Chapter 1 Flashcards
data
Facts and figures from which conclusions can be inferred
Theory
A set of statements devised to explain a group of facts
Associationism (Aristotle)
The principle that memory depends on the formation of linkages between pairs of events, sensations, and ideas, such that recalling or experiencing one member of the pair elicits a memory or anticipation of the other.
Contiguity is one of 3 universal laws of ____ proposed by Aristotle, and it means…
Association; Nearness in time (temporal contiguity) or space (spatial contiguity)
Empiricism (from the Greek word Empiricus)
As Aristotle argued, all the ideas we have are the result of experience.
Nativism
As Plato has argued, the bulk of our knowledge is inborn.
Learning
The process by which changes in behavior arise as a result of an organism’s experience interacting with the world
Memory
The organism’s internal record of past experiences, acquired through learning
Psychology
The study of mind and behavior
Like Aristotle, James Williams also believed that most abilities and habits are formed by our ____, especially ____ in life.
Experiences; early
Stimulus
A sensory event that provides information about the outside world
Classical conditioning (also called Pavlovian conditioning)
A type of learning in which the organism learns to respond to a previously neutral stimulus that has been repeatedly presented along with a biologically significant stimulus.
Learning curve
A graph showing learning performance (the dependent variable) as a function of training time (the independent variable).
General trend of a learning curve
Learning starts off slowly, gets faster in the middle of the process, and later tapers off and again slows down
Independent variable
The factor that is manipulated in an experiment
Response
The behavioral consequence of perception of a stimulus
Dependent variable
In an experiment, the factor whose change is measured as an effect of changes in the independent variable
Extinction (Pavlov)
The process of reducing a learned response to a stimulus by ceasing to pair that stimulus with a reward or punishment
Generalization (Pavlov)
The transfer of past learning to novel events and problems
Operant conditioning (Edward Thorndike, instrumental conditioning)
The process whereby organisms learn to make responses in order to obtain or avoid important consequences
Law of effect (Thorndike)
The observation that the probability of a particular behavioral response increases or decreases depending on the consequences that have followed that response.
Descartes, like Plato, believed that what we know is ____
Inborn
Dualism (Descartes)
The principle that the mind and body exist as separate entities
Reflex arc
An automatic pathway from a sensory stimulus to a motor response
Behaviorism (John Watson)
A school of thought that says psychology should restrict itself to the study of observable behaviors (such as level presses, salivation, and other measurable actions) and not seek to infer unobservable mental processes
Radical behaviorism (B.F.Skinner)
An extreme form of behaviorism holding that consciousness and free will are illusions and that even so-called higher cognitive functions are merely complex sets of stimulus-response associations.
Evolution (Darwin)
Living species change over time, with new traits or characteristics emerging and being passed down from one generation to the next; natural selection is one mechanism by which evolution occurs
Natural selection
A proposed mechanism for evolution which holds that species evolve when there is some trait that is inheritable, varies naturally across individuals, and increases an individual’s “fitness”, or chance of survival and reproductive success.
Cognitive map (Edward Tolman)
An internal psychological representation of the spatial layout of the external world.
Latent learning (Tolman)
Learning that takes place even when there is no specific motivation to obtain or avoid a specific consequence, such as food or shock; remains undetected (latent) until explicitly demonstrated at a later stage
Forgetting (Herman Ebbinghaus)
The loss or deterioration of memory over time
Retention curve (Ebbinghaus)
Measures how much information is retained at each point in time following learning
General trend of a retention curve
Retention drops quickly in the first few days, and then tapers off more slowly with increasing delays
Hypothesis
A supposition made on the basis of limited evidence as a starting point for further investigation
Subject bias
The influence a subject’s prior knowledge or expectations can have (consciously or unconsciously) on the outcome of an experiment
Blind design
An experimental design in which the participants do not know the hypothesis being tested or whether they are, for example, receiving an experimental treatment or a placebo
Experimenter bias
The influence an experimenter’s prior knowledge or expectations can have (consciously or unconsciously) on the outcome of an experiment
Double blind design
Experimental design in which neither the participant nor the experimenter knows which participants is getting which treatment or intervention.
Placebo
An inactive substitute that looks just like the real drug
Mathematical psychology (W.K. Estes)
A subfield of psychology that uses mathematical equations to describe the laws of learning and memory
Connectionist models (David Rumelhart)
Models that represent learning and other thought processes as networks of connections between simple processing units called nodes
Distributed representation (David Rumelhart)
A representation in which information is coded as a pattern of activation distributed across many different nodes
