Lecture 1 Flashcards
Relationship between learning and memory, brief history of psychology, behaviourism VS cognitive psychology, neural systems of learning & memory, how the brain learns.
Why study learning and memory?
- Learning and memory defines our behaviour and our individuality
- E.g., Leonard Shelby - Momento
- Learned behaviour
- Memory
What are some examples of learned behaviour?
Habits
Preferences
Skills
What are some examples of memory?
Facts
Personal Information
What do behaviourists often focus on?
Learning
What do cognitive often focused on?
Memory
What does learning include?
Not just information, habits, preferences, skills
What does memory include?
Facts, personal information
Why is learning and memory beneficial?
For therapeutic reasons and they are still used today
What is learning?
Learning is more to do with how we approach our current experience and how this shapes our behaviour
How our experience changes behaviour - relationship between experience and behaviour
Memory
How our past experience has shaped us or changed us.
What are behaviourists looking at?
So behaviourism is looking at the learning side between experience and behaviour and they are not interested in consciousness or understanding what is happening in our mind to facilitate learning - experience and behaviour
What are cognitive therapists looking at?
Cognitive more internal experiences and the steps people take to perform certain tasks - mental representations and consciousness work
Cognitive Therapists look at:
Acquisition / Encoding
Storage / Retention Organisation
Retrieval / Long Term Storage
Learning =
BEHAVIOURISM
MEMORY =
COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY
What are the two initial history of psychology?
Structure VS Functionalism
What was the goal of structuralism?
To look at how the mind is structured; what are the basic elements of consciousness? How are those elements organised?
Who was most involved in Structuralism?
Edward Titchner
What was the main characteristic of Structuralism?
Emphasis on introspection, observation of one’s own conscious experience
What are some of the issues with structuralism?
It is not representative of the other population, subjective, experimental bias
What is the goal of functionslism?
To look at how the mind functions; what is the purpose of consciousness? How does it help with our survival?
Who was most involved in functionalism?
William James
What is the goal of functionalism?
Emphasis on action and application, observation of behaviour within environment
What was the birth of experimental psychology?
Hermann Ebbinghaus’s metronome
When was Herman Ebbinghaus born?
1850 - 1909
What did Herman Ebbinhaus create?
1000’s of nonsense syllabus (e.g., yat, baf, koj)
What were some of his contributions?
The retention curve The concept of savings Contiguity The effect of practice Order
What is the retention curve?
The relationship between time and memory is not linear. It is not a gradual decline over time. Immediately, retention is quite good. 20 minutes later it is lower, an hour later lower again and then as time passed, the relationship plateaus out. After the first two days, there is a sharp decline in our
What does savings mean?
The amount of trials saved in the relearning of items - or the initial number of learning trials needed to learn a list MINUS the number of learning trials needed to relearn a list
Learning in behaviourism?
Learning involves the formation of associations between specific actions and events (stimuli) in the environment
Many behaviourists use intervening variables to explain behaviour (e.g., habit, hunger drive) but avoid references to mental states
Radical behaviourism avoids intervening variables and focuses on descriptions of relationships between behaviour and environment (“functional analysis”)
i.e., what has an individual learnt to do in reaction to stimuli or events
When was Ivan Pavlov born?
1849 - 1936
What was the bell?
Neutral
What was the unconditioned stimulus?
Meat
Was was the unconditioned response?
Saliva (eventually)
After the experiment, what was the conditioned stimulus?
The Bell
After the experiment, what was the conditioned response?
Saliva
What theory was John B. Watson (and a dozen babies) involved in?
Behaviourism
When was John B. Watson born?
1878 - 1958
Describe psychology in terms of behaviourism:
A purely objective experimental branch of natural science. Its theoretical goal is the prediction and control of behaviour
What are some of the terms of John B. Watson?
Little Albert
Stimulus - Response (S-R)
Nature VS Nurture Debate
Ethics in Psychology Research (never got consent for Little Albert)
When was B.F. Skinner born?
1904 - 1990
What experiment was B.F. Skinner famous for?
Rats
Describe some of the factors of B.F. Skinner
Radical behaviourism
Behaviour - reinforcement - behaviour is repeated
Behaviour - punishment - behaviour is reduced
Operant Conditioning
Believed in positively impacting behaviour (used his daughter in a lot of experiments)
What are some of the terms associated with operant conditioning?
Stimulus response outcome / SRC / SRO
Stimulus response conditioning. Operant condition is stimulus response and an OUTCOME
What do radical behaviourists tend to ignore?
Habits and drive, internal processes - there are confounding variables (such as if hunger decreases - will the behaviour diminish / if food is used for the reinforcement)
Provide a summary on behaviourism:
- Behaviourists argue that psychology should only focus on observable events
- Internal process exist but are unnecessary and inappropriate to study
Pavlov - Classical conditioning: association formed between two stimuli
Watson - Who we are is completely shaped by your experience (Nurture)
Skinner - Operant conditioning: association between stimulus, response and outcome
Provide a summary on cognition:
- Learning takes place in the mind, not in behaviour
- It involves how the brain perceives its environment, develops problem-solving skills and stores memories
- Behaviour is used to make inferences about mental states but is not focus of interest in itself
I.e., We learn how to understand something
Who are one of the key figures behind cognitive psychology?
Noam Chomsky
Noam Chomsky was born?
1928 - present
What did Chomsky believe?
Mental processes (cognition) Speed of language learning Not by reward / punishment behaviour Speed of language learning Generative grammar Universal grammar
What did Chomsky believe?
Mental processes (cognition) Speed of language learning Not by reward / punishment behaviour Speed of language learning Generative grammar Universal grammar Commission and building of language / very much applied - therefore there was something at play to assist us to do this
Behaviourism VS Cognitive
The give different answers to fundamental question, “what is learned” when learning takes place?
- Behaviourists say: “specific actions”
- Cognitivists say: “mental representations: it’s an understanding of what’s been learnt”
What would a behaviourist say?
“to press the bar”
What would a cognitivist say?
“that pressing produces food”
Who won the debate and how did they do this?
Both by using the T-Maze experiment
T-Maze Results were mixed - why?
Visual cues - place learning
No visual cues - response learning
Initial learning - place learning
After many trials - response learning
Inactivation of the hippocampus - place learning was inhibited
Inactivation of the striatum - response learning was inhibited (Packard & McGaugh, 1996)
Conclusion: both types of learning occur - behaviour exhibited depends on other factors
Neuroscience since the 1950’s, include methods:
Animal experiments Acquired brain damage patients Double dissociations (one person that has damage and one person that does not - to complete double dissociation - find someone that has damage to the other section) to find that certain parts of the brain work independently of each other Neuroimaging techniques - (Functional MRI scan) fMRI - Positron emission tomography (PET) - Electroencephalography (EEG) Transcranial magnetic stimulation (TMS) - depression/stroke/severe cases of depression where CBT has not been successful/
What are the three major memory systems?
Cortical Association Areas
- Striatum Cerebellum (Brainstem & Spinal Motor Outputs)
- Amygdala (Hypothalamus, endocrine outputs)
- Hippocampus
What is associated with the Striatum Cerebellum (brainstem/spinal motor outputs)?
Procedural memory (reinforced response habits)
What is associated with the Amygdala (Hypothalamus endocrine outputs)?
Emotional memory (conditioned preferences and aversions)
What is associated with the hippocampus?
Declarative memory (episodic and semantic recollection)
What is included in the emotional processing part of the brain?
Hypothamalus, thalamus and amygdala
What is included in the declarative memory?
Higher order processes (cognitive systems) facts, events, life events, we require these two regions for a lot of processing in the brain. Hippocampus, responsible for long term memory storage and the frontal cortex responsible for conscious thinking.
What are three included memories in declarative systems?
Working memory
Semantic memory
Episodic memory
What part of the brain is largely governed by the emotional system?
The limbic system
What are the three major memory systems?
Striatum, Amygdala and Hippocampus
What does the Striatum Cerebellum relate too?
Procedural memory - Reinforced response habits (habits, actions)
What does the Amygdala relate too?
Emotional memory - Conditioned preferences and aversions
What does the hippocampus relate too?
Declarative memory - Episodic semantic recollection (facts etc)
In regards to procedural memory, what part of the brain does that include?
The cerebellum, the somatosensory cortex and basil ganglia.
What actions does procedural memory include?
Skills, habits, learned reflexes, reinforced responses
What is involved in the neural systems - emotional?
The limbic system, hypothalamus, thalamus and amygdala.
What does this part of the neural system process in emotional processing?
Processing of rewards and punishment, preferences, emotional ‘colour’, emotional expression, linked to other memory systems (e.g., the visual, auditory and motor cortex)
What are the four suggestions in regards to how the brain learns?
Myelination
Long term potentiation (LTP)
Neural plasticity
Neurogenesis
What is the current trend?
Systems and networks rather than single neurons
- Neural groups or clusters
- Patterns of neural firing
What is the myelin sheath?
Fatty membrane that wraps around axons of neurons
List the parts of the of firing neurons
Dendrites Cellbody Nucleus Axon Hillock Presynaptic cell Axon Myelin sheath Synaptic terminals Synapse Postsynaptic cell
What are some facts regarding myelination?
The thicker the myelin sheath, the fast the propagation velocity of the electric pulse
Our brain continues to develop white matter throughout the childhood and adolescence
Increased white matter in corticospinal and frontotemporal pathways
Which part of the brain helps regulate autonomic functions such as breathing?
The brainstem
The person who developed the form of learning known as classical conditioning is?
Ivan Pavlov
Which brain structure is especially important for long term memory of episodic information (e.g., remembering one’s eighth birthday party?)
the hippcampus
Long term potentiation is when:
a recent strong stimulus causes a neuron to over-respond to a subsequent stimulus
What is neural plasticity?
the ability of neural connections and synapses to change as a result of experience
