3. Learning & Memory Flashcards
Is memory reliable?
No, it can be manipulated. Not a “video camera” as sometimes thought
Confabulation
Creating a false narrative
Source Amnesia
Amnesia about the source of information; you forget where you learned it
Retroactive Interference
Learning new information that causes you to forget something old (e.g. forgetting gen chem from last semester when learning orgo)
Misinformation effect
(def)
Context clues
Something that triggers memories; e.g. sight, smell
State effect
Emotional state that triggers you to remember other memories/experiences in which you felt the same way
Incentive Theory
Motivation: reward and negative consequences; incentives are something external
Drive reduction theory
holds that all behavioral motivation can be attributed to satisfying a biological need; 3 underlying principles:
- the actors drive is ESSENTIAL for a response to occur
- the actual response must take place in order for conditioning to occur
- conditioning will occur if the reinforcement satisfied a need
recency effect
the tendency to recall the last few items on the list
primacy effect
the tendency to recall the first few items on the list
Are short term memory and long term memory separate memory systems?
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
Proactive interference
phenomenon in which memories of old info affects one’s ability to remember new information
Reactive interference
phenomenon in which memorizing new information causes forgetting of older information
Weber’s law
tests the threshold at which a stimulus is detected
Signal detection theory
using various confusing or potentially misleading stimuli and testing whether a specific stimulus is detected
Gestalt principles
based on visual cues causing specific types of conceptual or visual recognition
Feature detection
- 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
Classical conditioning
a stimulus causing a secondary stimulus response
Parallel processing
process of blending different clues to determine what something is
Observational learning
“how to” process of learning
Drive reduction theory
a theory that explains motivation as being based on the goal of eliminating uncomfortable internal states
Sensory/Neural adaptation
a change over time in the responsiveness of the sensory system to a constant stimulus
Split brain (case)
- 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
