Learning and memory Flashcards
Encoding?
Refers to the process of putting new information into memory
Automatic processing
Information gained without effort. Things such as noticing temperature, keeping track of route your’e taking, and passively absorbing information from the environment.
Controlled processing
Effortful processing. Active memorization and study. The way you should study for school. Flashcards, study guides, things like that.
Visual encoding
Visualizing information
Acoustic encoding
Store the way information sounds
Semantic encoding
Putting information into meaningful context
Maintenance rehearsal
The reputation of a piece of information to either keep it within working memory or to store it in short term and eventually long term memory
Method of loci
Associating each item in the list with a location along a route through a building that has already been memorized.
Peg word system
Associates numbers with items that rhyme with or resemble the numbers.
Two and shoe. Three with a tree. Etc
Chunking or clustering
Memory trick that involves taking individual elements of a large list and grouping them together into groups of elements with related meaning
Sensory memory
Fleeting type of memory storage. Consists of iconic (visual) and echoic (auditory) memory. Comes from things that we see and hear and lasts for a short time and eventually fades quickly unless it is attended to.
Short term memory
Similar to sensory memory. Usually only lasts approximately 30 seconds without rehearsal. Usually has a capacity of 7 items.
Where is short term memory housed?
The hippocampus.
Working memory
Similar to short term memory cause it’s housed by the hippocampus. Enables us to keep a few pieces of information in our consciousness simultaneously and to manipulate that information
Long term memory
Information that we are able to recall on demand, sometimes for the rest of our lives. Housed in the hippocampus but also the cerebral cortex
2 types: Implicit and explicit
Elaborate rehearsal
The association of information to knowledge already stored in long term memory. Associated with being able to relate the information to our own lives
Implicit memory
Our skills and conditioned responses. Non declarative.
Explicit memory
Declarative. Those memories that require conscious recall. Divided into semantic facts memory and episodic experiential memory
Recognition
Process of merely identifying a piece of information that was previous learned. Good for multiple choice tests
Relearning
You are able to learn something/recall something better and easier once you have already learned about it
Spacing effect
Explains why cramming isn’t as effective as spacing out studying over extended period of time.
Semantic network
Concepts are linked together based on similar meaning.
Context effects
A retrieval cue by which memory is aided when a person is in the location where encoding took place
Flashbulb memory
A highly detailed, exceptionally vivid ‘snapshot’ of the moment and circumstances in which a piece of surprising and consequential news was heard.
False memory
an apparent recollection of an event that did not actually occur
State dependent memory/effect
A person’s mental state can affect recall. You forget things you learn while intoxicated. A foul mood primes negative memories. Etc.
Serial position effect
Retrieval cue that appears while learning lists. Participants have much higher recall for both the first fe and last few items on list.
That is known as the primary and recency effect
Alzheimer’s disease
Degenerative brain disorder thought to be linked to a loss of acetylcholine in the neurons that link the hippocampus
Sundowning
Increase in dysfunction in the late afternoon and evening
Korsakoff’s syndrome
Memory loss caused by thiamine deficiency in the brain. Marked by both retrograde and anterograde amnesia
Retrograde amnesia vs anterograde amnesia
Retrograde: Loss of previously formed memories
Anterograde memories: Inability to form new memories.
Confabulation
Process of creating vivid but fabricated memories.
Agnosia
Loss of the ability to recognize objects, people or sounds. Caused by some sort of physical damage, such as a stroke or multiple sclerosis
What is interference? What are the different types?
Interference is a retrieval cue error caused by the existence of some other usually similar information.
Proactive interference: Old information interfering with new learning
Retroactive interference: New information causes you to forget old information
Source-monitoring error
The confusion between semantic and episodic memory. Someone remembers the details of an event but confuses the context under which those details were gained.
Habituation
Repeated exposure to the same stimulus can cause a decrease in response
Dishabituation
Defined as the recovery of a response to a stimulus after habituation has occurred.
Unconditioned response
An unconditioned stimulus that brings an innate or reflexive response
Neutral stimuli
Stimuli that doesn’t produce a reflexive response
Conditioned stimulus
A normally neutral stimulus that through association, now causes a reflex response
Conditioned response
Response from a conditioned stimulus
Acquisition
Part of classical conditioning. The process of taking advantage of a reflexive, unconditioned stimulus to turn a neutral stimulus into a conditioned stimulus
Generalization
Broadening effect by which a stimulus similar enough to the conditioned stimulus can also produce a conditioned response
Discrimination
Organism learns to distinguish between two similar stimuli–like 2 different tones of bells for dogs
Operant conditioning
Links voluntary behaviors with consequences in an effort to alter the frequency of those behaviors
Positive reiforcement
Increases of behavior by adding a positive consequence or incentive following the desired behavior. Money is a good example, people won’t work if they are paid
Negative reinforcement
Act similarly in that they increase the frequency of behavior, but they do so by removing something unpleasant Taking an aspirin to get rid of a headache
Escape learning
Role of the behavior is to reduct the unpleasantness of something that already exists
Avoidance learning
Meant to prevent the unpleasantness of something that has yet to happen.
Positive punishment
Adds an unpleasant consequence in response to a behavior to reduce that behavior
Negative punishment
The reduction of a behavior when a stimulus is removed.
Parent forbidding child from watching TV as a consequence of bad behavior, hoping it wont happen again.
Fixed ratio schedule
Reinforce a behavior after a specific number of performances of that behavior
Variable ratio schedule
Reinforce a behavior after varying number of performances of the behavior, but such that the average number of performances to receive a reward is relatively constant
Fixed interval schedule
Reinforce the first instance of a behavior after a specified time period has elapsed
Variable interval schedule
Reinforce a behavior the first time that behavior is performed after a varying amount of time
Latent learning
Learning that occurs without a reward that is spontaneously demonstrated once a reward is introduced
Observational learning
Process of learning a new behavior or gaining information by watching others.
