6-Learning, Biology and the Brain Flashcards
3 requirements for natural selection to occur
- all individuals of a species vary behaviourally and physiologically
- some variations are heritable genetically
- intraspecies competition for important resources
Taste aversion learning
description + what is in an example of
An organism learns to avoid a specific food after a single negative experience with it
example of an adaptive mechanism
One-trial aquisition
description + example
when a single pairing of a stimulus and response triggers a learned association
eg: taste aversion learning - getting food poisoning once causes a person to avoid the food, as they now associate it with illness
Delayed Conditioning
description + example
When a conditioned response is formed despite a significant delay between the conditioned and unconditioned stimuli
eg: taste aversion learning - can get an aversion to a specific food even when illness occurs hours or even a day after consumption
study hindbrain, midbrain and forebrain sections from 1FF3
Hindbrain
- medulla oblongata
- pons
- cerebellum
Midbrain
- tectum
- tegmentum
Forebrain
- diencephalon
- telencephalon
- basal ganglia
- limbic system
H.M. case study
injury + treatment + results
injury: bicycle accident eventually led to epileptic seizures
treatment: removed portions of temporal lobes, hippocampus and parahippocampal gyrus
results: unable to form new memories but his prior memories were intact (eg: language, childhood experiences…)
Long term potentiation (LTP)
description
When synapses are strengthened - postsynaptic neuron can more easily respond to signals from the presynaptic neuron
Can be triggered via high frequency neural stimulation
Long term depression (LTD)
When synapses are weakened - postsynaptic neuron response is reduced/inhibited to signals from the presynaptic neuron
Can be triggered via low frequency neural stimulation
Habituation vs Sensitization
Habituation
- reduced neural response (LTD)
- eg: no longer reacting strongly to a pain stimulus
Sensitization
- strengthened neural response (LTP)
- eg: developing a strong and fast fear response to loud noises
learning
Blocking
definition + experiment + results
When a previous CS conditioning process prevents conditioning to another CS
experiment with rats:
- control: no previous training
- blocking: conditioned noise –> shock
- both groups undergo conditioning: noise + light –> shock
- both groups shown the light, response measured
results:
- control: learned that light –> shock (froze, showing fear response)
- blocking: did not learn light –> shock (behaved normally when light presented)
4 forms of learning
list
- Perceptual
- Stimulus-Response
- Motor
- Relational
Perceptual learning
description + example
Recognizing and locating people, objects and other stimuli in our environment. Includes recognizing changes in familiar stimuli and recognizing entirely new stimuli
eg: learning to recognize your friends’ faces, noticing they got a haircut…
Stimulus-Response learning
description + example
Learning an automatic response to a stimulus (classical conditioning)
eg: locking the door after you leave the house
Motor learning
description + example
Coordinated movements or integration of sensory input and motor output (muscle memory) (instrumental conditioning)
eg: speaking, playing instruments, sports…
Relational learning
long term memories???
girly i don’t get it
Broken drawings and HM
what happened + what does it show
HM showed an improvement in identifying objects represented by broken drawings that he’d seen before, despite being unable to recall he had seem them before
Shows that his implicit memory (nondeclarative) was intact, despite his lack of explicit memory (declarative)
what is nondeclarative memory?
also called implicit memory
memory formation that does not depend on the hippocampus
includes perceptual, stimulus-response and motor memory
which brain structure is believed to “store” memories?
the ventromedial prefrontal cortex
How does the relative activity between the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and the hippocampus change after learning?
VMPC: starts low while memory of learning is explicit, activity increases as memory of learning becomes implicit
Hippocampus: starts high and decreases as the explicit context behind the learning is forgotten
