General Psychology Exercises 1

Learning, Memory and Thinking

Name: _________________________________________________________________________________ Score:
_____________________
Course/Year/Blk: _________________________________________________________________________ Date:
_____________________

I. Learning
Learning is defined as a
relatively permanent
change in behavior that
occurs as a result of prior
experience. It is a process in
which the person interacts
with the effective
environment to produce a
stable change in behavior.
Basically, a change in
behavior is a product of
learning. Learning could be
therefore be simply defined
as profiting from
experience.

(1) Example on how you would profit and not profit (learn useless habits) from a
learning experience.

(2) What are the four perquisites of learning?

However, some learning

does no really result to
profit for the learner, since
some useless and harmful
habits are learned just as
well as the useful ones.

II. Theories of Learning

Three popular psychologists
made experiments with
animals as subjects. They
were able to postulate three
theories of learning

Classical Conditioning
a. Association
b. Extinction
c. Generalization
d. Discrimination

(3) ______________________________________, a Russian psychologist, conducted an

experiments on dogs.
(4) Classical conditioning experiment showed that learning occurs from the
pairing of
____________________________ (Meat)
(Salivation)
____________________________ (Sound)

__________________________

(5) In classical conditioning, learning operates under the following principles:

Match principle with their description

Discrimination

Association

Extinction

Generalization

Learning the association between the

unconditioned stimulus (US) and the
conditioned stimulus (CS)
The period in classical conditioning
where there is a decrease in response
due to the absence of the US. The dog
will stop salivating if the sound is
repeatedly presented without food.
When a stimulus to the CS elicits the
same conditioned response. Thus, the
dog salivates on hearing sounds
coming from other similar sources,
such us buzzer or tuning fork.
Generalization is reaction to
similarities.
The opposite of generalization. In the
case of Pavlovs experiment, the
salivation of the dog is elicited only by
original conditioned stimuli (sound of a
bell) and not by the other stimuli
(sound of fork, buzzer etc.).

General Psychology Exercises 2

Learning, Memory and Thinking
In operant conditioning,
behavior is strengthened by
satisfying conditions or
reward. When a behavior is
followed by punishment, it
is avoided because it is not
satisfying.

(6) Proponent of operant conditioning __________________________________________

Cognitive Learning is a
form of learning which
involves organizing
information, making
comparison and forming
associations resulting to
new information.

(9) How was cognitive learning reflected on Kohlers Chimpanzee experiment?

(7) In operant conditioning, learning occurs when response or behavior is

_______________________________________________________________________________
(8) Example on how operant conditioning works in real life.

III. The Learning Process

There are several factors
that can help or hinder the
learning process. Defective
senses, illness, fatigue and
lack of sleep are some
factors that can hinder
learning. Among those that
facilitate learning are
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

(10) Example on how feedback would facilitate learning.

(11)Transfer of learning can be either positive or negative. Provide an example of

how can it be positive or negative transfer.

Feedback
Transfer of Learning
Practice
Motivation
Learning Styles
(12) Psychologist have found out that it is better to space out practice or
_______________________ (write the term being referred to) rather than do it all
at once or __________________________.

(13)Type or sources of motivation can be either ______________________________ or

___________________________.
(14) Visual Learners make use of
_______________________________________________________________________________
(15) Auditory learner learn by
_______________________________________________________________________________
(16) Kinesthetic learners learns by
______________________________________________________________________________

IV. Memory
(17) Define encoding
How do we make
memories?
(18) Whats the difference between short term and long term memory?
Memory passes through
these stages:

Short Term Memory

Long Term Memory

General Psychology Exercises 3

Learning, Memory and Thinking
S
E
R
te
n
c
o
t
ro
r
a
id
ie
g
e
n
v
a
g
l

(19) List at least three (3) ways in improving memory. Provide an example.

When information stored in

the Long-Term Memory
cannot be retrieved, it is
said to be forgotten. Some
theories indicate that our
inability to remember
involve:

(20) Decay

Define and give one

example.

(21) Interference

(22) Repression

V. Thinking

Thinking is the process of

changing and reorganizing
the information stored in
our memory to create new
information.
By thinking, we are able to
make combination of words
from our memory and form
sentences. It involves our
ability to imagine or
represent objects and
events that are that not

(23) Compare this two extremes (kind of thinking)

Autistic or non directed
Thinking

Realistic or directed Thinking

General Psychology Exercises 4

Learning, Memory and Thinking
physically present

Thinking is a complex
mental activity. It uses
several tools in the process:

(28) Imagery

Define these tools and give

an example.
(29) Language

(30) Concepts