discrimination is learning to respond only to the particular stimulus.

Answer: C

Learning is any relatively permanent change in behaviour or behavioural potential produced by experience. Perception is the interpretation of sensory information, concept formation is making categories, and motivation is the drive that starts and sustains behaviour. The definition of learning stresses three points: a change in behaviour or potential for behaviour, a relatively permanent change, and a change that comes from experience, not from growth or fatigue.

Answer: A

B F Skinner propounded the theory of operant conditioning. Jerome Bruner is known for discovery learning and the constructivist approach, Robert Gagne for the conditions of learning and the nine events of instruction, and Kohlberg for the stages of moral development. Skinner's operant conditioning shows how behaviour is shaped by consequences, such as reinforcement and punishment, as in the Skinner box.