Learning and memory Flashcards
Associative learning
Learning by relating two events which can be:
Temporal- when the events are not related, just coincidental.
Causal- When event B is a result of A.
Operant conditioning
Behavioral change due to the experience of a response and its consequence.
Certain behaviours are encouraged by a punishment of reinforcement.
Research: Rats in Skinner’s box
Classical conditioning
When unrelated events become associated with each other in one’s mind:
Seen in Pavlov’s dogs-
Bell- food shown- salivation from dogs
turned to…
Bell–> Salivation
Dogs were conditioned unrelated response to a stimulus.
Classical conditioning in medicine
Chemotherapy:
Patients receiving chemotherapy associate the action of going to hospital with the nausea from chemotherapy.
Hospital–> Chemotherapy–> Nausea/ vomiting
turns to…
Hospital—> Nausea/ Vomitting
Learning
Changed behaviour from experience
Change storage of information in the brain
Systemic desensitisation
Psychological treatments of treating phobias:
Using relaxation techniques to reverse phobias by reconditioning responses
Three methods of learning
Operant conditioning
Classical conditioning
Imitation and Observation
Imitation and observation
Method of learning through watching someone and copying what they do:
Seen in altruistic behaviour
Children who observe friendliness and aggression in adults
Declarative memory
The ability to state facts from memory
Procedural memory
The ability to remember how to perform an action
Long term memory
Associations made between nodes of short term memory
This is achieved by constant rehearsal of the factor from short term memory .
Short term memory
Also known as ‘working memory’
Active processing of stimuli that can only hold 5-9 items.
If attention is not paid to the information then it is lost
Cue overload
When similar things are associated with different memories, this can make the memory difficult to retrieve.
For example: Going to school everyday doing the same routine. It is difficult to identify different memories mixed in the same routines
How is memory retrieved?
Similarity of contextual cues:
When a similar condition associated with the memory arises, it triggers the release of that memory.
Emotion and memory
When an individual is very aroused, this increases their attention to detail.
BUT, this makes the range of information taken in narrower (flashbulb memory)
Optimal arousal allows the greatest attention to detail with an efficient amount of information still taken in- Best learning outcome.
