learning and memory

Question 1

conditioning is also known as

Answer 1

associative learning

Question 2

what did watson and rayner do

Answer 2

the “little albert” experiement

Question 3

what did B.F Skinner do

Answer 3

studies on operant conditioning - skinners box

Question 4

does partial or continuous reinforcement lead to more persistent learning

Answer 4

patial, as the learner is used to the fact that reinforcement will not occur on every occasion

Question 5

what are the 3 Cs of punishment

Answer 5

contingency (the relationship between the behaviour and the punisher must be clear), consistency (the punishment should occur for every occurrence of the behaviour), contiguity (the punishment must follow the behaviour swiftly)

Question 6

what is latent learning

Answer 6

learning in the absence of rewards or punishments

Question 7

what did tolman do

Answer 7

he demonstrated that rewards/punishments effect whether or not learner behaviour will be demonstrated, not whether the learning will occur in the first place

Question 8

what did george sperling do

Answer 8

used a series of experiments to determine the capacity and duration of iconic memory (full report/ partial report - partial report provided a larger estimate of the capacity of iconic memory, also varied the times between being shown an array of letters, and the cue of which row to recall to determine the duration of this memory story)

Question 9

what is the duration of iconic memory

Answer 9

less than 500ms

Question 10

what is STM

Answer 10

our conscious representation of the “present moment”. A temporary store where we integrate current sensory information with our long term memory to achieve current goals

Question 11

what is the average capacity of STM

Answer 11

7 +/- 2 items

Question 12

what was the Brown-Peterson task

Answer 12

a test used to determine the duration of STM. 3 consonants were provided and then participants were made to count backwards from a number (to prevent rehearsal) for a certain period of time, before being tested on their recall of the letters.

Question 13

what is the duration of short term memory

Answer 13

up to approximately 30 seconds

Question 14

what did Craik & Tulving (1975) do

Answer 14

conducted a study on the levels of processing, demonstrating how long-term memory retention will be stronger if the memory is encoded in a more meaningful way

Question 15

what did Alan Baddeley do

Answer 15

introduced the model of working memory (same as short term memory, but with more emphasis on the importance of meaningful encoding, and the idea of STM acting as a “workspace” that we can use to work towards our current goals). expands the concept of STM to a multimodal system governed by executive processes.

Question 16

3 subdivisions of the central executive of memory

Answer 16

phonological loop, visuo-spatial sketchpad and episodic buffer

Question 17

what is the phonological loop

Answer 17

mental space for manipulating auditory and verbal information

Question 18

what is a test of phonological memory

Answer 18

a digit-span backwards test (where a list of digits are read out and the participant must then recite them backwards), as it requires the person to actively manipulate the information in memory, rather than just maintain the sequence

Question 19

what is the visuo-spatial sketchpad

Answer 19

a temporary store for visual and spatial representations of information such as faces, written words and cognitive maps. Enables the manipulation of visual and spatial info such as the mental rotation of an object

Question 20

what is the central executive

Answer 20

processes used in planning and coordinating complex behaviour such as goal orientation, attention focus, switching between tasks and problem solving. Governed by the frontal cortex.

Question 21

where are phonological processes carried out

Answer 21

a left hemisphere fronto-temporal network (particularly wernickes and brocas areas)

Question 22

where is the visuo-spatial sketchpad

Answer 22

a right hemisphere occipital-parietal network

Question 23

where does the episodic buffer integrate information

Answer 23

in the parietal lobe

Question 24

2 types of declarative memory

Answer 24

episodic (life experiences) and semantic (facts)

Question 25

types of non-declarative memory

Answer 25

procedural memory (motor skills), priming (the ability to better identify a stimulus following prior exposure to the stimulus or a similar stimulus), classical conditioning, operant conditioning and non-associative learning (habituation, which is learning to ignore a stimulus because it is irrelevant , and sensitisation, which is learning to attend to a potentially threatening stimulus)

Question 26

2 types of priming

Answer 26

repetition priming (for example, prior exposure to a word will make it easier to respond to it the next time that it is encountered) and associative/semantic priming (eg. exposure to a word may make it easier to identify similar words)

Question 27

role of the hippocampus in memory

Answer 27

involved in the consolidation of episodic and semantic memories, as well as the retrieval of consolidated episodic memories