PS102 Midterm: midterm.docx
Document Summary
-phobia: an irrational fear of a specific object or situation. -classical conditioning: is a type of learning in which a stimulus acquires the capacity to evoke a response that was originally evoked by another stimulus. -pavlovian conditioning: the term conditioning comes from pavlov"s determination to discover the conditions that produce this kind of learning. -pavlov was studying the role of saliva in the digestive processes of dogs when he stumbled onto what he called psychic reflexes . -the dogs accustomed powder to the procedure would start salivation before the meat powder was presented. -what pavlov had demonstrated was how learned associations which were viewed as the basic building blocks of the entire learning process were formed by events in an organism"s environment. -based on this insight, he built a broad theory of learning that attempted to explain aspects of emotion, temperament, neuroses, and language. -psychologists suggest that such conditioning must be evolutionarily adaptive, contributing to our reproductive fitness.
