Basic psychology Flashcards
What is sensory memory?
A super acute memory store of a particular modality processed by sense organs - commonest iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory).
Information that is attended to is transferred to the short-term memory store and that that is not attended to is quickly lost
A patient who keeps going to slot machine with the hope of winning big - when he wins what is the operant conditioning mechanism?
Variable ratio - he is rewarded after a random number of responses then again after a further random number of responses
How does reciprocal inhibition try to lead to improved emotional/behavioural response?
By the principle of trying to ameliorate a feeling with the presence of the opposite
i.e provide ice cream if a fear response is there
Happiness and fear cannot co-exist
What is habit-reversal training?
Useful in tics or trichotillomania - here the patient learns awareness of the urge to the behaviour then a competing behaviour
What is operant conditioning?
Designed to increase a positive behaviour being performed by giving a stimulus immediately after
Positive reinforcement - pleasant stimulus immediately after added
Negative reinforcement - aversive or bad stimulus removed
Can be reinforced continuously or intermittently like a slot machine (intermittent reinforcement develops behaviour resistant to extinction) or Partial reinforcement behaviours are acquired more slowly and extinguish slower.
What are Piagets basic building blocks of learning?
Schema (use of past experience to understand future experiences) - can be physical like riding a bike or mental like addition, multiplication etc
How do compulsions exhibit their effects?
Through negative reinforcement - a stimulus is presented to remove anxiety. Ritualistic avoidance
The behaviour is repeated more because of this
How do elaborative and maintenance rehearsal differ?
Elaborative rehearsal refers to deep processing to allow information to be stored in long term memory it includes forming associations or groupings
Maintenance rehearsal describes the processing that prevents information from leaving short term memory i.e. repeating a phone number again and again while finding a pen
Which emotions are characterised by high and low temperatures?
High:
- Anger
Low:
- Fear and disgust
What is the name given to bringing a complete memory into conscious awareness from a partial cue e.g. remembering the memory of hearing a song from the first sounds?
Reintegration
Outline Plutchik’s eight basic emotions and if you can give examples of the secondary emotions that come from combinations of them?
Anticipation - Surprise
Joy - Sadness
Acceptance - Disgust
Anger - Fear
Secondary emotions arise from a mix of primary emotions
Joy + Acceptance = Love
Joy + Anticipation = Optimisim
Sadness + Suprise = Disappointment
Outline the steps of cognitive processing in the social learning of behaviour
- Attention to observed behaviour
- Visual and semantic encoding of observed behaviour
- Memory permanence via retention and rehearsal
- Motor imitation and practice
- Motivation to act
Who proposed the filter theory of attention and what does it describe?
David Broadbent proposed the filter theory for attention
He felt a central processor is responsible for selecting which sensory input is attended to. This central processor can switch channel but not more than twice a second. He also felt that information in the unattended channel can only remain there for a few seconds.
This filtering act of the central processor describes the buffer/barrier that exists between sensory and short term/working memory
In phobic desensitisation, what is imaginary flooding termed?
Implosion
Name the mechanisms of forgetting and which are most common?
Failure of encoding at the time of input
Failure of transfer from short to long term memory
Failure of retrieval - most common!
What is failure of prospective memory?
A failure of intention - when an individual fails to remember that something needs to be carried out in the future (a predefined time) and what it is
i.e. absent mindedness - when someone forgets to remember appointments/medication etc
What is the optimum time interval in operant conditioning?
< 0.5 seconds - immediacy
> 5 seconds - experiments by Skinner failure to show any learning
What symptoms are present in Korsakoff’s?
Confabulation
Anterograde amnesia
Retrograde amnesia
Some psychotic features
Differs from Wernicke’s in timing but also Wernicke’s describes ataxia, opthalmoplegia and altered mental state
Who proposed 6 basic emotions of anger, disgust, fear, joy, suprise, sadness?
Paul Ekman
Name Gestalts principle of perception?
Proximity
Closure
Similarity
Symmetry
Continuity
Gestalt principles describes the process that our brains do to perceive whole unified objects rather than unconnected images
- the whole is perceived first (good ecological validity for 2D images less for 3D)
What is the Ebbinghaus curve?
Showed the rate of forgetting of non-sense syllables over a period of time - after 9 hours there is a sharp rate of forgetting with reductions in recall declining after this.
His other experiments showed that forgetting is never complete and some is remembered, that recall during a test period increases chance of remembering and that continuous motor skills i.e. swimming/cycling show no forgetting compared to intermittent motor skills i.e. typing
Eyesneck’s personality traits were?
He proposed a three factor theory
Psychoticism-impulse control
Extraversion-introversion
Neuroticism-stability
These dimensions are very heritable
For Rorschach inkblot test is it structured or unstructured?
Unstructured as there is almost an infinite variety of responses an individual can give
What is the Brown-Peterson task?
Listen to three items - then a distractor task i.e. count backwards from 10, then recall three items again
You can only play tunes if you revise first - what is the principle behind this guidance?
Premack principle - the idea that a preferred task will motivate/reinforce an unfavoured task from taking place
With regards to short term memory what is chunking?
Chunking is the act of grouping or combining units of information to make it easier to remember and recall - it allows the individual to bypass the limited capacity of working memory
Miller proposed it
What is the least developed sensory system at birth?
Vision!
Group theories of motivation into:
a) Socio-psychological
b) Humanistic
c) Physiological
a) Needs theory (intrinsic theory) - includes McCelland’s needs theory (need for achievement, affiliation and power) and Deci and Maclaren’s needs theory (need for competition, relatedness and autonomy)
b) Maslow’s hierarchy of needs
c) Homeostatic theory (Cannon), Drive reduction (Hull), Arousal reduction (Hebb)
What area of the brain is largely responsible for short term memory?
Dorsolateral prefrontal cortex
Describe the capacity of sensory memory?
Large capacity but includes unprocessed memories of short duration < 0.5 seconds
What is a flash-bulb memory?
The vivid recall of autobiographical memories associated with emotional arousal - however they’re accuracy cannot be assumed
Does situation specific amnesia occur in adjustment disorder?
No
What are the three abilities that make up Sternberg’s triadic theory of intelligence?
Creative
Physical
Analytical
CPA
Outline three types of non-associative learning?
Habituation - repeated exposure to a stimulus leads to decreased response
Sensitisation - repeated exposure to a stimulus results in increased response
Pseudoconditioning - emergence of a learned response to a previous neutral stimulus due to exposure of a powerful different stimulus
Outline the three types of associative learning?
Classical conditioning
- Occurs through the temporal pairing of stimuli
- The learning individual is passive and respondent i.e. the learning is an innate reflex
Operant conditioning
- Learning through learning the consequences of a response - an operation
- Here the individual is instrumental as they actively operate in the environment
Social learning theory:
- Combines both operant and classical conditioning and includes cognitive processes and a social interaction
In classical conditioning with Pavlov’s dogs what is
a) Conditioned stimulus
b) Unconditioned stimulus
c) Unconditioned response
d) Conditioned response
a) Bell - it is conditioned as normally a bell does not illicit salivation
b) Food - food does not require conditioning to illicit salivation
c) UCR - salivation - occurs naturally
d) CR - refers to when salivation occurs following only the conditioned stimulus (bell)
The process of developing an association between conditioned stimulus and unconditioned response - acquisition
Differentiate
a) Forward or delayed conditioning
b) Backward conditioning
c) Simultaneous
d) Trace conditioning
a) CS (bell) appears first, then UCS (food) - both continue until salivation
b) UCS (food) appears first then the bell - doesn’t work with animals, used in advertising
c) Both CS and UCS come together - most common in real life
d) CS then removed and a pause before UCS presented - depends on a trace of the memory
What did Rescoria show with regards to conditioning?
That predictiveness (i.e could you predict the nature of the UCS stimulus from the CS) is more important than temporal contiguity (< 0.5 ms)
For animals only awareness is needed for facilitation
