FINAL PSYC 309 Flashcards
What did Immanuel Kant say about imagination?
Imagination is out of our conscious control.
What are the varieties of the imagination, and what is it for?
Imagination appears in perception, dreaming, mental imagery, and social interaction. It is used for resolution and filling in.
What is imagination in perception, and what is it for?
It’s reconstruction, and its for resolution (converting 2D to 3D)
What is imagination in dreaming?
Mental replay.
What is dreaming for?
For resolution— e.g., more dream recall is linked to slower recovery from trauma.
What is mental imagery?
Vision in reverse—a weaker version of vision. It is direct, powerful, and visceral.
How does neuroscience explain differences in mental imagery?
People with weak imagery may have reduced connectivity from frontal to visual areas.
What is aphantasia?
The inability to form mental images.
What is the difference between voluntary and spontaneous imagery in people with aphantasia?
They show differences in voluntary imagery, but not in spontaneous imagery (like dreams).
What are the pitfalls of mental imagery?
Task demands, how it feels vs. what it is, and change of input—not processing (e.g., mental images are present but not attended to).
How can we solve the pitfalls in studying mental imagery?
Use automatic processes like spontaneous imagery.
What does it mean to ‘tap into’ a mental image successfully?
It involves being able to use the representation effectively, e.g., improving half-whole discrimination.
How can we capture inner speech?
Through subjective responses, recall tests, and rhyme tests.
How do we compare the strength of words vs. pictures?
Using word/image priming or word/image n-back tasks.
In the train dilemma (utilitarian vs deontological), who chooses what?
People who are more verbal tend to choose utilitarian outcomes— those with strong imagery lean toward deontological choices.
What is mental imagery in motor actions?
Simulation theory: imagining an action activates the same motor cortex patterns as performing it.
How does mental imagery relate to social interactions?
It supports perspective-taking—imagining the world from another’s point of view or detaching from your own to observe the situation.
Where do our memories live (in terms of neuroscience)?
This is the implementation level—where in the brain memory is stored and transferred.
What does the C. elegans worm experiment show about memory transfer?
Memories like learned avoidance can be transferred from one worm to another.
What does the C. elegans study suggest about memory localization?
That you can localize memory and know where to look for it.
What happened to HM and what does it reveal?
HM had a lesioned hippocampus and couldn’t form new memories, showing the hippocampus is crucial for memory formation.
What was Carl Lashley’s theory about memory storage?
Memory is distributed rather than stored in one place.
What did Lashley’s experiments with mice in mazes show?
Lesioning different brain regions didn’t isolate memory; performance was affected by how much cortex was removed, not where.
How are memories formed at the algorithmic level?
Through synaptic formation, often modeled by Hebbian learning.
What is Hebbian learning?
“Neurons that fire together, wire together.” Memory is distributed among neuron networks.
What is catastrophic interference in memory?
When a network learns something new, it may forget unrelated prior info, challenging generalization.
What is the sensitivity vs. stability tradeoff in memory?
Memory needs to be sensitive enough to encode unique events but stable enough to generalize.
What is the solution to balancing sensitivity and stability in memory?
The complementary learning systems theory.
What are the two systems in the complementary learning model?
The hippocampus (for rapid, episodic learning) and the cortex (for slow, generalized learning).
How does the hippocampus process new experiences?
It keeps them separate and is suppressed when the cortex is activated.
What is the principle of sparse activity in the hippocampus?
Different neurons are used for different experiences to optimize resource allocation.
What is system consolidation in memory?
Over time, memories move from the hippocampus to the cortex, becoming more generalized.
What is episodic memory?
Direct, personal experiences stored in the hippocampus.
What is semantic memory?
General knowledge formed in the cortex, often from overlapping experiences.
How does system consolidation transform memories?
It converts episodic memories into semantic ones over time.
Why is episodic memory harder to retrieve?
It requires creating a new trace every time it is recalled.
How does memory retrieval affect memory structure?
The more you retrieve a memory, the more it becomes susceptible to restructuring.
What are personal semantics?
Generalized facts about ourselves formed from episodes.
Are semantic memories truly separate from episodic ones?
No, they are interdependent (but some memories can be a combination of both)
How do episodic and semantic memory influence each other?
Episodic memories are recontextualized during retrieval and feed into semantic memory; semantic memory can also support episodic memory formation.
