Learning & conditioning Flashcards
What was Ebbinghaus (1885) main conclusion on rate of learning? Major limitation of his method?
Linear relation between learning time and memory retention.
He was his own subject and he used non ecological material and bla bla
Describe the distributed practice effect and make an example of a piece of evidence in favor.
Breaking practice up into many smaller sessions spread out over time Strong learning advantage
Compared to massed practice (Fewer, but longer learning sessions)
Baddeley and Longman (1978): Rate of learning typing skills for a range of training schedules: 1 × 1 (one session of 1 hour per day), 2 × 1 (two sessions) 1 × 2 (one session of 2 hours) 2 × 2 (two 2‐hour sessions).
Name an effect that could explain the efficacy of testing while learning.
Testing your knowledge while you are learning engages important retrieval processes.
Generation effect: when you generate an answer you remember it better than if somebody else generates the answer.
Karpicke and Roediger (2008): The pattern of learning and test trials had no effect on rate of learning, but the presence of tests had a major effect on what was remembered 1 week later.
Sum up which practices have a positive effect on learning and which don’t.
So: regularly repeating information leads to better learning (10.000 hours = expertise, sort of), especially if you space the learning, do it often and generate the information yourself. But continued repetition of the same information doesn’t automatically lead to learning.
Rubin and Kontis (1983) features that most US students thought appeared on each of four coins.
Make some examples of common classical conditioning paradigms and describe them.
Fly shock conditioning Quail sex conditioning Dog salivation Conditioned emotional response Eyeblink conditioning
MAREN ET AL. (2013) – CONTEXT AND CUE FEAR CONDITIONING
Provide a definition of context and destribe it’s function and common carachteristics.
“An internal (cognitive and hormonal) and external (environmental and social) backdrop against which psychological processes operate.” assign circumstances, locations and conditions. Distinguishable from the discrete stimuli (cues) which they inform. Contexts are typically multisensory, diffuse and continuously present. Are encoded without awareness.
What do we need context for? Shape future expectations (thereby perception). Help resolving ambiguity. Inability to contextualize may lead to inaccurate percepts or responses, contributing to specific psychopath.
MAREN ET AL. (2013) – CONTEXT AND CUE FEAR CONDITIONING
Describe three different kinds of context.
Forms of context: Spatial (places and configuration of objects and features of those places), Temporal (moment in time, frequencies), Interoceptive (physiological state), Cognitive (e.g. knowledge of instructions), Social and cultural contexts.
MAREN ET AL. (2013) – CONTEXT AND CUE FEAR CONDITIONING
Describe the concept of context- specifc fear conditioning and extintion?
Context serves resolving ambiguity – which CS-US connection is in effect? Performance is not determined by direct association of CS and context (as above) but association between context and events it has hosted.
Conditioning to a cue can be context-specific when the rat learns to distinguish between contexts (with and without the aversive US presented after the CS)
If the CS is presented in a different context without the US extinction can take place.
However, the extinction is context-specific: if the rat is placed in a third context (not the conditioning nor extinction contexts) the cued-fear conditioning still operates.
Extinction enhances the association between conditioned context and the CS
MAREN ET AL. (2013) – CONTEXT AND CUE FEAR CONDITIONING
Cues and contexts are processed by different networks of brain regions: which ones?
AMYGDALA: CUE (general role in fear conditioning)
HIPPOCAMPUS: CONTEXT conditioning. Binding elements in a context & associating this with a particular experience.
The hippocampus can modulate the emotional response of the amygdala on the basis of contextual info either directly or via the prelimbic cortex.
MAREN ET AL. (2013) – CONTEXT AND CUE FEAR CONDITIONING
Make an example of a psychiatric dirsorder that entails deficits in contextual processing.
Deficits in contextual processing lead to inflexible, rigid and inappropriate behavioural responses: various symptoms, seen in many psychiatric disorders. Most representative: PTSD (intrusive thoughts, flashbacks etc. that are experienced outside the current context).
Impaired contextual processing in PTSD
After fear-conditioning-extinction PTSD patients expressed fear to the previously extinguished CS
Different patterns of activity in hippocampus, dACC and vmPFC relative to controls
Patients with PTSD cannot properly use contextual information to limit their fear response
Raybuck and Lattal (2011): describe the difference between trace and delay conditioning and the neural functions that support the two.
In delay conditioning the US is given while the CS is still present, while in trace conditioning the shock (US) is given after a delay.
Temporarily inactivate the amygdala or dorsal hippocampus by infusion of muscimol (a GABA‐A receptor agonist)
Results
– Both hippocampus and amygdala involved in contextual fear conditioning
– Double dissociation between trace conditioning (Hippocampus) and delay conditioning (Amygdala).
While amygdala is considered crucial for fear processing, fear conditioning after a delay (trace) appears to involve a different pathway.
What is priming and what paradigmas are helpful to show this effect?
Priming is a for of implicit learning. Something that has occurred before influences your later behaviour. Note: amnesics still have it.
Word completion experiment (Tulving, 1982)
Recognition declines after 7 days but not word completion.
Graf and Mandler (1984) Influence of encoding semantically or physically on explicit cued recall versus implicit stem completion.
– Physical processing leads to better priming;
– Semantic processing leads to better recall
Describe a piece of evidence for hippocampal involvement in LTP.
- Patient HM
- Morris et al. (1982). water maze (NMDA blocking in hippocampus) Typical swimming paths shown by normal rats (a) rapidly acquire a direct path, as do rats with cortical lesions (b), whereas hippocampal lesions result in a failure to learn (c).
Hippocampus forms multimodal representations of environmental cues. Processing of time, space and complex associations makes it a perfect candidate for episodic memory.
What are the mechanisms for neural changes in the Hippocampus during LTP?
LTP is dependent on the glutamate receptor NMDA: Blocking LTP with APV (NMDA receptor antagonist)
NMDA receptors let in calcium when there is a membrane depolarization as well as a presence of glutamate in the synaptic cleft. Calcium influx triggers a cascade of processes in the postsynaptic cell ultimately leading to synaptic changes.
LTP is a complex of different pre- and post-synaptic changes with different time courses (immediate, early and late LTP). Postsynaptic changes involve the AMPA receptors. Retrograde signals may alter neurotransmitter release and glutamate reuptake.
Habituation and Sensitization are two forms of non‐associative learning. Describe them.
Habituation (ability to reduce response to repetitive stimuli) Decrease in strength of behaviour; Typically low‐intensity stimuli; Stimulus‐specific generalization;
Less neurotransmitter release.
In the Aplysia, if the siphon is stimulated mechanically the animal withdraws the gill, presumably for protection.
With repeated activation, the stimulus leads to a decrease in the number of dopamine-containing vescicles that release their contents onto the motoneuron.
Sensitization (ability to increase response to aversive
stimuli) Increase in strength of behaviour; Typically high‐intensity stimuli; Nonspecific generalization;
More in neurotransmitter release.
In the Aplysia, aversive stimulus to the tail results in a modulatory effect from interneurons on pathways to the motor neuron. The effect is generalized as it extends to the responses to stimulation of siphon and mantle.
