Lecture 1: learning, Memory and Representation

Question 1

What is a cognitive system feedback loop?

Answer 1

We take in information from the environment in the form of perception (matter, energy) and turns into an internal representation or memory. Likewise, we can affect the environment through our actions. It works in a similar way for animals and robots (they have sensors for perception and actuators)

Question 2

What is cognition?

Answer 2

Manipulation (creating them, combining them, using them for reasoning) of representations (a picture of an eye is a representation of an eye it is different from a real eye)

Question 3

Where are representations stored?

Answer 3

Animals: Brain, long/short term memory
Software: Databases, symbols
Distributed system: Paper, brain, disk, environment manipulation

Question 4

What is sensory memory?

Answer 4

is like a scratch pad (for vision) or a bit of a recording (for hearing) that can be overwritten with new things. it is rewritten every few seconds by new perceptions.

Question 5

What is short term memory?

Answer 5

Short term memory is a temporary storage some things end up becoming long term memories

Question 6

What is long term memory?

Answer 6

Likely stored here forever, though we might have trouble with retrieval

Question 7

What are the two types of declarative memory?

Answer 7

Episodic memory: memories of things that have happened to you
Semantic memories

Question 8

What is implicit memory?

Answer 8

Includes procedural knowledge: how to do things. Best understood by how we do things with our body. and Implicit knowledge: knowing things like whether something is grammatically correct but not knowing why you know that or making associations with something else

Question 9

Where do we suspect declarative and implicit long term memories are stored?

Answer 9

The hippocampus appears to be important for transforming short term memories into long term memories.Procedural memory appears to happen in the cerebellum, the basal ganglia

Question 10

What is software memory?

Answer 10

Hash tables, schemata, frames, scripts, logical sentences, bitmaps, activation patterns, weights in links. This is interesting to cognitive scientists

Question 11

What is computer memory?

Answer 11

Disk, flash memory. Usually less important, because this description is not at the cognitive level

Question 12

What are some examples of memories in distributed systems?

Answer 12

Books, Brain, Fingers, Notes, Arrows and signs

Question 13

What is learning?

Answer 13

Learning is changing memory with the purpose of preparing a system for better action in the future
Learning has 2 aspects: changing memories & changing memories for the purpose of being effective in the future

Question 14

What is habituation?

Answer 14

Diminution of a behavioural response with repeated stimulation (E.g., the first time you hear a loud noise, you might jump but afterward you stop jumping (the response/reaction is getting lessened)

Question 15

What is sensitization?

Answer 15

When a behavioural response is amplified by repeated exposure to a stimulus (E.g., at first you can barely feel a vibrating phone in your pocket, but eventually, you become very sensitive to it)

Question 16

What is classical conditioning?

Answer 16

Learning to associate two previously unrelated stimuli. Typically, this means that you learn to behave similarly to stimulus B as you do to stimulus A. E.g., the dog learns that when you pick up the leash, a walk is soon to follow. Also, Pavlov’s salivating dogs.

Question 17

What is positive reinforcement?

Answer 17

Someone smiles at you when you hold the door for him/her, more likely to open a door again.Introducing something into the environment

Question 18

What is negative reinforcement?

Answer 18

Encouraging behaviour by taking away something negative in response to a behaviour

Question 19

What is positive punishment?

Answer 19

You get burned by touching the hood of a car in the sun. less likely to do this again

Question 20

what is negative punishment?

Answer 20

Your parents cut off your allowance because you lied. Took away something you liked

Question 21

What is operant conditioning?

Answer 21

Making a behaviour more or less likely to happen in the presence of a stimulus depending on reward, punishment, or taking away a reward or aversive stimulus

Question 22

What is practice?

Answer 22

Practice involves doing something over and over and learning how to do it better. It uses reinforcement and punishment to hone the skill.

Question 23

What is theorized to be a form of practice for future events?

Answer 23

Playing (e.g., chasing, fighting, caretaking, manipulating objects etc.)

Question 24

Why do motor skills get easier over time?

Answer 24

gets easier because of automatization. It becomes instinctive, fast, unconscious, and automatic.

Question 25

What is imprinting?

Answer 25

A time sensitive learning in an animal that is insensitive to behavioural outcomes

Question 26

What is observational learning?

Answer 26

Learning that happens by observing another individual do something. Much of cultural learning (called “enculturation”) is observational, but some is explicitly taught (The way men stand vs. women)

Question 27

What is testimony?

Answer 27

When someone tells you something. E.g., how to start a web browser, or orcas are mammals. It can read or heard aloud
We also get facts by figuring them out, but this is better described as “reasoning” or inference rather than learning

Question 28

How was genetic information learned over human history?

Answer 28

When environments change very slowly

Question 29

How did cultural learning take place over human history?

Answer 29

Through imitation. 	 When environments change relatively quickly. Content bias (Imitate the best idea)
Prestige bias( Imitate the most successful) and Conformist bias (Imitate the most common ways of doing things)

Question 30

What is individual learning?

Answer 30

Figuring things out for yourself (perhaps influenced by the baldwin effect). When environment change very rapidly there is reduced cultural transmission

Question 31

What is your ‘Iconic Memory?’

Answer 31

Memory of what you just saw.

Question 32

What is Echoic Memory?

Answer 32

The memory of what you just heard.