PSYC 1000 Chapter 7: Chapter 7 Summary.docx

• School: University of Guelph
• Department: Psychology
• Course: PSYC 1000
• Professor: Anne Bergen

Document Summary

Learning: the process by which experience produces a relatively enduring change in an organism"s behaviour or capabilities. Behaviourists focus on how organisms learn; how experience influences behaviour, rather than studying mental state . Ethology focuses on animal behaviour within the natural environment. Adaptive significance: how behaviour influences an organisms chances for survival and reproduction in natural environment. Fixed action pattern: an unlearned response automatically triggered by a particular stimulus. E. g. hatched herring galls peck at mother beak or imitation. Some fixed action patterns can be changed by experience. E. g. indigo bunting birds do not instinctively migrate following the north star but migrate toward the star they have learned is stationary. Environment shapes behaviour through personal adaption and species adaption. Learning does not modify genetics, but genetically based features that allow that learning survive and reproduce through natural selection. Cognitive psychologists challenge behavioural psychological assumption that learning does not involve cognitive processes.