Lecture 7: Learning and Memory Flashcards
What is learning?
Process by which experiences change our nervous system and hence our behaviour
What are the theories of learning?
■ Classical Conditioning
■ Operant Conditioning
■ Statistical Learning
■ Perceptual Learning
■ Relational Learning
What is Classical Conditioning?
- Learning through association
- Unconditioned Stimulus (UCS) → triggers a natural response
- Neutral Stimulus (NS) becomes a Conditioned Stimulus (CS) when paired with UCS
- Eventually, the CS triggers a Conditioned Response (CR)
Can a conditioned behaviour be de-conditioned?
Yes! Because of Extinction..
If the conditioned stimulus (CS) is presented repeatedly without the unconditioned stimulus (UCS), the conditioned response (CR) will gradually weaken and disappear.
Example: If Little Albert were exposed to the white rat without the loud noise, over time his fear response would fade.
What was Pavlov’s proposal?
After training, excitation in CS centre flows to UCS centre, which elicits the
same response as UCS.
What is an Engram?
Physical representation of what has been learned.
What did Karl Lashley propose about engrams?
He proposed that if memories were connections between brain areas, they could be severed with a knife
What did Lashley do in his engram research?
He trained rats on mazes and tasks, then made cuts to the cortex to try to disrupt performance
What were the results of Lashley’s research?
■ Cuts did not impair performance…Learning did not depend on connections across the cortex
■ Learning did not depend on a single area of the cortex…Taking out a chunk of cortex impaired performance, but it was
about the chunk taken, not the cortical area itself.
What are the two key principles about the nervous system?
- Equipotentiality
- Mass action
What is Equipotentiality?
All parts of the cortex contribute equally to
complex functioning behaviors (e.g., learning) and any part can substitute for any other
What is Mass Action?
The cortex works as a whole and more cortex is better
What was Thompson’s modern search for the engram?
Thompson’s research identified one nucleus of the cerebellum, the lateral interpositus nucleus (LIP), as essential for learning. He found that lesioning the interpositus nucleus of the cerebellum completely eliminated the conditioned eyeblink response.
Which nucleus is required to demonstrate the learning?
Red nucleus is required to demonstrate the learning (i.e., execute the eye-blink)
What is Short-term memory?
Short-term memory requires rehearsal. If you read the letter sequence DZLAUV and then something distracts you, your chance of repeating the letters declines rapidly
What is long-term memory?
Once you have forgotten something from short-term memory, it is lost. With long-term memory, a hint might help you reconstruct something you thought you had forgotten.
What is the Skinner Box?
“Skinner Box”, this is a controlled environment where an animal (like a rat or pigeon) can interact with a lever, button, or other device to receive a consequence (like food or a shock).
Giving a child a sticker, What kind of conditioning?
positive reinforcement
Spanking a child, What kind of conditioning?
positive punishment
Allowing child to stay up past their bedtime after the child had tantrum, what kind of conditioning?
positive reinforcement
What was Continuous Reinforcement?
The desired behavior is reinforced every single time it occurs.
What is Intermittent Reinforcement?
Once the response is established. The
response is reinforced only part of the time.
■ Fixed-ratio or Variable ratio (# responses)
■ Fixed interval or Variable interval (amount of time)
What are the two main differences between
operant and classical conditioning?
Review Picture
What is Statistical Learning?
The ability to perceive and
learn regularities
E.g, in language, such as the
speech sounds that comprise a word
What is Perceptual Learning?
Learning to recognize things
■ Long lasting changes to organism’s perceptual system from
practice or experience
What is Relational Learning?
Relational Learning refers to the process by which we learn the relationships between different concepts, objects, or events. Rather than simply memorizing individual pieces of information, relational learning involves understanding how these elements are connected or how they relate to one another.
What is the Medial Temporal Lobe (MTL)?
This region is critical for declarative (explicit) memory, which includes facts and events.
What are the 2 main areas in MTL?
– Hippocampus
– Basal Ganglia
What is the role of the hippocampus?
- Vital for forming new memories and consolidating short-term into long-term memory
- Especially important for episodic memory (your personal experiences)
- Damage here can result in anterograde amnesia (inability to form new memories)
What is the role of the Basal Ganglia?
- Involved in procedural memory (how to do things, like riding a bike)
- Works with the cerebellum to support habit formation and motor learning
- Not involved in conscious recollection — more about automatic skills
What was the Maguire et al. (2000) – London Taxi Drivers & Hippocampus Size study?
Maguire investigated whether extensive navigational experience could change brain structure — specifically, the hippocampus, which is crucial for spatial memory and navigation.
Key finding; More years as a taxi driver = larger posterior hippocampus
What are the Cells responsible for spatial memory?
Grid cells, and Place Cells/ Time cells
What are grid cells?
Grid Cells located in the ERC = hexagonal grid forming a coordinated system
that allows for spatial navigation.
What are place and time cells?
Place Cells and Time cells located in the HC = fire in response to spatial
locations and temporal information
What is the anatomy of the basal ganglia?
■ Striatum
– Dorsal striatum
■ Caudate nucleus
■ Putamen
– Ventral striatum
■ Nucleus accumbens
■ Olfactory tubercle
What is semantic memory?
It is object knowledge learned over many interactions.
What is episodic memory?
Memory of specific events that I have experienced?
What is Autobiographical Memory?
The information and memories individuals accumulate that creates a unique identity and a person sense of continuity
What area is involved in Autobiographical Memory?
Medial Prefrontal Cortex (mPFC) - Connects the memory to your sense of self and personal relevance
Hippocampus - Encodes and retrieves specific episodic details (e.g., where and when something happened)
What is the Hippocampal Connectivity with Occipital Cortices?
When you vividly remember a past experience like “re-living” a birthday party or a trip, your hippocampus doesn’t work alone. It communicates with the occipital lobes, which are involved in visual processing.
What are the Disorders of Memory?
■ Amnesia
■ Severely Deficient Autobiographical Memory (SDAM)
■ Korsakoff’s syndrome
■ Dementia
What is anterograde amnesia?
Inability to form memories for events that happened after brain damage
What is retrograde amnesia?
The loss of memory for events that occurred before the brain damage
What is infantile Amnesia?
The inability of humans to
remember episodic experiences that occurred during the first few years of life (generally 0–3 years)
What happens when the bilateral medial temporal lobes (MTL) are removed or severely damaged?
The effects on memory are dramatic and specific, especially in relation to episodic and declarative memory.
What explains infantile amnesia?
Immaturity of hippocampal systems..
- Critical period: hippocampus is highly responsive to environmental experiences might impede storage of episodic details
What is Severely Deficient Autobiographical
Memory (SDAM)?
A failure to re-experience or recollect specific events
from their past, although their
memory for factual information about themselves and the world is intact.
What is Aphantasia?
The inability to visualize in the
minds eye
What cognitive abilities/strategies do you hypothesize individuals
with SDAM using to function with minimal impairments?
Individuals with SDAM compensate through semantic memory, logical reasoning, and external aids. They may not mentally relive the past, but they can understand it and function well using other memory systems.
What is Korsakoff’s syndrome?
Korsakoff’s syndrome is a chronic memory disorder caused by severe thiamine (vitamin B1) deficiency, most commonly linked to long-term alcohol abuse.
Loss of neural activity throughout the brain, esp. dorsomedial
thalamus.
What are the types of dementia?
*Semantic Dementia: Anterior temporal cortex
*Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD): Frontal and anterior temporal
*Alzheimer’s Disease: Hippocampus
What is semantic dementia?
Semantic Dementia is a neurodegenerative disorder characterized by the progressive loss of semantic memory — that is, memory for meaning, concepts, and general knowledge about the world.
What is Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD)?
Frontotemporal Dementia (FTD) is a group of brain disorders that primarily affect the frontal and temporal lobes of the brain — areas responsible for personality, behavior, and language. It is the most common form of dementia in people under 60.
What is Alzheimers?
Alzheimer’s disease is a progressive neurodegenerative disorder and the most common cause of dementia, especially in older adults. It slowly destroys memory, thinking skills, and eventually the ability to carry out even simple tasks. In the hippocampus is one of the first brain areas to be affected.
