3. Learning, Memory, and Behaviour Flashcards
What is non-associative learning? What are the two major forms?
non-associative learning is a form of implicit learning. It occurs when an organism is repeatedly exposed to one type of stimulus.
habituation and sensitization
Non-associative learning: Explain habituation and dis-habituation.
Habituation occurs when you begin to attenuate a stimulus you constantly exposed to.
e.g. live by train, eventually you habituate to the train horn and no longer really hear it.
dishabituation –> when you are no longer accustomed to the stimulus and thus if its presented you react to it (sometimes even stronger than before habituation)
go on vacation, come home, train horn is even louder.
Non-associative learning: Explain sensitization and desensitization.
Sensitization is essentially the opposite of habituation. After repeated stimulus, one becomes more sensitive to that stimulus (rather than tuning it out like in habituation). Similar stimuli may evoke a strong response because you are primed (sensitized)
- rock concert sensitizes your ears to loud noise, siren makes you cover your ears
Desensitization occurs when you are no longer sensitive towards a given stimuli. The next morning, the sirens don’t appear as loud, you don’t cover your ears.
Classical conditioning, a form of associative learning, occurs when two stimuli are paired together so that they eventually elicit the same response. Explain NS, US, UR, CS, and CR.
NS –> something you don’t normally react too (bell)
US –> something you innately respond to (UR) (sight of food causes salivation)
CS –> pair the NS with the US (pair bell with food)
CR –> the UR provoked by the CS (bell causes salivation)
In classical conditioning, explain acquisition, extinction, spontaneous recovery, generalization, and discrimination.
acquisition –> the process of learning the UR. Here the CS and US are paired.
extinction –> after some time, the CS alone will not evoke a CR
spontaneous recovery –> spontaneously, the CS alone evokes the CR
Generalization –> similar stimuli (doorbell) elicits the CR (salivation)
discrimination –> CS has been discriminated amongst other stimuli
What requires very short acquisition with a very long extinction phase?
taste-aversion: we associate food with illness once experiencing food poisoning.
What is operant conditioning? What was Skinner’s rats?
Operant conditioning is a form of associative learning that employs reinforcement and punishment.
B.F. Skinner tested this theory on rats, whereby when they push a lever they get food. (reinforcement)
Explain positive and negative reinforcement.
Reinforcement = something encouraging (increasing the intended behavior)
Positive R = adding something desired (giving food)
Negative R = removing something undesired (removing a shock)
Explain positive and negative punishment.
Punishment = something discouraging (decreasing the observed behavior)
Positive P = adding something undesired (shocking you)
Negative P = removing something desired (taking away food)
What is the difference between primary and secondary reinforcers?
primary = something innately desirable (like food)
secondary = something that has been paired with the primary reinforcer to create a conditioned stiumulus.
- food token
What is continuous and intermittent reinforcement?
continuous = the reward is giving after every occurence of the desired behavior
intermittent = the reward is giving after variably after the desired behavior.
continuous has faster acquisition and extinction
intermittent has slower of both
There are 4 intermittent reinforcement schedules. Explain each one.
- fixed-ration: reward is given after a set number of occurrences of behavior
- variable-ratio: reward is given after a random number of occurrences of behavior (gambling)
- fixed-interval: reward is given after a set amount of time
- variable-interval: reward is given after a random amount of time
reinforcement schedules: what is the best one to teach something new? To make the behavior persist?
teaching something new is best done with a continuous strategy (reward after every occurrence)
making behavior persist (i.e. no extinction) is best done with a variable-ratio schedule (i.e. gambling is addictive)
Why is punishment worse than reinforcement?
- it only instructs what not to do, not what to do.
2. its effects only last while the punishment is around.
Operant learning: what is escape and avoidance?
escape = someone learns that an action will prevent / stop a stimulus. Child cries when it has to eat veggies.
avoidance = someone learns that performing a preemptive behavior will prevent a stimulus from occurring. Pretending to be allergic to broccoli.
What is insight learning?
insight learning occurs when someone combines two previously learned behaviors into something unique. This is not learned behavior on its own and thus requires some cognition.
child can jump to get a ball in a tree
child can use a stick to knock it down
insight learning: child jumps while swinging the stick for a very high ball
What is latent learning?
learning that occurs implicitly and the learned behavior is not used until necessary.
child travels in car to school and latently learns the route. Only manifests this knowledge when forced to walk to school one day.
What is memory consolidation?
Transfer of information from short term memory to long-term memory.
What is long-term potentiation?
Long term potentiation is the process of synaptic strength increasing between specific neural pathways that are involved in the processing of some stimuli.
LTP increases the synaptic sensitivity between neurons making them less resistant to firing (more easily activated). This is thought to be the process of how memory consolidation occurs.
What is observational learning? What is modelling?
Also known as: social learning or vicarious learning. This is learning through watching and imitating others.
modelling is the most basic form of OL, where someone observes how someone else behaves and directly imitates them.
Who was Albert Bandura?
He was a pioneer of observational learning. He showed that children will model observed behavior even if they don’t see the consequences of the observed behavior.
What are mirror neurons?
neurons that fire both when we perform a task and when we observe someone else performing the same task.
Persuasion: What is the elaboration likelihood model? What are its 3 factors of persuasion?
The elaboration likelihood model explains how someone will be persuaded based on the given circumstances.
- message characteristics: this is the content of persuasion
- source characteristics: this is superficial things, like the venue, the accent and look of the persuader, but also source credibility and knowledge
- target characteristics: this is the audience. Mood, intelligence, etc.
In the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion, what is the central and peripheral routes? When do they occur?
The central route = you will be persuaded by the content (message characteristics). This occurs if you are interested in what is being said and not distracted.
The peripheral route = you are persuaded by superficial things (source characteristics). This occurs if the above is not true.
The central route produces longer lasting change
What is reciprocal determinism?
Reciprocal determinism states that social factors and the social environment influence and are influenced by a person behavior.
i.e. people both shape and are shaped by their social environment.
What is temperament?
Temperament is a persons generalized behavior. It is their emotional excitability. People who have high temperament, get easily annoyed and vice versa.
t or f, If you IQ is below 70, you are considered intellectually disabled.
true
Primitive reflexes of infants: Explain moro reflex rooting sucking babinski tonic neck palmar grasp walking
moro reflex –> startle reflex to noise or movement
rooting –> babies turns its head toward direction of touch (root for the nipple)
sucking –> suck anything in its mouth
babinski –> toes move when sole of foot is touched
tonic neck –> moves arms when neck is touched
palmar grasp –> grasps things when palm is touched
walking –> tries to walk when held over ground
What are the 5 phases of motor development? Explain each briefly.
- reflexive movement = the primitive, involuntary reflexes (moro reflex, palmer reflex, etc.)
- rudimentrary movement = the first voluntary movement of a child (0-2). Things like rolling, crawling, etc.
- fundamental movement (2-7) = children can perform larger scale actions like running, jumping, and throwing.
- specialized movement
a. transitional = combining fundamental movements (jumping and throwing)
b. applicational = using cognition to apply a skill - life long application (14+).
What is infantile amnesia?
people cannot remember things from when they were infants (usually cannot remember anything before 3.5 years old)
Explain Harlow’s monkeys and attachment.
Harlow’s monkeys showed the importance of physical contact between the mother and offspring to develop attachment.
Monkeys were separated at birth and given a blanket for comfort. When blanket was taken away, the monkeys became very upset.
Mary Ainsworth conducted the “strange experiments” on children to test for attachment. What is securely attached and insecurely attached?
A securely attached child will explore an unfamiliar room while the mother is around. If the mother leaves, the child will be distressed.
An insecurely attached child will not explore the environment. When the mother leaves the child will either be very upset or indifferent.
attentive mothers make securely attached children.
Explain authoritarian, permissive, and authoritative parenting styles.
authoritarian - very demanding, very strict, non-responsive, less caring
permissive - very easy-going, lenient, consequences are not followed through, very loving
authoritative - in the middle. Kind and encouraging but also rule-enforcing with fair consequences.
What is encoding?
encoding is the process of actively entering information into our memory. (consolidation is an unconscious event that occurs through long term potentiation).
What is the serial position effect? What is the primacy and recency effect?
The serial position effect explains that when we try to remember a list of items, we tend to only remember the first items (had time to encode) and the last (still in the phonological loop).
primary effect = tendency to remember the first items heard
recency effect = tendency to remember the most recent items hear (i.e. last items)
What is the dual-coding hypothesis of memory?
It is easier to remember something if we encode both the words and a visual representation of the idea (to this sense both the phonological loop and visuospatial sketchpad are being used).
Dual-coding creates more networks in our brain.
What is the method of loci?
The method of loci is a memory strategy that employs the dual-coding hypothesis.
You assign things within a familiar environment with new information. You then use mental imagery of the environment to remember the topics you assigned.
What is the self-reference effect?
We tend to better remember information that is relevant to ourselves
Sensory memories: What is iconic and echoic memory?
iconic memory = transient photographic memory of things recently seen
echoic memory = transient auditory memory of things recently heard
What is the major difference between working memory and short term memory?
short term memory is where information goes that has been recently learned. Here it either goes to LTM or decays.
working memory is a combination of STM and LTM. It incorporates new information with encoded information to solve problems.
What is implicit memory? What is the key example?
implicit memory is memory that does not require conscious recall. Procedural memory is a form of this in which you remember how to carry out an activity (e.g. muscle memory).
What is explicit / declarative memory?
memory of things that can be consciously recalled and declared.
explicit memory has two forms, semantic and episodic. Explain them.
Semantic - active memory of logic and fact (academics)
episodic - active memory of things more personally experienced, such as buying your first car.
Memory organization: larger ideas / concepts are synaptic nodes while axons and dendrites are associations between nodes. What is spreading activation?
Upon receiving some stimulus (e.g. being asked a Q), if enough input is reached one node will fire and all of its associations will be activated. These associations will fire APs to all the surrounding nodes until those nodes summate and fire. This cycle goes on until the information being looked for is found. This is spreading activation.
What is prospective memory?
To remember to do things in the future
like remembering to take the food out the oven in 20 minutes
t or f, the hippocampus is involved in encoding explicit memories while the cerebellum is involved in encoding implicit memories. The amygdala encodes emotion to memories.
true
cerebellum would encode a procedural memory
hypothalamus would encode a memory of your first kiss (episodic memory)
What is anterograde and retrograde amnesia?
anterograde amnesia = inability to form new memories
retrograde amnesia = loss of old memories
t or f, the forgetting curve is linear
false! both learning and forgetting occur in a log (learning) or inverse (forgetting) graph.
memories can interfere with each other. Explain proactive interference, retroactive interference, and positive transfer.
proactive interference = when old information affects learning new information
retroactive interference = when new information affects remembering old information (new address affects remembering old address)
positive transfer = similar memory helps encode a new memory (opposite of proactive).
What is the misinformation effect?
The misinformation effect is the tendency to mis-remember an event after receiving subtle mis-information.
for example, asking people how fast cars were moving after they smashed each other (instead of hit each other) encourages people to say increased speeds.
Post-event information effects ones memory of the actual event.
What is source monitoring?
Source monitoring is an error in which, upon recalling information, an individual fails to remember the source of that information.
for example, explaining a memory that actually came from a movie and not a real experience.
The source of that memory is falsely attributed.
t or f, neurogenesis is possible
true! neuroplasticity refers to the malleability of the brain.. certain parts can even proliferate neurons.
