Cognition, Learning & Ethology Flashcards
Who was Edward Thorndike?
Studied learning + part of the functionalist system–> how the mind adapted to the environment.
Also an early behaviourist + developed the law of the effect–> formed the basis of operant conditioning.
Who is John Watson?
Father of behaviourism + classical conditioning. Using little Albert To associate the white rat with loud noise–> fear response To all things white and furry.
What did Clark Hull’s theory of motivation, or drive reduction suggest?
Suggested that the global behaviour is to reduce biological drives + reinforcement occurs whenever a biological drive is reduced
What did Konrad Lorenz mark the beginning of?
The beginning of ethology. understanding of animal behaviour could only be gained out in the field. Studying the context of behaviour to analyze the function it served
The history of modern memory research begun with —–
Herman Ebbinghaus. Used meaningless strings of letters to study capacity of memory system
Edward Tichener Belong to the system of thought referred to as —-
Structuralism. Breaking consciousness down into its elements/Mental structures using the method of introspection by asking subjects to report on their current conscious experiences.
Titchener’s work spawned which three other system of thought?
Functionalism behaviorism and gestalt psychology
Noam Chomsky Paved the way for cognitive psychology with the critique of —–
BF Skinner. Opposed the behaviourist position that speech is explained by operant conditioning + that language is acquired by reinforcement
Instead argues that kids say stuff that they didn’t hear adults say + even adults use creative language.
What are the three processes that have provided insight into the organization of cognitive processes?
time lapse between the stimulus presentation + subject response (Reaction time)
studying language comprehension by measuring eye movement as subject is actually performing the task (eye movement)
Using brain imaging to associate various cognitive processes to various parts of the brain (brain imaging)
Ebbinghaus’ Famous experiment used —–
Nonsense syllables to study memory using himself as the subject. Measured how much of an original list of random words he could remember by using the method of savings
What is the method of savings by Ebbinghause?
After memorizing an initial list, he compares number of times he had to read the list in order to re-memorize it. If he re-memorized it faster than he memorized it originally–> concluded that he had remembered something from the first time.
What is the formula is associated with method of savings?
1) Subtracted number of re-memorization trials from original trials
2) Then divided this quantity by the original number of trials
3) Multiplied everything by 100 to come up with a percent
What was Ebbinghauses’ forgetting curve?
The horizontal axis indicated number of days between time list was learned + time list was relearned
The vertical axis indicated the percent savings
Which decreases rapidly->reaches a plateau-> then decreases in percentage savings become minimal
Therefore without practice we forget rapidly, then at a certain point, forgetting occurs at a much lesser rate. With practice, the Forgetting curve would be different.
What are the three mental processes or stages of memory?
Encoding->Putting New information into memory
Storage-> Involves retaining the information overtime
Retrieval->Recovery of the stored material at a later time (Tip of the tongue phenomenon is a problem with this stage)
What are the two most common methods of retrieval?
Recall->Independently reproducing the info that you have been previously exposed to (Short answers and filling the blank test this)
recognition->Realizing that a certain stimulus event is one you have seen or heard before (MC questions test this)
Generation recognition->Recall involves the same mental process involved in recognition, as well as another processes not required for recognition. This is what you can Recognize more than you recall
What is the recency effect Versus the primacy effect?
Recency->Word presented at the end of the list are remembered best
Primacy->Items presented at first are remembered fairly well, But not as well as the ones last
Stuff in the middle is what we forget the most
What is clustering?
When you break down words in a list into clusters, and recall the words as groups that go together (e.g Animals fruits colours)
What is stage theory of memory?
There are several different memory systems
each system has a different function
memories enter the various systems in a specific order
What are the three memory systems in stage theory of memory?
Sensory memory->Contains fleeting impressions of sensory stimuli
short-term memory->The link between rapidly changing sensory memory + more lasting long-term memory. Info that you attend to goes from your sensory memory to here
long-term memory->Permanent storehouse of experiences knowledge and skills. Items can be brief or last a lifetime.
What are two types of sensory memory?
Visual memory/Iconic memory + Auditory memory/Echoic memory. None of which lasts a long time, At most a few seconds.
What is the whole report procedure?
Method to find out how much info could be retained in sensory memory.
Subjects look at visual display of nine items for 1 sec, Then asked to recall as many as they could (4 on average).
Refuted by Sperling
What is Sperling’s partial report procedure?
Ask the subject to report only one row of the 3 x 3 matrix of letters, using a high medium or low tone indicating which row to recall.
Regardless of which row he asked, the subject’s recall was nearly perfect (Capacity for short-term memory is 9 on average not 4)
How long info remains in short-term memory depends on—-If nothing is done with it it will remain for only about—-
What is done with it. 20 seconds
What is maintenance rehearsal?
If info is rehearsed it can be in short term memory for a relatively long time (Like when you repeat a phone number you want to remember)
What did George Miller find about the amount of info you can keep in short-term memory?
7 Plus minus 2 chunks of info can be stored in short-term memory. So chunking Info into seven or fewer units can be effective for using your memory.
What is one of the ways you can get the info into long-term memory?
Elaborative rehearsal->Involve organizing material
+ associating it with info you already have any long-term memory
What are the two types of long-term memory?
Procedural memory->Remembering how things are done including how to tie your shoelace
Declarative/fact memory->Where explicit info is store. This has to types of his own:
A) Semantic memory->Remembering general knowledge (Word meanings + concepts)
B)Episodic Memory->Memories for particular Events.
How was encoding for verbal material and short-term differ from long-term Memory?
Encoding for verbal material in short-term->is phonological or acoustic rather than visual (Get confused when letter sound alike)
Encoding for verbal material in long-term->memory Is encoded more on the basis of their meaning. This is related to semantic priming
What is semantic priming?
Subjects are presented with pairs of words which are semantically related (Nurse doctor) + some of which are not (Nurse butter). Subject respond faster to ones that are semantically related
What is semantic verification task?
Investigate how semantic memory is organized. Subjects asked to indicate whether simple statement is true/false + measures response time (Response latency)->provide info on how semantic knowledge is stored in memory
Who proposed the spreading activation model?
Collins and Loftus. The shorter the distance between two words the closer the words are related in the semantic memory.
e.g Ambulance + fire engine-> closer to each other than ambulance + street.
What is the semantic feature comparison model?
Proposed by Smith, Shoben, and Rips.
Concepts are represented by sets of features, Some of which are required, Some of which are typical.
They key is the amount of overlap in the feature list of the concepts. Much/ No overlap->Quicker response. Some overlap-> Slower response
e.g The concept of college is represented by “ has degrees” (Required) and “Has fraternities” (Typical)
What is the most influential competing theory to the stage theory of memory?
The levels of processing theory/Depth of processing proposed by Craik and Lockhart.
What determines how long you will remember material depends on the way in which you process the material. Item entering into memory is analyzed in stages.
What are the ways or levels in which info can be processed according to Craik and Lockhart?
Physical (Visual)->Focusing on the appearance size and shape of info (Little effort needed)
Acoustical->Focusing on the sound combos
Semantic->Focusing on the meaning of the word (Most effort needed)
The deeper the processing the greater the effort, The better the memory of the material.
What is Paivio’s Dual code hypothesis?
Info can be stored or encoded into ways:
Visually->Concrete info (i.e image). This can also be done verbally
verbally-> Abstract info encoding
How do psychologist think of memory?
As a result of the dynamic interplay between what we experience + What we already know (Like a food processor)
What are schemas?
Conceptual frameworks we use to organize our knowledge. We remember info in terms of our existing schemas.
Difficulty mashing up experiences with a schema->Difficulty remembering it
What is the Decay theory?
Early explanation for why we forget. Is info in long-term memory is not used/Rehearsed It will eventually be forgotten. Not completely true
Inhibition theory suggest what about long-term memory?
Forgetting is due to the activities that have taken place between original learning + later attended recall.
What are the two basic types of inhibition?
Retroactive-> forget what you learned earlier as you learn something new (Learned list A, thenlist B, but you Can’t recall list A anymore)
Proactive->What you learned earlier interferes with what you learned later (e.g Speak some French as you’re learning Spanish)
What does including specificity Imply an about facilitating memory?
The assumption that recall will be best if context at recall approximates context during original encoding.
(e.g Know that you’re going to be taking a test in a classroom, Better to study in a classroom)
What is the special case of encoding specificity?
State dependent learning. Suggest that recall will be better if your psychological or physical state at the time of Recall is the same as your state when you memorize the material
(if upset when memorizing, better to be upset when recalling)
What are mnemonic devices and how are they used?
Techniques that we use to improve the likelihood that we will remember something. Such as Chunking, And method of Loci-> A system of associating info with some sequence of places with which you’re familiar
Who is Sir Frederick Bartlett?
Studied memory in a classic study of the war of the ghost. Subjects reconstructed this Folktale with their own culture expectations and schema for a ghost story.
So prior knowledge + expectations influence recall
