Learning, Memory, & Language Flashcards
Classical Conditioning
CS + UCS (UCR) = CS – UCR (CR)
Instrumental (operant) Conditioning
Behaviour followed by reinforcement or punishment
Reinforcement
Increases behaviour
Punishment
Decreases behaviour
+ reinforcement
adding something to increase behaviour
- reinforcement
taking something away to increase behaviour
+ punishment
adding something to decrease behaviour
- punishment
taking something away to decrease behaviour
Lashley’s Engrams
physical representations of learning in the brain structure
Equipotentiality
Lashley’s idea that all areas of the cortex contrbute equally to learning and complex functioning behaviours
Mass action
The cortex works as a whole - the more cortex, the better
Thompson on Classical Conditioning
It occurs in the lateral interpositus nucleus (LIP) of the cerebellum, not the cortex
Hebb
Short term and long term memory
STM
7 +/- 2 - must be consolidated to get to LTM
Baddeley & Hitch
Working memory - temporary storage
Working memory happens in the
prefrontal cortex
Case of H.M.
had hippocampus removed to prevent epilepsy. -Anterograde amnesia
Anterograde amnesia
loss of ability to form new long-term memories
Retrograde amnesia
loss of long-term memories from before surgery
Declarative memory
Explicit. episodic, semantic
Non-declarative memory
Implicit. Procedural, other
Hippocampus is imperative for
declarative memory, esp. episodic, spatial, contextual
Basal ganglia is imperative for
implicit learning
Parkinson’s disease have difficulty with implicit memory because
they have damage to basal ganglia
the weather task
three pictures, both implicit and declarative memory
Alzheimer’s disease
Accumulation and clumping of Amyloid beta protein, abnormal form of the tau protein.
clumping of Amyloid beta protein
widespread atrophy of hippocampus, cerrebral cortex, other areas
tau protein
part of intracellular support system of neurons
Accumulation of amyloid beta and tau proteins causes
plaques (structures caused by degenerating neurons) and tangles (degenerating structures within neuronal bodies).
Treatment for Alzheimer’s
Increase acetylcholine, therefore increasing arousal; cumin spice - inhibits deposits and phosphate attachment to tau
Amygdala and learning
fear learning
parietal lobe
piecing info together
Anterior and interior region of temporal lobe
semantic memory
productivity
the ability to improvise new combinations of signals to represent new ideas
two theories of how language evolved in humans
- language evolved as a by-product of overall brain development, 2. language evolved as a brain specialization
Williams syndrome
impaired intelligence, strong language skills
Language acquisition device
Chomsky - built in “something” that helps us learn language
A mutation of FOXP2 gene can impair language development
it controls jaw and throat mechanisms
Broca’s area
located in the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex, near motor cortex
Wernicke’s area
located near the auditory part of the left temporal cortex
Broca’s (non-fluent) aphasia
difficulty with sentence structure, conjunctions; comprehension difficulty when sentence is complicated
Wernicke’s (fluent) aphasia
fluent speech, but with pauses to find the word. Impaired language comprehension - verbs, nouns
Dyslexia
more likely to have bilateral symmetrical cerebral cortex less arousal in parietal and temporal cortex while reading
Dyslexia and auditory problems
people with dyslexia focus on different aspects of sound, also do not shift their attention in the same way
