Chapter 17 - Learning Flashcards
What is the definition of learning?
Relatively permanent change in organism’s behaviour as result of experience
What is the definition of memory?
Ability to recall or recognize previous experience
Mental representation of previous experience
What does a memory reflect?
Change in the brain
What is classical conditioning?
Animals learn to associate a neutral stimulus with a biologically relevant stimulus
What part of the brain is involved with freeze conditioning?
Amygdala
What is operant conditioning?
Animals learn that its actions have consequences
Problem solving!
How is learning displayed in operant conditioning?
Response rate and speed of task performance
What was Thorndyke’s operant task?
Cat in box - perform tasks to get out and get reward
What can a Skinner box be used for?
Classical and operant conditioning
What type of Skinner box setups can there be?
Lights, sounds, shocks, bar presses, rewards
What is the Morris Water maze?
Mouse starts at different locations and finds hidden escape platform under water
Needs to remember location of platform
What does the Morris Water maze test?
Spatial memory
How can the water maze display variation?
1) Move platform on next day
2) Platform with visual cue
With the water maze, what is observed with trial 1 and 2?
Trial 1 is slow each day but trial 2 and onward is faster on subsequent days
What is a learning set?
Understanding how problem can be solved through use of rules that can apply in variety of situations
How is the learning set applicable to the water maze?
Rat learns there is a platform and that it’s same for the day, not just the location
What is involved with landmark learning in a water maze?
Platform moved after each trial but always same relative to a local cue
What are two types of learning?
1) Explicit (Declarative)
2) Implicit (Procedural)
What does explicit learning entail?
Conscious learning
What does implicit learning entail?
Unconscious learning
How is implicit learning reflected?
In improvement in performance (e.g. pursuit rotor task/ star tracing task)
What type of learning is priming?
Implicit
What is the Gollin Figure Task?
Prevent subject with progressively clearer images until they can identify the object (subsequent presentations can be identified sooner)
How do you get an animal to “tell” you what it knows?
Behavior
When a rat goes to the platform in the water maze, what does this show?
Explicit knowledge of location
When a rat searches for a platform, what type of learning does this show?
Implicit knowledge of learning set
Explicit memory is encoded in what manner?
Top-down manner
In explicit memory, what does the cortex create?
Mental representation of the goal
Implicit memory is encoded how?
The way information is perceived, bottom-up
Does implicit memory involve a passive or active role in encoding?
Passive
How is implicit memory processed differently than explicit memory?
Different brain areas- less cortical involvement
What are sensory modalities?
Visual and auditory memories processed in different ways
Short term memories involve which lobes?
Frontal
Long term memories involve which lobes?
Temporal lobes (long-term storage of verbal memories)
Long term memories involve which lobes?
Temporal lobes (long-term storage of verbal memories)
Who was Henry Molaison?
Patient who suffered from severe epilepsy so he had surgery to remove source of seizures
What type of lobectomy did HM have?
Bilateral temporal (Hippocampus, amygdala, associated cortical structures)
What did HM display after the surgery?
Permanent anterograde amnesia but functional implicit memory and normal short term memory
In patient NA, what parts of the brain were damaged through fencing foil?
Thalamus and maxillary bodies (medial diencephalon)
What was observed in patient NA?
Anterograde amnesia
What characteristic does a patient with Korsakoff’s Disease display?
Failure to recall previous experience
Distorted memories to account for memory problems
What is Korsakoff caused by?
Lack of thiamine
Normal temporal lobes and hippocampus
What damage is seen in those with Korsakoff’s Disease?
Mammillary bodies
Dorsomedial thalamus
What did patient JK show a deficit in?
Implicit memory - couldn’t remember how to do simple tasks
Patient JK showed a lack of _____ input to which part of the brain?
Dopamine, basal ganglia
What is the explicit memory circuit?
Cortex feeds into:
1) Parahippocampal cortex (visuospatial input) and Perirhinal cortex (visual input)
2) Entorhinal cortex
4) Hippocampus
True or false. Information is bidirectional.
True
Why is information bidirectional?
Keeps sensory experience alive
Neocortex is informed that info. is processed in MTL
Which task is hippocampal dependent: Visual recognition task or object position task?
Object position task
Chickadees gather and hide seeds. This is known as…
Seed caching
Chickadees compared to house sparrows have what?
Larger hippocampus
People with frontal lobe damage cannot remember what?
Temporal orders or seqences
People with frontal lobe damage cannot remember what?
Temporal orders or sequences
Where does the frontal lobe receive input from?
All sensory systems
The frontal lobe plays a role in short term memory of what?
Sensory experience
[Explicit memory] What does the medial temporal lobe do?
Forms long term memories
[Explicit memory] What does the prefrontal lobe do?
Maintains short term memories
Memories of chronological order
[Explicit memory circuit] What does the basal forebrain do?
Maintains appropriate level of arousal for information processing
[Implicit memory] Where does the basal ganglia receive input from?
Entire cortex and substantial nigra
[Implicit memory] Where does the basal ganglia project to?
Ventral thalamus
[Implicit memory] Where does the ventral thalamus project to?
Premotor cortex
Emotional memories involves what type of learning?
Implicit and explicit
Which brain structure is important for coding emotional memories?
Amygdala
What happens when the amygdala is lesioned?
Fear conditioning eliminated
True or false. Emotional memories are still intact in patients with impairments to implicit and explicit memory, but with functional amygdala.
True
What does the radial arm maze involve?
Food rewards at ends of arms. Test phase: rat has to enter study arm first + one more arm
When the rat has hippocampus damage, is it successful in the radial arm maze?
No
What is caudate dependent?
Response recognition memory
(food at end of arms, start in arm, leave and enter adjacent door - test: start on opposite side, body turns same way to get reward)
What is the extra-striate visual cortex required to do (rat experiment)?
Push new object to get reward
