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PSYC 2330 > chapter 1 > Flashcards

chapter 1 Flashcards

1
Q

who was the first associationist?

A

Greek philosopher Aristotle

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2
Q

what are Aristotle’s 3 principals?

A
  • contiguity
  • similarity
  • contrast
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3
Q

explain contiguity

A

the more related 2 things are (in time or space) the more the thought of one will influence the thought of the other.

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4
Q

example of contiguity

A

lightening and thunder
chair and table

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5
Q

explain similarity

A

thinking of one concept leads to thinking of another that is similar to it.

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6
Q

example of similarity

A

apple and orange
blue and green
pink and red

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7
Q

explain contrast

A

thought of an item leads to thought of its opposite

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8
Q

some British associationists are…

A
  • John Locke (1690 )
  • James Mill (1829 )
  • John Stuart Mill
    (1843 )
    (they are Empiricists)
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9
Q

what is the Empiricists belief?

A

everyone gains knowledge from experience
everything we know and every idea that is had is all from past experience

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10
Q

what is the opposite of Empiricism?

A

Nativism

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11
Q

what is Nativism?

A

some ideas and knowledge are innate and not learnt from experience
(this is more supported)

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12
Q

what hypotheses did the British Empiricists offer about how old concepts become associated in memory and how new concepts are formed?

A

there is a direct correlation between experience and memory- experience is based on sensations while memory on ideas.
sensory experiences can be broken down into simple sensations; later the memory of the experience would consist of the broken down sensations.
after a repeated pairing of the simple sensations an association is formed between them.
thus when one sensation is presented ideas of both would be perceived due to the association.

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13
Q

who proposed complex and duplex ideas?

A

James Mill (1829)

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14
Q

what is a complex idea?

A

the union of if two or more simple sensations are repeatedly presented together.

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15
Q

what is a duplex idea?

A

complex ideas could themselves combine to form larger duplex ideas.

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16
Q

who was the first to put the Associationists’ principles to an experimental test?

A

Hermann Ebbinghaus (1885)

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17
Q

what was the biggest problem in Hermann Ebbinghaus’ research?

A

he conducted his experiments on himself which could lead to bias.

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18
Q

what is overlearning?

A

continuous practice after already perfect performance.

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19
Q

explain Hermann Ebbinghaus’ research.

A

he would continuously repeat nonsense syllables out loud and test himself periodically. then he would record how many repetitions it took for him to recite the list perfectly. after some time he would repeat the process and calculate the difference in repetitions needed.

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20
Q

what Associationists’ principle did this experiment test?

A

2 of Thomas
Brown’s principles
- that the frequency of pairings affects the strength of an association. (frequency)
- The more recently two items have been
paired, the stronger the association between them. (recency)

Aristotle’s principle of contiguity.

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21
Q

how did his research prove the frequency theory?

A

with enough repetition he could recite his list perfectly

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22
Q

how did his research test and prove the recency theory?

A

he varied the time lengths between each study and test.
from a 20 mins time lapse to up to 1 month.
using a forgetting curve he showed how passing of time is detrimental to a memory performance task.

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23
Q

how does his forgetting curve show the relationship between time and memory?

A

it shows that the rate of forgetting in the first few minutes after studying is faster than the rate of forgetting a week later.

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24
Q

how did his research test and prove Aristotle’s principle?

A
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25
Q

what are the 2 most notable characteristics of the behavioral approach?

A
  • extensive use of animal subjects
  • emphasis on external events (environmental stimuli and overt behaviors) and a reluctance to make assumptions about unseen internal processes of the organism.
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26
Q

what is a subject effect?

A

when the ppl participating in the research change their behaviour because they know someone (the psychologist) is watching.

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27
Q

why do researchers in this field frequently choose to conduct their experiments with
nonhuman subjects?

A
  • subject effect is more likely seen in humans.
    most animals are studied in a way where they are not aware they are being studied.
  • animals are more convenient and easily cared for in a lab.
    it is easier to source animals with the specific characteristics needed.
  • their consent is also not needed.
    -they are less complex but still similar enough to humans.
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28
Q

what is the difference between behavioral psychologists and cognitive psychologists?

A

cognitive psychologists are mostly interested in complex abilities unique to humans.
behavioral psychologists more interested in learning about shared abilities between species.

29
Q

what are the 3 R’s to ensure animal safety in psychological research?

A
  • Replacement (using a non-animal model or lower animal model),
  • Reduction (strategies to use fewer animals)
  • Refinement (modifying procedures to reduce pain and distress).
30
Q

other ways to ensure animal safety are…

A

enough food and water; clean and well-maintained living environments with appropriate temperature, humidity, and lighting conditions; and continuous veterinary care.

31
Q

what is behaviorism?

A

based on the idea that all behaviour is gotten through conditioning which happens due to interactions with the environment.
our actions are determined by environmental stimuli.

32
Q

who is often called the first behaviorist?

A

John B. Watson (1919

33
Q

explain introspection.

A

reflecting on, reporting, and analyzing one’s own mental processes.
could lead to bias and inaccuracies.
its very subjective.

34
Q

according to watson, what are the observable events in psychology?

A

the stimuli felt and responses made.

35
Q

what did B. F.
Skinner criticize in psychological research?

A

the use of unobservable events in psychological theories.
he argued that it is dangerous and unnecessary determine that an unobservable event, or intervening
variable, is the cause of behavior.

36
Q

what did Neal Miller and B. F.
Skinner disagree on?

A

whether or not intervening variables are always undesirable.
Miller suggested that intervening variables are often
useful when several independent and dependent variables are involved.
while Skinner insists that they are always undesirable.

37
Q

what is the major function of neurons?

A

to transmit info.

38
Q

what are the main components of a neuron?

A

cell body
dendrites
axons

39
Q

where is the nucleus on the neuron and what is its function?

A

in the cell body.
regulates metabolic functions; intake of O2 and co2.

40
Q

what is the relationship between the stimulation a neuron gets and its firing rate?

A

the more info or stimulation a neuron gets the faster it fires.

41
Q

what is the flow of activity of a single neuron?

A

info received by dendrites into cell body, flows down the axons and to the terminal buttons which release neurotransmitters into the synapse to stimulate the next neuron.

42
Q

what is a synapse?

A

gab between 2 neurons (axon of postsynaptic neuron and axon terminal of presynaptic neuron).

43
Q

what is an excitatory synapse?

A

where the transmitter released makes the postsynaptic neuron more likely to fire.

44
Q

what is an inhibitory synapse?

A

where the transmitter released makes the postsynaptic neuron less likely to fire.

45
Q

what Associationists theory been uniformly supported by subsequent brain research?

A

the hypothesis that our sensory systems analyze our complex stimulating environment by breaking it down into “simple sensations.”

46
Q

what is a receptor?

A

The nervous system’s only contact with environmental stimuli.
they are specialized neurons.

47
Q

explain the visual system’s receptors?

A

light sensitive receptors are on the retina in the eye.
light entering the eye is focused by the cornea and lens and is projected onto the retina. A mini inverted image is focused on the retina, which lines the inside
surface of the eyeball.

48
Q

explain the function of cones.

A

they are receptors in the retina.
different cones are sensitive to different colors in the visible light spectrum.
the 3 cones in the human eye are red, blue and green cones.
using there 3 cones we can differentiate between colours because colours produce different patterns of activity in the three types of cones.

49
Q

what type of receptors does the skin have and what are they sensitive to?

A

a variety of tactile receptors some sensitive to pressure, some to pain, some to different temperatures.

50
Q

how does the auditory system take in stimuli?

A

single neurons are tuned to particular sound
frequencies so that one neuron might be most sensitive to a tone with a frequency of 1,000 cycles/
second.
This neuron would be less sensitive to tones of higher or lower pitches.

51
Q

how does the gustatory (taste) system take in stimuli?

A

it can be decomposed into four simple tastes:
sour
salty
bitter
sweet
(and possibly a fifth, savory).
Some very exacting experiments by von Bekesy (1964,1966) showed that individual taste receptors on the tongue are responsive to only one of these simple tastes.

52
Q

who found feature detectors?

A

research, Hubel and Wiesel (1965,1979)

53
Q

what are feature detectors?

A

neurons that respond to specific visual stimuli.

54
Q

what are simple cells?

A

neurons in the visual cortex that fire fastest with lines in specific angles…….so they respond to angles……crazy.

55
Q

how did Hubel and Wiesel discover simple cells?

A
56
Q

what is long term potentiation?

A

-when excitatory synapses increase in strength due to electrical stimulation.
-can last for weeks or months.
-some investigators say that it may be a basic process in which learning experiences change the brain.
-There is growing evidence that it may play a role in the learning of new associations ( Wang & Morris, 2010 ).

57
Q

where has long term potentiation been observed?

A
  • human brain tissue removed during the course of surgical procedures (Chen et al., 1996)
  • the intact brains of humans (Heidegger, Krakow, & Ziemann, 2010).
58
Q

where does long term potentiation occur in the brain?

A

in brain areas that function to store long-term memories, like the hippocampus and cerebral cortex.

59
Q

What type of chemical changes could cause an increase in the strength of a synaptic connection?

A
  • due to a learning experience, the presynaptic neuron axon terminal develops the ability to release more transmitter.

-the the postsynaptic neuron cell membrane becomes more sensitive to the transmitter, so it has more of a response to the same amount of transmitter.

60
Q

what are some evidences for the hypothesis that new synapses are developed as a result of experience?

A

Rosenzweig and his colleagues (Rosenzweig, 1966; Rosenzweig, Mollgaard, Diamond, & Bennet, 1972) conducted experiments in which animals were exposed to different environments to see how their brains were influenced.
some young rats were placed in a highly stimulating environment and their brains (especially the cerebral cortex) were significantly larger than the rats places in impoverished environments.
they also had more dendrites (more synaptic connections) and synapses with larger surfaces.

61
Q

what influences growth in the cerebral cortex?

A

a lot of different learning experiences.
learning experiences can produce growth in brain tissue.

62
Q

what are some studies that show growth in cerebral cortex?

A
  • rats learning mazes (Lerch et al., 2011)
  • people learning to juggle (Draganski et al., 2004).
63
Q

what did Spinelli, Jensen, and DiPrisco (1980) study and prove?

A

they trained young kittens to flex one foreleg to avoid a shock to that leg.
After a few sessions, there was a increase in
the amount of dendritic branching in the cortex area controlling the movement of that foreleg.

this proved that short learning experiences can create substantial increases in the number, size, and complexity of synaptic connections.

64
Q

what was Karl Lashley’s (1950) research and conclusion?

A

he trained rats to run through a maze, removed different sections (from different rats) of their cerebral cortex, and tested to see if they remembered the maze.
it was unsuccessful because when a small section of cortex was removed, this had no effect on a rat’s maze performance, no matter which section was removed.
but when a larger section of cortex was removed, the rat performed badly in the maze, no matter which section was removed. Lashley concluded that memories are stored diffusely throughout the brain and that removing small sections of the
brain will not remove the memory.

65
Q

explain localised memories

A

the information about individual concepts or ideas is localized, or stored in small, specific sections of the brain. Some psychologists suggested that the cerebral cortex may hv many unused neurons.
Through an animal’s learning experiences, some of these neurons might respond selectively to a particular complex object (Konorski, 1967).

Better evidence for localized memories comes from people who suffered damage to small brain sections of due brain injury which produces a wide range of psychological or physical problems, but in a few ppl the result was a loss of very specific information.

66
Q

example of localised memories

A

after an animal has sees an apple, some
cortical neuron might develop excitatory inputs from detectors responsive to the apple’s color, shape, smell, etc. thus, an animal that had no complex idea of an apple might develop the ability to recognize apples because of experience.

66
Q

how does Penfield (1959) research localised memories?

A

he electrically stimulated areas of the cerebral cortex of human patients during brain surgery.
When small areas of the cortex were stimulated, his patients, who were anesthetized but awake,
reported a lot of vivid sensations, like hearing a specific piece of music or experiencing the sights and sounds of a circus.

67
Q

give examples of ppl who lost specific memories from brain injuries.

A

one man had difficulty naming any fruit or vegetable,
whereas he had no trouble identifying any other types of objects ( Hart, Berndt, & Caramazza, 1985 ).

Another person could not name objects typically found in a room, such as furniture and walls ( Yamadori & Albert, 1973 ).

Another could no longer remember the names of well-known celebrities, but he had no problem with the names of other famous people, such as historical and
literary figures ( Lucchelli, Muggia, & Spinnler, 1997 ).

There is also evidence from brain-imaging
studies that specific but different areas of the brain are activated when people look at pictures of
animals versus pictures of tools ( Chouinard & Goodale, 2010)

PSYC 2330 (7 decks)

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