Lecture 8 Flashcards
(89 cards)
What does learning mean ?
Process by which experiences change our nervous system and hence our behaviour
What is the relationship b/w learning and memory ?
- Linked
- Typically studied together
- to remmeber what you learn it has to be coded
Who pioneered classical conditioning ?
Ivan Pavlov
What is classical conditioning ?
Type of conditioning produced by the pairing of two stimuli, one which evokes an automatic response
* these two stimuli changes the response to one of them
What is a conditioned stimulus ?
stimulus that intially elicits no response
What is a unconditioned stimulus ?
stimulus that automatically elicits a unconditioned response
What is a unconditioned response ?
Response automatically evoked by a unconditioned stimulus
What is a conditioned response ?
response evoked by a conditioned stimulus after it has been paired with an unconditioned response
Who is the Father of Behaviourism ?
John B. Watson
What is behaviourism?
All behaviour are acquired through conditioning
Who is the Mother of Behaviour Therapy ?
Mary Cover Jones
What is extinction ?
the gradual weakening of a conditioned response that results in the behavior decreasing or disappearing
What was the Case of Peter (1924) study?
- Peter was 2 yrs and 10 months and was scared of white rats
- A white rabbit was shown to him and elicited fear
- A white rabbit was shown again and then was tied to the food that he liked and this reduced his fear
- Direct conditioning (a.k.a., desensitization) - end of experiment Peter has a postiive response
What was Pavlov’s proposal ?
After training, excitation in CS center flows to UCS center, which elicits the same response as UCS
What occurs before traning ?
Initially, the UCS excites the UCS center, which excites the UCR center. The CS excites the CS center, which elicits no response of interest
What is an engram ?
Physical representation of what has been learned
Who looked at localization with engrams ?
Karl Lashley
What did Lashley reason ?
Reasoned that if memories were connections between brain areas, they could be severed with a knife
What did Lashley test this one ?
Lashley trained rats on mazes and takss, then made cuts to the cortex to try to disrupt performance
What did Lashley find ?
Cuts did not impair performance
* Learning did not depend on connections across the cortex
Learning did not depend on a single area in the cotex
* Taking out a chunk of cotex impaired performance, but it was about the chunk take, not the cortical area itself
What are the two principles that Lashley proposed ?
- Equipotentiality
- Mass action
What is equipotentiality ?
All parts of the cotex contrubute equally to complex functioning behaviours (e.g., learning) and any part can substitue for any other
What is mass action?
The cortex works as a whole and more cortex is better
Who conducted the modern search for the engram ?
Richard F. Thompson