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MCAT: Behavioral Sciences > Chapter 3: Learning and Memory > Flashcards

Chapter 3: Learning and Memory Flashcards

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MCAT flashcards
1
Q

What is habituation?

A

Decrease in response to a stimulus after repeated exposure. Ex: Medical student feeling sick the first time they see a cadaver but get used to the stimuli as class goes on.

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2
Q

What is dishabituation?

A

The recovery of a response to a stimulus after habituation has occurred. Often noted when a second stimulus is presented after habituation of the first.

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3
Q

What is associative learning?

A

The creation of a pairing or association either between two stimuli or between behavior and a response. The two kinds include classical and operant conditioning.

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4
Q

What is classical conditioning?

A

Type of associative learning that takes advantage of biological, instinctual response to create associations between two unrelated stimuli.

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5
Q

What is an unconditioned stimulus?

A

Any stimulus that causes an innate or reflexive physiological response
Ex: meat

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6
Q

What is the unconditioned response?

A

The innate or reflexive response.

Ex: salivating

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7
Q

What is a neutral stimulus?

A

Stimuli that do not produce a reflexive response

Ex: bell ringing

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8
Q

What is the conditioned stimulus?

A

A normally neutral stimulus that, through association, now causes a reflexive response called a conditioned response.

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9
Q

What is generalization?

A

Broadening effect by which a stimulus similar enough to the conditioned stimulus can also produce the conditioned response.

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10
Q

What is discrimination?

A

An organism learns to distinguish between two similar stimuli. This is the opposite of generalization.

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11
Q

What is operant conditioning?

A

Links voluntary behaviors with consequences in an effort to alter the frequency of those behaviors.

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12
Q

What is reinforcement?

A

The process of increasing the likelihood that an individual will perform a behavior. This is divided into positive and negative reinforcement.

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13
Q

What is positive reinforcement?

A

Increase a behavior by adding a positive consequence or incentive following the desired behavior.
Ex: employees work for money

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14
Q

What is negative reinforcement?

A

Increase in the frequency of a behavior by removing something unpleasant. This is divided into escape learning and avoidance learning.

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15
Q

What is escape learning?

A

The role of the behavior is to reduce the unpleasantness of something that already exists.
Ex: taking an Advil for a headache

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16
Q

What is avoidance learning?

A

It is meant to prevent the unpleasantness of something that has yet to happen.
Ex: studying for the MCAT to avoid a bad score

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17
Q

What is punishment?

A

Uses conditioning to reduce the occurrence of a behavior. This is divided into positive and negative punishment.

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18
Q

What is positive punishment?

A

Adds an unpleasant consequence in response to a behavior to reduce that behavior
Ex: a thief is arrested for stealing to reduce the behavior of stealing

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19
Q

What is negative punishment?

A

The reduction of a behavior when a stimulus is removed.

Ex: A parent forbids a child from watching TV as a consequence for bad behavior

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20
Q

What is a Fixed Ratio reinforcement schedule?

A

Reinforce a behavior after a specific number of performances of that behavior. Continuous reinforcement is when behavior is rewarded every time it is performed.

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21
Q

What is Variable Ratio reinforcement schedule?

A

Reinforce a behavior after a varying number of performances of the behavior, but such that the average number of performances to receive a reward is relatively constant. VR has the fastest response rate, it is very resistant to extinction.

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22
Q

What is Fixed Interval reinforcement schedule?

A

Reinforce the first instance of a behavior after a specified time has elapsed.
Ex: mouse gets food every 60sec

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23
Q

What is a Variable Interval reinforcement schedule?

A

Reinforce a behavior the first time that behavior is performed after a varying interval of time.
Ex: mouse get food after 30sec, then 90sec, then 60sec

24
Q

What is shaping?

A

The process of rewarding increasingly specific behaviors.

25
Q

What is latent learning?

A

Learning that occurs without a reward but that is spontaneously demonstrated once a reward is introduced

26
Q

What is observational learning?

A

The process of learning a new behavior or gaining information by watching others.

27
Q

What are mirror neurons?

A

Located in the frontal and parietal lobes of the cerebral cortex and fire both when an individual performs an action and when that individual observes someone else performing that action. They also fire when experiences an emotion and play a role in imitative behavior.

28
Q

What are the three major processes of memory?

A

Encoding, storage, and retrieval

29
Q

What is encoding?

A

The process of putting new information into memory.

30
Q

What is automatic processing?

A

Information gained without effort. Ex: constantly being bombarded with info while walking down the street.

31
Q

What is controlled (effortful) processing?

A

Active memorization. Controlled processing can become automatic.

32
Q

What are the different ways we encode information? Which is strongest?

A

Visual encoding (weakest), acoustic encoding, and semantic encoding (strongest)

33
Q

What is the self-reference effect?

A

Tendency to recall information best when we can put it into the context of our own lives

34
Q

What is the method of loci?

A

A mnemonic technique that involves associating each item in a list with a location along a route through a building that has already been memorized.

35
Q

What is the peg-word system?

A

System that associates numbers with items that rhyme with or resemble the numbers.
Ex: rhyme one with sun, two with shoe, etc

36
Q

What is chunking/clustering?

A

Memory trick that involves taking individual elements of a large list and grouping them together into group so elements with related meaning.

37
Q

What are the 4 types of memory storage?

A

Sensory, short-term, working, and long-term

38
Q

What is sensory memory?

A

It is the first and most fleeting ( > 1 sec) kind of memory storage which consists of both visual and auditory memory. It is maintained by the occipital and temporal lobe.

39
Q

What is short-term memory?

A

Fades quickly over the course of approx. 30 sec without rehearsal. It is limited in capacity to approx. 7 items. Short term memory is housed primarily in the hippocampus, which is also responsible for the consolidation of shorter memory to long term memory.

40
Q

What is working memory?

A

Enables us to keep a few pieces of info in our consciousness simultaneously and to manipulate that information. It is supported by the hippocampus, frontal lobe, and parietal lobe.
Ex: Allows to do simple mental math

41
Q

What is long-term memory?

A

With enough rehearsal, information moves from short term to long term memory, an essentially limitless warehouse for the knowledge that we are then able to recall on demand. One way to do this is through elaborative rehearsal. The two types of long-term memory are explicit and implicit memory.

42
Q

What is elaborative rehearsal?

A

The association of the information with knowledge already stored in long term memory.

43
Q

What is implicit memory?

A

Unconscious, consist of our skills and conditioned response

44
Q

What is explicit memory?

A

Conscious, memories that require conscious recall. This is divided into semantic and episodic memory.

45
Q

What is semantic memory?

A

Facts, concepts

46
Q

What is episodic memory?

A

Experiences, events

47
Q

What is state dependent memory?

A

A person’s mental state can affect recall.

Ex: when intoxicated

48
Q

What is Alzheimer’s disease?

A

Degenerative brain disorder thought to be linked to a loss of acetylcholine in neurons that link to the hippocampus. It is marked by progressive dementia with atrophy of the brain and retrograde amnesia. Microscopic findings include neurofibrillary tangles and beta-amyloid plaques.

49
Q

What is Korsakoff’s syndrome?

A

Form of memory loss caused by thiamine deficiency. It is marked by retrograde and anterograde amnesia, and confabulation.

50
Q

What is agnosia?

A

Loss of ability to recognize objects, people, or sounds.

51
Q

What is proactive interference?

A

Old information is interfering with new learning.

52
Q

What is retroactive interference?

A

New information causes forgetting of old information.

53
Q

What is prospective memory? Event-based vs time-based?

A

Remembering to perform a task at some point in the future. Event based: primed by a trigger event. Time-based: remembering to take medication at 7am every day. Time-based tends to decline with age.

54
Q

What is source-monitoring error?

A

Involves confusion between semantic and episodic memory. A person remembers the details of an event, but confuses the context under which those details were gained.

55
Q

What is synaptic pruning?

A

As we grow older, weak neural connections are broken while strong ones are bolstered, increasing the efficiency of our brains ability to process info.

56
Q

What is long-term potentiation?

A

Responsible for the conversion of short term to long term memory, is the strengthening of neuronal connections resulting from increased neurotransmitter release and adding of receptor sites.

MCAT: Behavioral Sciences (13 decks)

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