Chapter 1: The Psychology of Learning and Memory Flashcards
What is learning?
Process by which changes in behavior arise as a result of experience interacting with the world.
What is memory?
The record of our past experiences, acquired through learning
What were Aristotle’s two main ideas?
empiricism associationism
What is associationism?
Aristotle’s Theory; memory depends on formation of linkages between pairs of events, sensations, ideas so that recalling or experiencing one member of the pair elicits a memory or anticipation of the other ex: hot, cold chair, table
3 Principles of Association?
- contiguity 2. frequency 3. similarity SFC (SanFran, Calif)
Contiguity?
Nearness in time and space temporal, spatial contiguity linked together. “Chair”, “table” linked because we see them together.
Frequency
more we experience events that are contiguous, more strongly we associate them -more we see table and chairs together, the stronger the association becomes
Similarity
Two things similar, the thought or sensation of one will trigger the other, chairs and tables made of wood, both found in the kitchen, both function associated with eating meals
Aristotle concluded that?
contiguity, frequency, similarity- basic ways humans organize sensations and ideas
Empiricism?
all ideas we have are a result of experience. newborn’s mind: blank slate
Nativism?
Plato. Bulk of knowledge is inborn, acquired through past lifetimes of our external souls Republic: idealized society in which people’s innate differences in skills, abilities, and talents form basis for their fixed roles in life; some rule while others serve
nativism vs empiricism same as?
nature vs nurture argument
Descartes believed in?
Dualism–the principle that the mind and body exist as separate entities each with different characteristics governed by their own laws. body: self regulating machine
hollow areas-animal spirits in ventricles allow body to move about-for every action there must be a stimulus
every structure-has duplicate besides pineal gland-pineal gland-involved in movement
Cogito ergo sum
I think therefore i am. Only evidence he himself even existed was his ability to to think.
According to Descartes how did the body work?
process begins when stimulus- sensory event from the outside world, enters the system light reflected off a bird enters the eye as a visual stimulus- stimulus causes fluids (spirits) to flow through hollow tubes from the eyes to the brain and then to be reflected back as an outgoing motor response (behavior)
Descartes- ideas on reflexes were wrong, but…
first to show how the body might be understood through the same mechanical principles that underlies physical machinery
Descartes was a _______
nativist much of what we know is innate
Locke was inspired by Newton to?
Newton– white light can be refracted into component colors by prism lens -Locke hoped to show that the mind can be broken down into elements that when combined produced the whole of consciousness. complex ideas similarly formed from combination of more elementary ideas that are passively acquired through the senses. “red”, “sweet”– acquired automatically by our senses of sight and taste- “cherry” (more complex-acquired by combining simpler components)
According to Locke- how is knowledge acquired?
experience and experience alone tabula rasa worth not determined at birth -influenced Dec. of ind
Leibneiz?
3/4 knowledge acquired, 1/4 born and innate habits, potential for success or failure, predispositions—->inborn and innate
William James
1st psychologist -saw soldier- most abilities and habits formed by experiences early in life -associationist remembering event like a dinner party would would involve multiple connections-web
Eramus Darwin
Proponent of the theory of evolution—i.e., descent with modification Could not suggest a mechanism by which evolution occurs
offspring had changes that couldn’t be described
Darwin
Galapagos islands- peaks ideal for islands habitat
Lamarck
traits passed on based on circumstance/experience– ex giraffes has baby-neck a bit longer based on exertion of parent
natural selection
proposed mechanism for how evolution occurs
accounts for descent with modification
according to Darwin species evolve when:
- inheritable-can be passed down 2. trait must vary-have a range of forms among the individual members of the species 3. must make individual more fit- increase reproductive success
L/M Darwin implications?
-behavioral traits could evolve through natural selection- evolutionary psychology- learning impt for survival more capacity for L/M—>better able to survive
Galton
- ” a man’s natural abilities are dervied by inheritance
- rejected Locke and Aristotle’s view about blank slate
- normal distribution
- assessed efficacy of prayer-correlational study- royals and nonroyals
didn’t think about confounds
Who introduced the term Eugenics? what did it do?
Galton
forbade some ppl from having children
if ns, survival of the fittest are the case, should prevent breeding of lower individuals
Mechanism for evolution?
survival of the fittest
Fechner
irregularities in how ppl perceive variations in stimuli-math equation could describe physical world and psychological world
Ebbinghaus
-learning and forgetting curve
what does the forgettig curve show?
- short time savings if delay between learning and relearning is short
- most forgetting occurs early on-if memory survives few hours after learning-there’s little additional forgetting
independent variable?
-carefully manipulated
Ex: length of delay between learning and relearning
dependent variable
memory retention
Pavlov
digestion and dogs
-classical conditioning
extinction: pairing with absence of food
generalization
Thorndike-
how cats learn how to escape puzzle boxes
Law of Effect; desirable consequence- increase response
undesirable consequence- response decreased
instrumental/operant conditioning (organism’s behavior is instrumental in determining whether the consequence occurs)
Behaviorism
built on work of Pavlov, Thorndike
founder: Watson
Empiricist
“give me a dozen healthy infants, well formed, and my own world to bring them up in”
little albert; classical conditioning
used research in marketing
Skinner
Radical behaviorism
Skinner Box
intermittent reinforcement- learned to respond as quickly and frequently
Walden 2-desirable behaviors maintained through regimen
what is radical behaviorism?
conciousness and free will are illusions
humans function by blindly preoducing pre-programmed responses
-skinner
Tolman
Watson-mechanical approach that described rat learning as forming connections between stimuli and responses
Neo-behaviorism
–rats learning something more-had goals and incentives
intrinsically motivated to learn layout of mazes by cognitve maps
“behavior reeks of purpose”
rats freely explored maze, then put food reward, learned to find food faster than rats not exposed to the maze, latent learning- learning takes place when their is no specific motivation to obtain or avoid specific consequence. before behaviorists thought learning reflected stimulus response associations
The cognitive revolution
behaviorism failed to explain language, perception, reasoning, memory
focus on human abilities
before language had been explained by stimulus response associateions
Chomsky shredded Skinner’s ideas
in normal environment acquire language- brain is ready to accept it
Estes
bombs in England, everyone stops then resumes, emotion can affect how we learn and remember
Miller
information theory -how much info contained-based not only on message but on listeners prior knowledge
ex- student named chris is male- if everyone male-no new info, if coed- two alternative states
memory for numbers 7 plus or minus 2
Rumelhart responsible for?
connectionist models
How are ideas and concepts in the external world represented in connectionist models?
-ideas and concepts in external world are not represented as distinct and discrete symbols but as patterns of activity over populations of many nodes
ex-golden retriever might be represented by one pattern of activaton across a set of nodes, cocker spaniel might be represented by a different pattern
distributed representation
-information consists of activation of many different nodes-distributed across many nodes rather than represented by just one
in connectionist model-the similarity of spaniels to retrievers emerges because they activate common elements- the “dog” elements coded by where their representations overlap
Symbol manipulation model
Created by Herbert Simon, father of A.I.
- Learning is not based associations, but manipulation of symbols
- So machines could learn like us
Reflexes-Descartes
reflexes- hydraulic movements caused by spirits flowing from brain into muscles
Maine de Biran
Memory can be divided into three forms:
-Representative memory: can think and relive prior experience (facts and events)
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-Mechanical memory: movement learning through repetition (habits)
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-Sensitive memory: emotional memory
