Chapter 24 Flashcards
Define declarative and non declarative memory.
Declarative memory: Memory of facts and events.
Non-declarative memory: Several categories, e.g., procedural memory (memory for skills, habits, and behaviors).
What are the brain structures thought to be involved in the following forms of memory:
1) Declarative memory
2) Procedural memory
3) Skeletal musculature
4) Emotional responses?
1) Medial temporal lobe; diencephalon
2) Striatum
3) Cerebellum
4) Amygdala
What is the role of consciousness with declarative and non-declarative memory?
Generally, declarative memories are accessed consciously. However, non-declarative memories generally operate without conscious recollection.
What are the other common names for declarative and non-declarative memory?
Declarative memory is known as explicit memory.
Non-declarative memory is known as implicit memory.
How does the formation of procedural memories occur?
1) Through non-associative learning: A change in behavioral response that occurs over time in response to a single type of stimulus. Subcategories: Habituation and sensitization.
2) Through associative learning: Behavior is altered by the formation of associations between events; this is in contrast to a changed response to a single stimulus in non-associative learning. Subcategories: Classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning.
What is habituation?
A form of non-associative learning, which is about learning to ignore a stimulus that lacks meaning. For example, a train goes by your apartment every hour, and over time you no longer notice it.
What is sensitization?
A form of non-associative learning, which intensifies one’s response to all stimuli during a strong sensory stimulus (such as a blackout in a city). Response to stimuli that previously evoked little or no reaction is also intensified.
What is associative learning in general?
In associative learning, behavior is altered by the formation of associations between events; this is in contrast to a changed response to a single stimulus in non-associative learning.
What is classical conditioning?
A form of associative learning which involves combining an unconditional stimulus (US), that requires no training/conditioning to yield a response, with a conditional stimulus (CS), that requires training/conditioning before yielding a response.
In Pavlov’s experiment, the US was the sight of a piece of meat, and the dog’s response was salivation.
The CS was an auditory stimulus, such as the sound of a bell.
After repeatedly pairing the CS with the US, eventually the CS (auditory stimulus) was enough to trigger salivation alone, without the US. This learned response to the conditioned stimulus was called the conditioned response.
What is instrumental conditioning?
A form of associative learning in which an individual learns to associate a response, a motor act, with a meaningful stimulus, typically a reward such as food.
An example of this is a rat in a box with a food dispensing lever. The rat learns from accidentally bumping the lever that food comes out of it, and after a few times it will press the lever until it is no longer hungry.
What is the difference between classical conditioning and instrumental conditioning?
In classical conditioning, the subject learns that one stimulus (CS) predicts another stimulus (US).
In instrumental conditioning, the subject learns that a certain behavior is associated with a particular consequence.
Because motivation plays a large role in instrumental conditioning, the underlying neural circuits are considerably more complex than those involved in simple classical conditioning.
How is declarative memory divided into subcategories?
- Long-term memory
- Short-term memory
- Working memory.
What is long-term memory?
Long-term memories are those that you can recall days, months, or years after originally stored.
What is short-term memory?
Short-term memories are more temporary, and vulnerable to disruption.
What is working memory?
Working memory is sharply limited in capacity and requires rehearsal.
How can sensory information affect the retaining of temporary/working memory information?
There are reports of humans with cortical lesions who have normal memory for information coming from one sensory system (e.g., seeing a list of numbers) but a profound deficit for information that comes through another sensory system (e.g., hearing a list of numbers).
What is memory consolidation?
The process of facts and events stored in memory being converted into long-term memories.
What is amnesia?
A serious loss of memory and/or the ability to learn.
What is dissociated amnesia?
Amnesia that is not accompanied by any other cognitive deficit.
What is retrograde amnesia?
Events for a period of time prior to the trauma (that caused amnesia) are forgotten, but memories from the distant past and period following the trauma are intact.
What is anterograde amnesia?
Events prior to trauma can be remembered, but there are no memories for the period following the trauma.
What is transient global amnesia?
A sudden onset of anterograde amnesia (memories for a period following the trauma), which only lasts for a period of minutes to days, often accompanied by retrograde amnesia for recent events preceding the attack.
A characterization of this could involve a person appearing disoriented and asking the same questions repeatedly, but being conscious and having normal working memory.
What part of the brain is working memory based on?
Research in both animals and humans suggests that working memory is a capability of neocortex found in numerous locations in the brain.
What is the role of the prefrontal cortex in human characteristics? Why?
It is often assumed to be involved in the characteristics that separate humans from animals, because it is so well developed in humans. However, its function is relatively poorly understood.
What is a delayed-response task and what does it say about working memory?
In a delayed-response task, a monkey was shown food being placed in a well below one of two identical covers in a table. A delay period followed, during which the animal was not shown the table, and finally the animal was shown the table again and allowed to choose the well.
Since large prefrontal lesions seriously degraded performance in this task, it was suggested that the frontal lobe is important for learning and memory.
How does the Wisconsin card-sorting test work?
Cards containing various numbers of colored symbols must first be sorted by color. After a string of correct responses is made, the sorting category is changed to shape.
People with prefrontal lesions have great difficulty on this task when the sorting category is changed; they continue to sort according to a rule that no longer applies. They appear to have a working memory deficit that limits their ability to make use of recent information to change their behavior.
As such, it is suggested that the prefrontal cortex plays a role in working memory and learning. This is supported by human brain imaging experiments.
What is LIP, and where is it located?
LIP stands for Lateral Intraparietal Cortex (area LIP), which is buried in the intraparietal sulcus.
What is LIP involved in?
Guiding eye movements; electrical stimulation here elicits saccades in monkeys.
The responses of many neurons in area LIP of monkeys suggest that they are also involved in a type of working memory.
The responses in LIP area are specific to vision.
What is a delayed-saccade test?
A test in which an animal fixates on a point on a computer screen and a target is briefly flashed at a peripheral location. After the target goes off, there is a variable length delay, at the end of which the fixation point disappears, and the animal’s eyes make a saccadic movement to the remembered location of the target.
What is an engram or memory trace?
An engram or memory trace is the location of a memory in the brain.
What were Karl Lashley’s findings related to memory? What were his incorrect and correct conclusions?
He induced large lesions in the brains of rats, and the rats started making mistakes in a maze game after getting the lesions.
Lashley’s INCORRECT conclusion was that all cortical areas contribute equally to all memories.
However, his CORRECT conclusion was that all of the cortex participates inn memory storage, and that an engram can be widely distributed in the brain.
