Cognition and biological influnces Flashcards
define learning
can be defined as any relatively permanent change in behaviour as a result of practise or experience in the environment.
Classical conditioning
learning where a response can be caused by a formerly neutral stimulus which prior to conditioning would evoke no response.
operant conditioning
learning where the reinforcement (reward) is dependant on the organism’s response. The action can be increased in frequency or decreased in frequency by reinforcement or punishment.
Thornidike’s law of effect
responses that satisfy are more likely to be repeated those that satisfy will be continued
reinforcement
is the procedure of following the occurrences of the correct response with reinforcing stimulus
observational learning
is sometimes called modelling or imitation and was developed by Albert Bandura. Observational learning takes place when a new behaviour is learned of modified as a result of watching others and copying their behaviours or after watching the consequences of the behaviour of others.
reciprocal determinism
an explanation of how a person’s behaviour is both influence by and influences the environment and personal factors such as thoughts and feelings.
Alfred bandura and bobo doll experiment
- He investigated whether observing or copying others could lead to aggressive behaviour.
- Bandura had three groups a control group which would not see the adult, an experimental group which would be shown the adult performing aggressive behaviour, and the other control group which saw a non aggressive adult playing with the toys.
- The results were that the experimental group exposed to the aggressive adult showed that they were more aggressive in their actions, in comparison to the control group who showed less aggressive tendencies.
maturation
is the unfolding of biologically predetermined patterns of behaviour as a result of ageing and interaction with the environment.
- Maturation is a developmental process which is partially dependent on genetic input
reflex
is a simple involuntary reaction.
- Designed to aid survival
- No conscious control
behaviour modification
reducing unwanted behaviour and strengthening desirable behaviours by the use of reinforcement (and sometimes punishment).
token economy
is as system of positive reinforcement derived from the principles of operant conditioning. The focus of token economy is on shaping and positively reinforcing desired behaviours and not punishing undesirable behaviours.
phobia
is an extreme, irrational fear or dislike of something that is not in reality causing a threat.
how to treat a phobia
- Expose their client to the least fearful aspect of the phobia while they are given relaxation techniques.
- Slowly the client is exposed to more fearful stimuli all the time being guided by a therapist to be using relaxation training.
Systematic desensitisation
the gradual replacement of fear reactions with a calm response by a series of graded exposures to the feared stimulus.
Primary functions of the central nervous system-
- Bodily functions/response
- Organising sensory information
- Deciding motor movement
- Planning and organising
Peripheral nervous system
The peripheral nervous system consists of all the neurons outside the CNS (the neurons in the rest of the body including muscles, organs, glands) The role of the PNS is to carry sensory information along afferent neurons, to and motor information from the CNS.
2 main functions of the peripheral nervous system
Two main functions-
1- To relay sensory information to the central nervous system
2- To receive motor information from the central nervous system
Somatic nervous system
- sub system for all voluntary movement
- Branch of the PNS governs our voluntary actions through its control of our skeletal muscles. It receives motor messages from the CNS and transports theses messages to muscles in specific body regions so that our response to stimuli are appropriate.
- Sensory neurons relay messages from the brain providing information of pain, vision, touch, and taste.
autonomic nervous sytem
for all movement that occurs automatically or without conscious awareness.
- Is the division of the PNS that controls involuntary functions of our internal muscles, organs, and glands such as heart rate and breathing rate.
- Activities controlled by the ANS are mostly automatic
sympathetic nervous system
- Is the branch of the ANS that dominates when we are highly aroused or needing a sudden burst of energy.
- Increases the arousal of the muscles, organs, and glands and prepare the body for vigorous activity.
- Physically prepared for action
- Fight or flight response
parasympathetic nervous system
is the branch of the ANS that is responsible for reversing the effects of the sympathetic nervous system and retuning the body’s internal systems to their natural level of functioning.
- Maintains body when threats are present (homeostasis)
fight or flight response
whether the body should run away from the danger (flight) of fight the danger. The parasympathetic nervous system activates it and increases the senses.
neurotransmitters
Serotonin:
- Plays a role in mood, sleep, appetite and impulsive and aggressive behaviour
- Too little serotonin is associated with depression and some anxiety disorders, especially obsessive-compulsive disorder. Some antidepressants medications increase the availability of serotonin at the receptor sites.
Dopamine:
- Is correlated with movement, attention and learning. Too much dopamine has been associated with schitozpherina, and too little is associated with some forms of depression as well as the muscular rigidity and tremors found in Parkinson’s disease.
Frontal lobe
- Involved in planning, initiative and voluntary motor control. The frontal cortex is a very highly developed area in humans compared to other animals.
- Micro-electrode stimulation of the primary motor cortex produces twitches of movement in body parts.
- Damage causes lack of insight, loss of primitive reflex suppression, behavioural inertia and an inability to adjust behaviour to make it appropriate to the situation.
Parietal lobe
- Involved in sensing and monitoring of body parts
- Micro-electrode stimulation to the primary sensory cortex produces sensations on various parts of the body.
- Contains many sensory association areas, such as visual association are necessary for object recognition
- Damage causes vidual agonisa, the inability to recognise the identity of whole objects by sight. Also integrates information fro different sensory areas to enable cross model matching.
Temporal lobe
- Contains important areas for hearing, language and memory.
- Micro-electrode stimulation of the of the temporal lobe association areas products ‘dream like’ memories of events.
- Damage to specific brain areas in and around the edge of the temporal lobe products specific deficits in language.
- Damage to Broca’s area leads to motor aphasia (the disruption of spoken language production), damage to Wernicke’s area leads to receptive aphasia (disruption to the comprehension of language) and damage to the angular gryus disrupts reading comprehension.
Occipital lobe
- contains the visual cortex and primary visual area.
- Micro-electrical stimulation of the primary visual cortex produces flickering patterns of light and colour.
- Damage to areas of the primary visual cortex on one side of the brain will produce blind spots in the visual field of the opposite side while damage to the right parietal cortex can result in no visual conscious awareness of the left side of an object – people so affected will draw only the right hand side of a clock face or eat only the right half of food on their plate (visual neglect).
Wernickers area
refers to a section of the brain that is responsible for language comprehension.
Damage- receptive aphasia, little understand the speech of people around them. Additionally, they often have difficulty pinpointing the correct names of specific objects, instead suggesting words that sound similar to the intended to the intended phrase or replacing the objects name with that of a related object. Affect the way patients can communicate.
Broncas area
speech production, language, processing and language comprehension.
Damage- unable to put together sentences that are grammatically complex. Words contain very few sentences related to complex.
How does serotonin and noradrenaline are involved in transmitting signals.
serotonin and noradrenaline are involved in transmitting signals between nerve cells and they are believed to have a role in regulating mood and behaviour. Low levels of these brain chemicals are thought to lead to depression.
- The SNRI’S block the reuptake of noradrenaline and serotonin into cells in the brain. This blocking results is an increase in the levels of these two neurochemicals, which is thought to improve and elevate mood.
Encoding
information is received by the senses needs to be converted into a format that the brain can understand and retain. It froms an essential initial step in the processing of information for the formation of memories.
Storage
the retention of memory over time. Humans use patterns in connectivity of neurons in the brain to store information. In order to be useful, information must be organised in a way that allows to be accessed later.
retrieval
this process is important feature of any memory because it is the only point at which the actual process of remembering is apparent. Must be encoded and stored in a way that is able to be retrieved.
recall
process of retrieving memories in the absence of the item to be remembered.
recognition
process of retrieving memories through identifying what is currently perceived as having been encountered in the past.
relearning
measures the memory that indicates the extent to which previously learned information is reacquired faster than an initial learning.
sensory memory
stores all incoming sensory information in subsystems called sensory registers. 0.3-4 seconds) very high capacity, encoded based on physical properties of the stimulus.
short term memory
20-30 seconds, limited to 7 +/- 2 (5-9) items, encoded by usually verbal or acoustic.
Chunking- grouping or clusters of information based on similarities.
long term memory
maybe unlimited must retrieve regularly, very large capacity, encoded in elaborative, associative, according to meaning.
procedural memory
refers to your knowledge of skills or procedure. It allows you to remember ‘how to do things’.
declarative memory
Declarative memory: is the knowledge of facts and events. It enables you to declare the way you believe things to be, or to state that a particular event took place. Two types of declarative memory:
2 branches of declarative memory
1- Episodic memory: refers to your memory for past events or episodes.
2- Semantic memory: refers to knowledge of facts about the world, including general knowledge, word meanings, and associated concepts.
model of learning for short term memory
(Hebb) suggests that memories consist f a network of connecting neurons that become stimulated in response to the information that is to be remembered. This means that when one element of the network is stimulated it is likey to lead to the activation of associated neurons.
networks and associations
Networks form connections with other networks on the basis of mutual association. Establishing shared association between neural networks provides a mechanism for organising long term memory’s because it allows for the linking of related information
semantic network theory
relates the way which information for concepts is linked, and how the information may be stores, in order to be recalled from long term memory. This theory proposes that information related to a concept is spread across various elements or nodes of a network.
the serial position effect
(Postman and Phillips) (Galzner and Cuntiz) revealed that recall varies on where words appear on a list – the start, middle or end.
Regency effect: better recall of the final few items in a list relative to the middle items I a list relative to the middle items during a test of free recall, this is due to the final dew words being in the short term memory.
primacy effect: better recall of the first few words in a list relative to the middle items, this is due to rehearsal of words and therefore entering the long term memory.
iconic memory
refers to the temporary store for information that is received form the visual system.
echoic memory
auditory information is also held in sensory memory for a brief period after the stimulus has ceased.
maintenance
mental repetition of the material to be remembered.
Elaboration: involves more complex mental consideration of the material to be remembered than simply repeating it, and usually involves associating it with information already contained in long term memory.
consolidation theory
that information transferred between short term memory and long term memory requires a period of consolidation before it becomes permanently stored. Consolidation theory allows for the consolidation or gradual establishment of long term memories from short term memories through the process of altering connection between neurons in the brain.
Working memory
(Baddeley and Hitch) He proposed that the working memory was more complex than short term memory and was made up by 3 components. These components allow us to manipulate information or material that we have just perceived.
3 components of working memory
1- Articulatory loop: Holds verbally produced sounds and words
2- Visuo-spatial sketchpad: allows visual images to be held temporarily
3- Executive control system: used during decision making
Mnemonic devices
is any internal strategy or method that makes it easier to encode, store or retrieve information.
narrative chaining
involves linking the items through the development of a story, or narrative, rather than a series of images.
methods of loci
recall a sequence of of distinct locations and associate them with each word to be remembered.
retrieval failure
asserts that forgetting results from a failure to sue appropriate retrieval cues.
forgetting
inability to retrieve information when it is required
interference theory
it assumes that forgetting occurs as a result of the material being retrieved becoming confused with other information in memory.
Motivated forgetting
refers to the inability to retrieve information because the individual derives some benefit form not remembering. Freud and repression unconscious form of motivated forgetting.
decay
suggests that memories that are not used become weaker and weaker with the passage of time and at some point memory will decay to the point where they no longer may be recollected.
CBT (cognitive behaviour therapy)
thinking certain thought affect the behaviour which affects how other people treat us. A therapist would normally give homework to the client
strengths of CBT
focuses on human thought
very effective for treating depression and anxiety problems
weaknesses of CBT
narrow in scope thinking is just one part of the human functioning, broader issues need to be addressed.
Hormones are what?
chemical messengers produced by endocrine glands
anxiety
persistent excessive and unrealistic worry about something
Role of serotonin and dopamine
serotonin: memory and emotions
Dopamine: vital for movement
role of neurotransmitters
allow nerves to communicate with muscle cells in order to create motion.
epigenetic
Epigenetics: changes in expression of inherited genes by tuning off and on the reading of genes. Changes can be inherited. Effects that can turn off and on genes: - Temperature - Stress - Chemical - Hormone
