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Behavioral sciences MCAT > Chapter 3: learning and memory > Flashcards

Chapter 3: learning and memory Flashcards

1
Q

habituation

A

repeated exposure to same stimulus leads to decreased response

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2
Q

dishabituation

A

recovery of a response after habituation has occurred, often when a second stimulus is presented which disrupts the habituation process and causes increase to original stimulus; temporary and always refers to the original stimulus, not the new one

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3
Q

associative learning

A

creation of a pairing between two stimuli or between a behavior and a response; classical and operant conditioning

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4
Q

classical conditioning

A

works because some stimuli cause a reflexive physiological response (ex. salivation); process of using an unconditioned stimulus to turn a neutral stimulus into a conditioned stimulus

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5
Q

extinction

A

occurs when conditioned stimulus is presented without the conditioned stimulus enough times, organism becomes habituated to conditioned stimulus, not always permanent

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6
Q

spontaneous recovery

A

if an extinct conditioned stimulus is presented again, a weak conditioned response can sometimes be exhibited

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7
Q

generalization

A

stimuli similar to the conditioned stimulus can produce the conditioned response

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8
Q

discrimination

A

organism learns to distinguish between two similar stimuli; ex. dogs can be conditioned to discriminate between bells of different tones by pairing one with meat and the other with no meat

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9
Q

reinforcers

A

increase a behavior by either adding a positive consequence or removing something unpleasant

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10
Q

escape learning

A

negative reinforcer; role of the behavior is to reduce the unpleasantness of something that already exists; ex taking aspirin to reduce headache

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11
Q

avoidance learning

A

negative reinforcer that seeks to prevent the unpleasantness of something that has yet to happen

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12
Q

primary reinforcer

A

a reward that one responds to naturally; ex. giving fish to dolphins as a treat

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13
Q

conditioned/secondary reinforcer

A

unconditioned reinforcer that was previously paired with a reward to condition a response

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14
Q

positive punishment

A

adds an unpleasant consequence

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15
Q

negative punishment

A

removing something that is desired, like taking away TV privileges; reduction of behavior when a stimulus is removed

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16
Q

fixed ratio schedule

A

reinforce behavior after specific number of performance of that behavior; continuous reinforcement is subtype: behavior reinforced every time; brief period of no responses after rat gets treat

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17
Q

variable ratio schedule

A

reinforce behavior after varying number of performances of behavior, but average number of performances to get reward is relatively constant; works the fastest for conditioning and hardest to extinguish; kind of like playing the lottery, rat keeps pressing lever in hopes that it will be the one that gets treat

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18
Q

fixed interval schedule

A

reinforce the first instance of a behavior after a specified time has elapsed; ex. the first lever press after 60s gets food but then has to wait 60s before lever presses will earn more food; brief period of no responses after rat gets treat

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19
Q

variable interval schedule

A

reinforces the behavior the first time it is performed after varying amount of time

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20
Q

shaping

A

process of rewarding increasingly specific behaviors

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21
Q

latent learning

A

learning that occurs without a reward

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22
Q

problem solving

A

testing behaviors until they yield a reward

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23
Q

preparedness

A

animals are most able to learn behaviors that coincide with their natural behaviors

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24
Q

instinctive drift

A

difficulty in animals overcoming instinctive behaviors

25
observational learning
learning new behaviors by watching others; Bobo doll experiment where adults punched inflatable clown while children were watching and then exhibited the same behaviors; observational learning through modeling
26
mirror neurons
fire when an individual performs an action and when the individual observes someone else performing the action
27
encoding
process of putting new information into memory; most external info is gained without effort: automatic processing
28
controlled (effortful) processing
active memorization
29
ways of encoding info through controlled processing
weakest-visual encoding(visualizing info), acoustic encoding (store the way it sounds), or semantic encoding (put it into a meaningful context)-strongest
30
self reference effect
tend to recall info better if we can put it into the context of our own lives
31
maintenance rehearsal
repetition of a piece of information to try to remember it
32
mnemonics
acronyms or rhyming phrases that provide vivid organization of the info we are trying to remember
33
method of loci
associating each item in a list with a location along a route that has already been memorized
34
peg-word system
associates numbers with items that rhyme with or resemble the numbers
35
chunking/clustering
memory trick where you group together individual elements of a list that have related meaning
36
sensory memory
most fleeting type of memory storage; involves both iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory) memory; fades quickly if not immediately attended to
37
short-term memory
fades quickly without rehearsal; 7+- 2 rule; limited in capacity to about 7 items; housed in hippocampus which consolidates into long term memory
38
working memory
enables us to keep a few pieces of info in our consciousness simultaneously and to manipulate that info; allows us to do simple math in our head for example
39
long term memory
enters through elaborate rehearsal which is the association of information to knowledge already stored in long term memory; controlled by hippocampus and memories are eventually moved to cerebral cortex
40
implicit long term memory
non declarative or procedural memory, consists of our skills and conditioned responses
41
explicit long term memory
declarative memory; requires conscious recall; semantic memory (facts we know) or episodic memory (our experiences)
42
spacing effect
the longer the amount of time between sessions of relearning material, the greater the retention of the info later on; why cramming is not as effective as spacing out studying
43
semantic network
brain organizes ideas into network where concepts are linked together based on similar meanings; when one node of network is activated, other linked concepts are also activated (spreading interaction)
44
priming
due to spreading interaction; recall is aided by first being presented with word or phrase that is close to desired semantic memory
45
context effects
memory aided by being in same physical location as where encoding took place; score better on exam in classroom
46
state-dependent memory
being in the same mental/emotional state as when you encoded info aids memory
47
serial position effect
much greater recall for first few and last few items on a list
48
Alzheimer's disease
loss of acetylcholine in neurons that link to hippocampus; dementia; loss of recent memories first; neurofibrillary tangles and B-amyloid plaques
49
Korsakoff's syndrome
thiamine deficiency in the brain leads to retrograde amnesia (loss of old memories) and anterograde amnesia (inability to form new memories)
50
confabulation
process of creating vivid but fabricated memories to fill in the gaps in memories
51
agnosia
loss of ability to recognize objects, people, or sounds
52
proactive interference
old info interferes with retrieval of new information
53
retroactive interference
new information causes forgetting of old information
54
prospective memory
remembering to perform a task in the future
55
misinformation effect
memories are altered by misleading information at the time of encoding or recall; experiment where subjects asked how far cars were moving when they "collided" or "crashed"
56
source-monitoring error
person remembers details of an event but confuses the context under where the details took place
57
synaptic pruning
weak neural connections are broken and strong ones are kept, increases efficiency of processing information
58
long-term potentiation
basis of long term memory; repeating of same stimuli/info causes stimulated neurons to become more efficient and allows info to be deeper encoded in brain

Behavioral sciences MCAT (17 decks)

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