3. Learning & Memory

Question 1

Is memory reliable?

Answer 1

No, it can be manipulated. Not a “video camera” as sometimes thought

Question 2

Confabulation

Answer 2

Creating a false narrative

Question 3

Source Amnesia

Answer 3

Amnesia about the source of information; you forget where you learned it

Question 4

Retroactive Interference

Answer 4

Learning new information that causes you to forget something old (e.g. forgetting gen chem from last semester when learning orgo)

Question 5

Misinformation effect

Answer 5

(def)

Question 6

Context clues

Answer 6

Something that triggers memories; e.g. sight, smell

Question 7

State effect

Answer 7

Emotional state that triggers you to remember other memories/experiences in which you felt the same way

Question 8

Incentive Theory

Answer 8

Motivation: reward and negative consequences; incentives are something external

Question 9

Drive reduction theory

Answer 9

holds that all behavioral motivation can be attributed to satisfying a biological need; 3 underlying principles:

1. the actors drive is ESSENTIAL for a response to occur
2. the actual response must take place in order for conditioning to occur
3. conditioning will occur if the reinforcement satisfied a need

Question 10

recency effect

Answer 10

the tendency to recall the last few items on the list

Question 11

primacy effect

Answer 11

the tendency to recall the first few items on the list

Question 12

Are short term memory and long term memory separate memory systems?

Answer 12

Yes! There is a clear separation between primacy and recency effects in data–> supporting the dissociability of long term and short term memory

*STM and LTM are separate systems

Question 13

Proactive interference

Answer 13

phenomenon in which memories of old info affects one’s ability to remember new information

Question 14

Reactive interference

Answer 14

phenomenon in which memorizing new information causes forgetting of older information

Question 15

Weber’s law

Answer 15

tests the threshold at which a stimulus is detected

Question 16

Signal detection theory

Answer 16

using various confusing or potentially misleading stimuli and testing whether a specific stimulus is detected

Question 17

Gestalt principles

Answer 17

based on visual cues causing specific types of conceptual or visual recognition

Question 18

Feature detection

Answer 18

• correlate of parallel processing (simultaneously analyzing and combining information regarding color, shape, and motion); visual pathway contains cells specialized in detection of color, shape, or motion
• related exclusively to vision

Question 19

Classical conditioning

Answer 19

a stimulus causing a secondary stimulus response

Question 20

Parallel processing

Answer 20

process of blending different clues to determine what something is

Question 21

Observational learning

Answer 21

“how to” process of learning

Question 22

Drive reduction theory

Answer 22

a theory that explains motivation as being based on the goal of eliminating uncomfortable internal states

Question 23

Sensory/Neural adaptation

Answer 23

a change over time in the responsiveness of the sensory system to a constant stimulus

Question 24

Split brain (case)

Answer 24

• when a stimulus is presented to the left half of a split-brain patient’s visual field, the info will be sent out to the right hemisphere.
• the right hemisphere of a split-brain patient has no access to the left hemisphere, where linguistic abilities are lateralized.
• thus, presenting the target colors to the left half of a split-brain patient’s visual field would allow researchers to determine whether categorical perception occurs even in the absence of linguistic information

Question 25

Autobiographical memory

Answer 25

a memory system consisting of episodes recollected from an individual’s life, based on a combination of episodic (personal experiences and specific objects, people and events experienced at particular time and place) and semantic

Question 26

Recovered memory

Answer 26

are memories of traumatic events that are now remembered but had previously been ‘forgotten’ or unknown. The recovery of traumatic memories has often been associated with past experience of childhood abuse, often sexual in nature